You know that a production has taken a left turn somewhere when the staging matches the libretto so poorly that they have to take serious liberties with the supertitles. And that’s what happens in San Francisco Opera’s staging of the first prologue to Götterdämmerung, with the Norns. Wagner sets the action on the Valkyries’ rock, where Brünnhilde was laid down to sleep on Wednesday evening and Siegfried awakened her on Friday evening. It’s now Sunday afternoon, and the Norns are supposed to be tossing the rope of fate from one to the other and tying it variously around a pine tree, a fir tree, and a rock. Wagner has the Third Norn begin what little action there is with “Why don’t we spin and sing?” In San Francisco, the scene takes place on, or within, a printed circuit board that is projected on the scrim. On the floor there is a massive pile of thick cables, clearly reminiscent of the cables underneath the raised floor of any computer room that has been in use for years, and the Third Norn sings “Why don’t we switch the cable now?” Later on, the supertitle reads “I used to lay the cable by the fir tree.” When the rope of fate frays and breaks, there is a flash of light from the end of the cable, and we read “The connection is broken!” as we hear “Es riß! Es riß! Es riß!” (“It tore!”) All the while, the Norns are wearing garish green surgical gowns and skullcaps, with black aprons in front, and are sporting dark sunglasses.
At the end of the first prologue, the Norns descend “to mother” and the scene changes to the Valkyries’ rock, as called for. It is the same set as at the end of Siegfried, with the concrete structures of the Die Walküre set showing the ravages of time.
Act 1 proper begins in the Hall of the Gibichungs. The structure is largely plate-glass windows supported by thick stainless steel frames; the furniture consists of a couple of white modern-style sofas, almost Mies van der Rohe in appearance, and a small bar. In the background an oil refinery can barely be discerned. Act 1 ends back at the Valkyries’ rock, with Waltraute’s entreaty to Brünnhilde to give the ring back to the Rhinemaidens and “Gunther’s” conquest of Brünnhilde.
Act 2 opens with the appearance of Alberich and his question to Hagen, “Are you sleeping, my son?” Here the extended orchestral introduction is given a strange accompaniment on stage. Hagen and Gutrune are sitting on a large Mies van der Rohe-style bed; Hagen is apparently channel-surfing by pointing a remote control at the audience. When he clicks it, a red LED on its end illuminates, and a brief rectangular flash appears on the scrim, though we don’t actually see any TV images. Gutrune tries her hand with the remote control, then leaves and Hagen curls up in time for Alberich’s appearance. After the dialogue between father and son, Hagen goes back to sleep, and Alberich picks up the remote control and appears to be as puzzled by it as any 1900-era person might be. It’s humorous, but we don’t need humor here.
Act 2 continues with a more public place in the Hall of the Gibichungs. The raked metal grate stage that underlies every scene of this Ring is there, surmounted by a horizontal white platform that occupies most of the right half of the stage. On the left, a few white steps descend to the metal grate floor; on the right, more white steps ascend to the edge of the stage. On the left there is a long low bench extending from downstage to upstage.
In Act 3 the destruction of Nature continues. The Rhine has apparently run dry. The river bed is festooned with empty plastic bottles, old tires, and other detritus; toward the rear is a discarded camper shell. The Rhinemaidens appear with large black plastic garbage bags and begin to fill them with the plastic water bottles. When Siegfried enters, he is carrying a rifle in addition to Notung. The curtain drops for the scene change in which all the river bed junk is removed. Three pairs of lights seem to approach from the rear, but when the curtain goes up, there are no jeeps to be seen. Siegfried, Gunther, and Hagen are dressed in bright orange coveralls, while the rest of the hunting party is dressed in camouflage. The spoils of the hunt are brought in on handcarts, flat platforms with an axle and rubber tires located very near the end of the cart. Siegfried’s body will be carried back to the Hall of the Gibichungs on one of these carts.
The final scene is set on a bare stage, just the metal grate floor that we are quite familiar with by now. Siegfried’s body is brought in on one of the handcarts. At the end the body is unceremoniously dumped over the edge at the back of the stage while “gasoline” is poured from jerry cans over the now out-of-sight body. Hagen enters with his cry of “Zurück von dem Ring!” (“Get back from the Ring!”), and rather than drowning him the Rhinemaidens whip out a bright yellow plastic bag and suffocate him with it. More “message,” I guess.
