Wagner’s mighty ‘Ring’ rocks the house
The dazzling epic conquers the San Francisco Opera stage
The Valkyries have arrived. It was the moment we’d all been waiting for: Midway into the San Francisco Opera’s “Ring” cycle, with the orchestra playing one of the most famous musical episodes ever written, Richard Wagner’s fierce warrior women parachuted onto the stage of the War Memorial Opera house to save the world from total annihilation.
Has there ever been a better time for the “Ring”? With its themes of rapacious greed, environmental destruction and patriarchy run amok, Wagner’s “Der Ring des Nibelungen” (The Ring of the Nibelung), first unveiled in 1876, speaks eloquently today.
In the first of three complete cycles of the composer’s four-opera masterpiece, the opening night performances of “Das Rheingold” and “Die Walküre” were a magnificent reminder of the power and beauty of Wagner’s timeless epic (the final operas, “Siegfried” and “Götterdämmerung,” are still to come.)
Francesca Zambello’s production, which sets the action in the American West, charts a path from the Gold Rush era to a hightech frontier. Donald Runnicles — the company’s former music director and a master Wagnerian — led urgent, immersive performances of each score, savoring their brilliant leitmotifs, intimate love music and riveting moments of turmoil.
Wagner’s work, spanning a total of 17 hours over four nights, can often seem too dense to fathom, but this “Ring” is remarkable for its clarity and theatrical allure. Zambello’s staging employs dazzling stagecraft — mesmerizing projections evoking fire and water, LED lights that glow from beneath the stage — while emphasizing
the human folly at the heart of the drama. The designs — Michael Yeargan’s sets, Mark McCullough’s lighting, S. Katy Tucker’s new projections and Catherine Zuber’s costumes — support the director’s vision throughout.
From the first moments of “Rheingold,” when the evil Alberich steals the gold and renounces love,
the drama runs on the combustive fuel of power and corruption. The god Wotan, lusting for the gold, betrays his own family to get it, permanently alienating his wife, Fricka, and bargaining away her sister, Freia. The natural world exists only to be despoiled; a glimpse of the Nibelungs, mining for gold in fiery caverns, conjures a hellish
vision of exploitation. The opera ends with the gods taking refuge in Valhalla. But that’s just the beginning.
“Rheingold” featured an excellent cast. As Wotan, bass-baritone Greer Grimsley was a swaggering captain of industry; singing with forceful dark power, he was in suave, commanding voice. Mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton was a crisp, articulate Fricka, soprano Julie Adams a clear-voiced Freia. Štefan Margita gave a magnetic performance as the fire god Loge, and David Cangelosi was an energetic Mime. Brian Mulligan and Brandon Jovanovich (Donner and Froh), Andrea Silvestrelli and Raymond Aceto (Fasolt and Fafner) made characterful contributions, and Ronnita Miller was splendid as the Earth goddess Erda. Stacey Tappan, Lauren McNeese and Renée Tatum blended nicely as the Rhinemaidens.
Still, the evening’s greatest thrills came from Falk Struckmann. Making his San Francisco Opera debut as Alberich, the great German bass-baritone burned with malignant fury. Alberich sets the saga in motion by stealing the Ring. On opening night, he simply stole the show.
The next evening, “Walküre” arrived in a performance of grandeur, introducing Wotan’s illegitimate twins, Siegmund and Sieglinde, and his estranged daughter, Brünnhilde, who defies her father’s orders to come to their aid. Under Runnicles, the 4-hour, 30-minute opera (with two intermissions) was mesmerizing, building to the shattering final scene in which Wotan condemns Brünnhilde and leaves her on a mountaintop, imprisoned in a ring of fire.
As Brünnhilde, Iréne Theorin combined heroic strength and touching fragility in equal measure. Throughout the evening, the Swedish soprano sang with unflagging energy and thrilling top notes. Grimsley’s Wotan gave an eloquent performance; his farewell to Brünnhilde was almost unbearably beautiful. Barton, who has become one of the finest Wagner singers of her generation, sounded first-rate.
As the twins, tenor Jovanovich impressed as a virile, firm-voiced Siegmund, and Finnish soprano Karita Mattila was a poignant, ardent Sieglinde. Aceto returned as her brutal keeper, Hunding, and Adams, McNeese, Tatum, Melissa Citro, Nicole Birkland, Sarah Cambidge, Laura Krumm, Renée Rapier and Lauren McNeese were the formidable Valkyries.