Siegfried, San Francisco Opera, July 1 2011

A day off for the performers (and the audience!), then back into San Francisco for Siegfried, the third installment of the Ring cycle. Advance photos had prepared me for the very unusual setting of Act 1. Mime and Siegfried are living in a small trailer, no more than 20 feet long, with most of its right side (facing the audience) cut away to reveal the dinette and the bare-bones kitchen; an avocado-colored stove sits on the ground just outside the trailer. I never saw it properly illuminated, but again thanks to advance photos I knew that right next to the stove were two cases of Rheingold beer. In the background, consistent with the industrial nature of the production, there is the silhouette of an electrical substation. To the right of the trailer are the tools that Siegfried will use to reforge Notung: an anvil that looks more like a V-8 engine block, a bellows, and an old bathtub. Yes, Siegfried does split the anvil at the conclusion of the act.

Fafner’s cave is located in an industrial alley. The side of the building has four sliding metal doors with windows along the top; in the alley there is an industrial-strength table with various objects on it. Among these objects are a 2-foot length of galvanized pipe, and a brace-and-bit that Siegfried will use to bore holes in its length in his attempt to fashion an instrument to echo the woodbird. The woodbird is a soprano dressed in a red gown, who walks to and fro on the catwalk above the sliding metal doors, and eventually descends to stage level. When Fafner responds to Siegfried’s horn call, two of the doors open and a very large metal “monster” (that’s what the supertitles say, rather than “dragon”) emerges. It’s supposed to be an industrial-scale trash compactor. Advance information says that when Siegfried stabs the monster, it bleeds oil rather than blood, but I couldn’t see that from my vantage point.

For Act 3 we are back in the valley of the Rhine, with two-dimensional cutouts representing the canyon walls, but there is no Rhine or any suggestion of it, just the bare metal grate floor that is a feature of all of the acts. After Siegfried breaks Wotan’s spear with his sword, the curtain comes down to allow a scene change to Brünnhilde’s rock, where we left her at the end of Die Walküre. The gun emplacement where she was put to sleep must have been made of really cheap concrete, for in the 18 years that it has taken Siegfried to grow to (the beginnings of) adulthood, much of the concrete has deteriorated significantly—it’s a different set, although it echoes the previous set.

Our cast:
Mime: David Cangelosi
Siegfried: Jay Hunter Morris
The Wanderer: Mark Delavan
Alberich: Gordon Hawkins
Forest Bird: Stacey Tappan
Fafner: Daniel Sumegi
Erda: Ronnita Miller
Brünnhilde: Nina Stemme
Conductor: Donald Runnicles
Director: Francesca Zambello

I hope that this role will be a breakthrough for Jay Hunter Morris. He was originally scheduled to cover Ian Storey’s Siegfried in the final two operas, but Storey suffered a medical problem that interfered with his study of both roles, so he took Götterdämmerung and Morris got to sing the Siegfried Siegfried. While not quite as vocally impressive as Brandon Jovanovich (Siegmund) had been two evenings earlier, he nevertheless sang quite well and did a superb job of acting the part of a teenage boy. It was particularly delightful to watch his facial expressions as he is trying to figure out what to do with this sleeping person who is “not a man.” David Cangelosi was also a very active performer, turning cartwheels and somersaults as he anticipates feeding a poisoned drink to Siegfried after the battle. Gordon Hawkins could give his all in the short amount of time that is he onstage as Alberich. Mark Delavan continued to be competent as the Wanderer. And Nina Stemme just gets better and better. Act 3 is when the orchestra really comes into its own, after Wagner takes 12 years off to write Tristan und Isolde and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, and returns to the Ring with astoundingly advanced compositional skills. Donald Runnicles led the orchestra in a tour de force performance. Overall, quite good, but not quite good enough for an alpha.