Our cast:
First Norn: Ronnita Miller
Second Norn: Daveda Karanas
Third Norn: Heidi Melton
Brünnhilde: Nina Stemme
Siegfried: Ian Storey
Gunther: Gerd Grochowski
Gutrune: Melissa Citro
Hagen: Andrea Silvestrelli
Waltraute: Daveda Karanas
Alberich: Gordon Hawkins
Woglinde: Stacey Tappan
Wellgunde: Lauren McNeese
Flosshilde: Renée Tatum
Conductor: Donald Runnicles
Director: Francesca Zambello
I continue to be a big fan of Andrea Silvestrelli. His Hagen was appropriately menacing, and his Hagen’s Watch solo near the end of Act 1 was spine-tingling. Gordon Hawkins shone in his limited role as Alberich, just as he did in Siegfried. Nina Stemme performed solidly as Brünnhilde all afternoon long. Ian Storey was OK as Siegfried. The orchestra under Runnicles’s direction was in top form. The curtain call featured something I had never seen before: the entire orchestra was on stage, with the principal horn player in the lineup in front, next to Runnicles.
So what am I going to remember from this, my eleventh Ring cycle? I will remember Brandon Jovanovich’s remarkable debut as Siegmund. I will remember Andrea Silvestrelli’s commanding presence as Fasolt and as Hagen, and wish that he could have sung Hunding as well. I will remember Jay Hunter Morriss’s well-acted Siegfried, and hope that his being called up from his role as cover will be the start of something big for him. I will remember the glorious sound at my seat in the balcony. And even though I didn’t care for it (perhaps because I didn’t care for it), Francesca Zambello’s excesses with the staging will be memorable. Everything considered, a beta-plus.
Friday, July 15, 2011
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
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.
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.
Monday, July 4, 2011
Die Walküre, San Francisco Opera, June 29 2011
As befits a proper Ring cycle, it’s back to San Francisco the day after Das Rheingold for the second (and most popular) installment, Die Walküre, the one in which Wotan causes the death of his son Siegmund and banishes his daughter Brünnhilde for trying to save him, all to some of the most glorious music ever written.
Act 1 opens with the orchestra portraying Siegmund running through a violent storm, with an immediate musical tie-in to Donner’s “He da! He da, he do!” of the end of Das Rheingold. Here our attention is diverted from the orchestra by projections depicting roiling seas and a run through the redwoods. I preferred to shut my eyes and immerse myself in the music. When the curtain goes up, we see the outside of Hunding’s hut, actually a simple frame house that I would place in the 1930s South. The hearth at which Siegmund collapses is a large barbecue pit, just outside the house. When Sieglinde invites him inside, the side of the house is whisked into the rafters, and we get a diagonal perspective of Hunding’s living room, with taxidermied deer on the walls, a tall hutch with domestic knickknacks, a sword hanging on the wall, and a two-dimensional cutout of a large tree in the middle. There is no sword in the tree—that comes later, about the time that Siegmund cries out, “Father! Where is the sword you promised me?” The sword has apparently been hanging vertically behind the tree; now it falls to the right, with an audible “clack!”, and its hilt is now visible. Sorry, but that’s the least successful sword that I’ve ever seen. When it’s time for Winterstürme and Du bist der Lenz, the two sides of the living room are pulled apart so that the audience sees them edge-on (and so they are as out of sight as possible) and a projection of a very large full moon appears at the back of the stage. After they (yes, here Siegmund and Sieglinde together) pull Notung out of the tree, the tree is whisked into the rafters, giving the pair plenty of room to paw one another before rushing off upstage.
Act 2 brings us inside Valhalla for the confrontation between Wotan and Fricka. Wotan has an office high above a large industrial city, with its skyscrapers far below and embedded in industrial pollution, as seen through half a dozen tall plate-glass windows. In front of the windows is a loooong black table, which Wotan uses as his desk. For scene 3 we move to a no-man’s land underneath a decaying freeway, littered with old tires, an old bench seat, and other detritus of urban life.
