Das Rheingold, San Francisco Opera, June 28 2011

It’s here! My 11th complete Ring cycle started at 8:00 pm this evening with the legendary low E-flat from the contrabasses coming in loud and clear—cheap seats can have some pretty good sound. For the record, my previous Ring cycles were: Seattle 1980, Seattle 1984, San Francisco 1985, San Francisco 1990, Seattle 1995, San Francisco 1999, New York 2000, Seattle 2001, Seattle 2005, Seattle 2009.

This production is what director Francesca Zambello calls an “American Ring,” with the settings moved out of the indeterminate time and place of myth and into more or less identifiable, if not necessarily specific, locations based on American history. Scene 1 of Das Rheingold is the most specific: the California of Gold Rush days, the gold discovered in the American River in 1848 clearly paralleling the gold at the bottom of the Rhine. The canyon walls channeling the river are a series of two-dimensional cutouts, while a combination of stage fog and projections of rushing water serves as the river. In the center is a wooden platform with ramps leading to the sides and to the rear, and the Rhinemaidens cavort and sing on the platform and in the fog. Into their celebration wanders the 49er Alberich, with his knapsack and his folding map. He pursues each of the Rhinemaidens in turn, and each time is rejected. When the motif of the gold is sounded by the orchestra, no gold appears on stage; only later does it appear, in the form of a large (at least 10 feet on a side) square of golden fabric that the four singers, one on each corner, expand to its full size and then dance with it, forming it into billows. It’s beautiful, but it’s not a lump of gold. Alberich renounces love, gathers the fabric to himself, and disappears upstage.

Scene 2 shows us the veranda of the gods’ current living quarters, the door to their current home to the left, a low wall behind, a table bearing plans and other construction accoutrements to the near right, and to the far right the scaffolding is just discernible. The gods are dressed as Great Gatsby characters from 1920s America; Donner carries a hammer less reminiscent of Mjöllnir than of a croquet mallet. Wotan is asleep on a long deck chair, embracing a rolled-up plan; Fricka punctuates her “Wotan, Gemahl, erwache!” [Wotan, my husband, wake up!] by whacking him on the head with the rolled-up plan.

The giants are impressive. It helps if you start with big singers; apparently Andrea Silvestrelli (Fasolt) wears size 17 shoes in real life. Then you graft the size-17 shoe onto a 15-inch tall construction of black latex foam in the shape of a construction boot and dress the giants in blue overalls sufficiently long to cover most of the boot-plus-foam. Give the giants large metal hands, similar in appearance to Edward Scissorhands (Fasolt’s left hand is a hook), and you have a pair of imposing giants. Wagner’s music, in one of his most distinctive leitmotifs, tells us that the giants come clomping onstage in their heavy boots. Not here: the giants descend from above the proscenium on an I-beam, unhook their safety straps, and then proceed to demand their wage (the goddess Freia). As they depart with Freia and her golden apples (a steady diet of which keeps the gods young), there is an amusing bit of stage business. As Loge asks, “Fricka, are you feeling old?” she fans herself vigorously as though dealing with hot flashes.

Scene 3, where Wotan and Loge encounter Alberich and his brother Mime, is set in an approximation of a gold mine. A wall extends across the stage; there are 2x4 studs in the wall, and between the studs a flat surface of fist-size rocks. About 40 Nibelungs are scurrying about, some on ladders picking rocks off the wall and handing them down to others to put into the ore carts. Alberich and Mime enter through one of the doors in this wall; through that door can be seen an industrial black circular staircase. All proceeds according to tradition until Alberich uses the Tarnhelm to turn himself into a serpent. He disappears in a flash of light and smoke, and the serpent is nothing more than a projection of a large spotted snake. At Loge’s suggestion, he next turns into a toad; we get the requisite plastic toad, along with the expected titters from the audience.

Back in the realm of the gods for scene 4, we see less of the veranda than before, and the table of plans has been removed, leaving a mostly empty stage. Alberich has his slaves bring up sacks of gold, Freia lies on her back while sacks of gold are piled on top of her, Erda ascends through a trap door, Wotan yields the ring, Fafner kills Fasolt, and the sacks of gold are gathered up in a net and lifted into the rafters by a crane. Then comes one of the more disappointing bits of staging. As Donner sings “He da! He da, he do!” all of the gods grab his croquet mallet; after they let go, he raises it over his head. At the point where we should hear an anvil strike, both ends of the croquet mallet shoot a large volume of sparks, while lightning bolts are projected behind. The rainbow bridge, which the gods use to cross the Rhine to enter Valhalla, has been a staging challenge ever since the 1876 premiere. Here the challenge is addressed, if not totally met, by having the gangplank of a cruise ship lowered from the right side of the stage. The rear projection is a graduated color scheme that hardly looks like a rainbow; layered on top of that is a drawing in bold lines of a very large building viewed from an odd perspective.

Our cast:
Wotan: Mark Delavan
Loge: Stefan Margita
Alberich: Gordon Hawkins
Fricka: Elizabeth Bishop
Erda: Ronnita Miller
Mime: David Cangelosi
Fasolt: Andrea Silvestrelli
Fafner: Daniel Sumegi
Froh: Brandon Jovanovich
Donner: Gerd Grochowski
Freia: Melissa Citro
Woglinde: Stacey Tappan
Wellgunde: Lauren McNeese
Flosshilde: Renée Tatum
Conductor: Donald Runnicles
Director: Francesca Zambello

Of these, Stefan Margita’s Loge was the most successful, with a strong, clear voice and lots of stage presence, even if he (like Pinkerton) is not a lovable character. (Read the Norse myths sometime to get an idea of what a troublemaker the original Loki was.) Andrea Silvestrelli’s cavernous bass voice was put to good use as Fasolt. Mark Delavan’s Wotan did not quite convey the majesty appropriate to the chief of the gods, and Gordon Hawkins sounded underpowered as Alberich. Overall, competently performed, though even after three viewings (2008, dress rehearsal, performance) many aspects of the staging fail to speak to me. A beta.