Rich in detail, but just what in heaven and earth is going on?
Das Rheingold & Die Walküre
Royal Opera, Covent Garden
This is my fourth experience of Keith Warner’s production of the Ring, and I remain conflicted about its merits.
On the one hand, one has to admire its sheer theatrical chutzpah. It scores as a West End spectacle, full of expertly executed effects and hi-tech stagecraft. It’s also rich in sharply observed and detailed characterisation that keeps it real: for example, the subtle interplay between gods and giants in the second scene of Das Rheingold.
On the other hand, it offers no thematic coherence or sense of what Wagner might actually be trying to get at, and the narrative isn’t clearly unfolded either – on a 10th of the budget, Opera North’s concert version did a far better job at this level. Glossy, cluttered and over-egged with pretentious symbols and gratuitous gestures, it seems to borrow ideas and images widely from previous productions (especially those of Patrice Chéreau and Richard Jones) without focusing on the basic question: what in heaven or on earth is going on here?
Halfway through, I am not yet fully engaged, let alone transported (and I’m a sucker for the Wagnerian sublime). Das Rheingold never got off the ground: curiously, the conductor Antonio Pappano seemed unable to draw anything much out of the orchestra – the strings sounded tired, the brass uncertain and overall there was a want of weight, depth and majesty. I regret that a great British Wagnerian, Mark Elder, wasn’t given the opportunity to conduct this revival.
The cast was stronger on the fringes than at the centre: as the antagonists Wotan and Alberich, John Lundgren and Johannes Martin Kränzle were lightweight – impressively intelligent singers and actors, but incapable of projecting charismatic power (and poor Lundgren ran out of puff at the end). Despite having little to sing, Lise Davidsen as Freia, Wiebke Lehmkuhl as Erda and Gerhard Siegel as Mime made strong marks, and the outstanding performance came from the magnificent young bass Günther Groissböck as Fasolt.
Die Walküre fared better, after a below-par first act in which Emily Magee was a shrill Sieglinde and Stuart Skelton a bruiser of a Siegmund, albeit one with massive vocal heft. The stunning talent of Ain Anger was wasted as Hunding. But after Nina Stemme squawked her way through Brünnhilde’s “Hojotoho”, things picked up: Sarah Connolly was an imperiously splendid Fricka, masterful in delivery of the text, Lundgren gave a vivid account of Wotan’s remorseful monologue and Stemme came wonderfully into her own in the solemn Todesverkündigung. An awesome posse of Valkyries allowed Pappano to loosen the orchestral reins, before father and daughter’s final farewell found Lundgren moving into top gear and Stemme bringing heartfelt eloquence and vulnerability to Brünnhilde’s anguished submission.