Act 3, which opens with “The Ride of the Valkyries,” is the most successful. We see a large concrete structure that echoes the gun emplacements overlooking the Golden Gate, with a circular gun platform in the middle, a concrete wall in back that slopes down to the right and then continues sloping down as it comes downstage; on the left there is a metal staircase that descends downstage. These Valkyries are World War II paratroopers, dressed in Amelia Earhart-like garb. Doubles slide down ropes, starting high above the middle of the stage and landing at stage level, just behind the curtain walls; the singers then rush on stage, dragging their parachutes behind them. (The audience applauded, both at the appearance of the first paratroopers and again at the end of The Ride.) In lieu of bodies or body parts of dead heroes, the Valkyries carry close-cropped photos of American soldiers killed in the Civil War, World Wars I and II, and Iraq and Afghanistan. There are also photos of Hunding and Siegmund (despite the fact that Wotan tells Brünnhilde that he has no use of Hunding in Valhalla). The fire that Wotan causes to spring up around Brünnhilde surrounds her on only three sides: lines of gas flames proceed up the metal staircase, down the back edge of the rear concrete wall, and then down toward stage level on the right.
Our cast:
Siegmund: Brandon Jovanovich
Sieglinde: Heidi Melton
Hunding: Daniel Sumegi
Wotan: Mark Delavan
Brünnhilde: Nina Stemme
Fricka: Elizabeth Bishop
Gerhilde: Sara Gartland
Helmwige: Tamara Wapinsky
Ortlinde: Melissa Citro
Waltraute: Daveda Karanas
Rossweisse: Lauren McNeese
Siegrune: Maya Lahyani
Grimgerde: Renée Tatum
Schwertleite: Cybele Gouverneur
Conductor: Donald Runicles
Director: Francesca Zambello
And what a cast it was! I was tremendously impressed with Brandon Jovanovich’s Siegmund, a good-looking heartthrob of a guy with a clear, powerful tenor to match. I can remember being equally impressed by two previous Siegmunds: Placido Domingo in 2000, and Jon Vickers in 1976. He may have tired just a little bit right at the end of Act 1, but the audience exploded in the biggest burst of applause in this entire cycle when the Act 1 music concluded. Heidi Melton certainly deserved some of it, but I was cheering for Jovanovich. He is on record as having a Lohengrin in his future; I would love to see that in San Francisco!
Also worthy of particular note was Elizabeth Bishop’s majestic Fricka. As a group, the Valkyries were outstanding. It was as though the chorus master, with only eight women to guide, could spend lots of time with each one. Much praise is being heaped on Nina Stemme’s Brünnhilde, and deservedly so, but I found myself thinking on occasion, hmmm, that note would be worthy of Rita Hunter. Not all of them, but some of them. Rita Hunter was the Brünnhilde in my very first complete Ring cycle, and she thrilled the entire Seattle audience with one of the greatest voices I have ever heard. It got me to wondering: if your first Brünnhilde was Birgit Nilsson, or Kirsten Flagstad, would any other Brünnhilde ever measure up? That may be the box that I am in.
Act 1, an alpha. Acts 2 and 3, not quite.
Act 1 opens with the orchestra portraying Siegmund running through a violent storm, with an immediate musical tie-in to Donner’s “He da! He da, he do!” of the end of Das Rheingold. Here our attention is diverted from the orchestra by projections depicting roiling seas and a run through the redwoods. I preferred to shut my eyes and immerse myself in the music. When the curtain goes up, we see the outside of Hunding’s hut, actually a simple frame house that I would place in the 1930s South. The hearth at which Siegmund collapses is a large barbecue pit, just outside the house. When Sieglinde invites him inside, the side of the house is whisked into the rafters, and we get a diagonal perspective of Hunding’s living room, with taxidermied deer on the walls, a tall hutch with domestic knickknacks, a sword hanging on the wall, and a two-dimensional cutout of a large tree in the middle. There is no sword in the tree—that comes later, about the time that Siegmund cries out, “Father! Where is the sword you promised me?” The sword has apparently been hanging vertically behind the tree; now it falls to the right, with an audible “clack!”, and its hilt is now visible. Sorry, but that’s the least successful sword that I’ve ever seen. When it’s time for Winterstürme and Du bist der Lenz, the two sides of the living room are pulled apart so that the audience sees them edge-on (and so they are as out of sight as possible) and a projection of a very large full moon appears at the back of the stage. After they (yes, here Siegmund and Sieglinde together) pull Notung out of the tree, the tree is whisked into the rafters, giving the pair plenty of room to paw one another before rushing off upstage.
