Die Walküre, Verismo Opera, Nov. 23 2013

I have heard it alleged that there are 30 opera companies in the Bay Area, most of which I am unfamiliar with. I found out about Verismo Opera only because my Mohs surgeon at Kaiser mentioned that she has sung in the chorus in their productions of La Traviata and Il Trovatore. So I looked up their web site, www.verismoopera.org, to find out a bit more. Well, what do you know? This little opera company is going to perform a very long, very big, utterly magnificent opera with an orchestra 1/5 the size of what it should be, in a little theater seating only 160 people, in the little town of Vallejo, not exactly known as a center of culture. My surgeon even told me that my expectations shouldn’t be very high. But since I love Die Walküre (the first opera that I ever saw that made an impression on me), I decided to give it a try.

The set met my expectations of a performance in a theater seating 160, with an orchestra of 20, including a piano. At the front of the stage was a rather well-done construction of a rude table and chairs such as you would expect Hunding to possess, and of course there was an ash tree. In back there was a wall with living space behind it (an open doorway hung with beads led to Hunding and Sieglinde’s bedroom); to the right there was the entrance door, on which Siegmund knocked before entering instead of just barging in as he usually does. On the right side of the set was a small stairway up to the second level. There was nothing on the second level, but it was a space on which characters could walk, where Siegmund could bed down for the night, where Hunding and Siegmund could fight at the end of Act 2, and where Valkyries could gather.

There was some unusual stage business, thanks to the director. Most striking was the appearance of Hunding and Sieglinde’s 10-year-old daughter, who greeted her daddy when he came home from the fight to which he had been summoned. She also witnessed Siegmund and Sieglinde’s escape at the end of Act 1, and presumably reported it to her father, who then appealed to Fricka as the goddess of marriage. An interesting twist, not out of place. What was out of place was when Sieglinde grabbed Nothung after Siegmund had pulled it from the tree and went around smashing things in the hut with it. There was a supernumerary who followed Fricka around, carrying a red box about the size of a cigar box. After Hunding killed Siegmund, the super opened the box and showed its contents to Fricka, who appeared to be satisfied. We the audience never learned the significance of the box.

Nearly all of the cast were completely unknown to me. Richard Goodman, founder of Berkeley Opera, sang Wotan in the other cast, but I was unable to attend his performances.
Siegmund: Mark Lin
Sieglinde: Jennifer Rogers
Hunding: Ben Brady
Wotan: Richard Mix
Brünnhilde: Leslie Schipa
Fricka: Cary Ann Rosko
Gerhilde: Cristin Williams
Helmwige: Kyoko Shimozaki
Waltraute: Elinor Gates
Schwertleite: Lindarae Polaha
Ortlinde: Hannah Stephens
Siegrune: Joanne Bogart
Grimgerde: JoAnn Close
Rossweisse: Lori Rogala
Conductor: Michael Shahani
Director: Richard Bogart

This performance was one of the most unusual things I have ever seen. The sets were primitive. The singing was so-so. Siegmund sounded more like a baritone than a tenor. There were fewer than the expected number of horn flubs, but the string section seemed to have a hard time keeping in tune with each other. Nevertheless, something magic happened. At the end of Act 1 I was simply blown away. I was literally speechless for several seconds, before I could croak out a “Wow!” to my companion, and several more seconds before I could croak out an “Amazing!” It was way beyond the sum of its parts. It raises the question, Can there be a bad performance of Die Walküre? I’ve never seen such, but the fact is, while last summer’s Die Walküre in Seattle was far superior in the specific aspects of sets, singing, and playing, it did not wring me out emotionally the way that this one did. There was magic here that I cannot identify.

I will have to paraphrase Sir Denis Forman’s grading of The Ring in his book “A Night at the Opera”: It is impossible to grade this Xtraordinary and Xceptional performance as if it were a regular performance so let me therefore just give it an X. In the coming year Verismo Opera will perform Carmen, Suor Angelica/Cavalleria Rusticana, La Boheme, and La Tosca [sic], and I’ll see whether lightning can strike twice.