Act 2 brings us inside Valhalla for the confrontation between Wotan and Fricka. Wotan has an office high above a large industrial city, with its skyscrapers far below and embedded in industrial pollution, as seen through half a dozen tall plate-glass windows. In front of the windows is a loooong black table, which Wotan uses as his desk. For scene 3 we move to a no-man’s land underneath a decaying freeway, littered with old tires, an old bench seat, and other detritus of urban life.
Act 3, which opens with “The Ride of the Valkyries,” is the most successful. We see a large concrete structure that echoes the gun emplacements overlooking the Golden Gate, with a circular gun platform in the middle, a concrete wall in back that slopes down to the right and then continues sloping down as it comes downstage; on the left there is a metal staircase that descends downstage. These Valkyries are World War II paratroopers, dressed in Amelia Earhart-like garb. Doubles slide down ropes, starting high above the middle of the stage and landing at stage level, just behind the curtain walls; the singers then rush on stage, dragging their parachutes behind them. (The audience applauded, both at the appearance of the first paratroopers and again at the end of The Ride.) In lieu of bodies or body parts of dead heroes, the Valkyries carry close-cropped photos of American soldiers killed in the Civil War, World Wars I and II, and Iraq and Afghanistan. There are also photos of Hunding and Siegmund (despite the fact that Wotan tells Brünnhilde that he has no use of Hunding in Valhalla). The fire that Wotan causes to spring up around Brünnhilde surrounds her on only three sides: lines of gas flames proceed up the metal staircase, down the back edge of the rear concrete wall, and then down toward stage level on the right.
Our cast:
Siegmund: Brandon Jovanovich
Sieglinde: Heidi Melton
Hunding: Daniel Sumegi
Wotan: Mark Delavan
Brünnhilde: Nina Stemme
Fricka: Elizabeth Bishop
Gerhilde: Sara Gartland
Helmwige: Tamara Wapinsky
Ortlinde: Melissa Citro
Waltraute: Daveda Karanas
Rossweisse: Lauren McNeese
Siegrune: Maya Lahyani
Grimgerde: Renée Tatum
Schwertleite: Cybele Gouverneur
Conductor: Donald Runicles
Director: Francesca Zambello
And what a cast it was! I was tremendously impressed with Brandon Jovanovich’s Siegmund, a good-looking heartthrob of a guy with a clear, powerful tenor to match. I can remember being equally impressed by two previous Siegmunds: Placido Domingo in 2000, and Jon Vickers in 1976. He may have tired just a little bit right at the end of Act 1, but the audience exploded in the biggest burst of applause in this entire cycle when the Act 1 music concluded. Heidi Melton certainly deserved some of it, but I was cheering for Jovanovich. He is on record as having a Lohengrin in his future; I would love to see that in San Francisco!
Also worthy of particular note was Elizabeth Bishop’s majestic Fricka. As a group, the Valkyries were outstanding. It was as though the chorus master, with only eight women to guide, could spend lots of time with each one. Much praise is being heaped on Nina Stemme’s Brünnhilde, and deservedly so, but I found myself thinking on occasion, hmmm, that note would be worthy of Rita Hunter. Not all of them, but some of them. Rita Hunter was the Brünnhilde in my very first complete Ring cycle, and she thrilled the entire Seattle audience with one of the greatest voices I have ever heard. It got me to wondering: if your first Brünnhilde was Birgit Nilsson, or Kirsten Flagstad, would any other Brünnhilde ever measure up? That may be the box that I am in.
Act 1, an alpha. Acts 2 and 3, not quite.
Saturday, July 2, 2011
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.
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.
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