Well, the start of a home-grown Ring cycle. I saw the final part, Gotterdamerung at the end of last season when it was a new production but, tbh, found it difficult to assess, not having seen the other parts of the cycle and so not really having any idea of the over-arching themes and ideas that were going to anchor the four works together. It seemed to be intriguing (see my earlier comments) but I reserved judgment to a significant degree.
Well, having seen the prologue, the signs are promising. The opening scene at the bottom of the Rhine was wonderfully done and a perfect match for the mood and tone of the music; it was really good to see music and stage picture in truly perfect harmony. The revealing of the Rhine bed was very gradually and subtly done and it recalled the marvelous opening of the ENO Ring cycles many years ago.
The (suspended) Rhinemaidens immediately gave a vivid picture of one important visual aspect of this production – the use of very strong and vivid colours with strong yellow, blue and gold and purple with contrasting hair. It will be interesting to see how (and why) this plays out over the next operas. As Alberich I felt Kelemen made a slightly/ weak start vocally as he seemed slightly underpowered and certainly his vituperation at the Rhinemaidens was not nearly aggressively spat out, as is so clearly indicated in the music. But he did improve quite considerably as the work proceeded and by the end, his curse on the Ring was appropriately powerful and chilling. But once again, his scrambling over the rocks was done in a very stilted and unconvincing manner; partly I suppose due to the design of the set which did not allow him to actually physically get near to the Rhinemaidens or chase them in a truly threatening way. And the appearance of the gold did not nearly match the musical depiction; it was tricky to see where it actually was and what it consisted of. At one time it looked just like a thin glowing gold line whereas it should surely be almost blinding to the audience – a brilliant gold light shining out into the auditorium perhaps. And it surely must be of a size that Alberich can actually physically take it; too often it is a massive constructions which makes nonsense of the stage directions and the sense that Alberich can physically remove it.
The transition to Valhalla (and all other transitions) were very well done with absolutely first-rate film/video imagery that gave a very convincing sense of travelling over vast and very different terrains with a nice mix of realistic images (alpine mountains etc.) and abstract shapes and colours. This combination helped to convey very successfully the sense of being in a world that is both somewhat familiar and yet completely alien. Unlike many other productions these days, the creators of these sequences (and others that I have seen here) are truly effective and successful. I liked the use of straight lines and what seemed like aspects of architectural drawings and mathematical formulae which cleverly suggested the unseen Valhalla -and these aspects were again successfully used in the final moments of then work (of which more later).
Wotan (Kalmandy) and Fricka (Gal) were excellent singers and actors and the relationship was well shown. Fricka was clearly established from the start as a very strong and central figure who would challenge her husband, so preparing the way for Walkure. In some productions, these two can seem to have a close and warm relationship which sometimes makes the events and arguments of Walkure seem rather suddenly unprepared. It was also interesting to note that on a few occasions Fricka touched and held Wotan’s spear. It will be interesting to see if anything is made of this later on in the cycle.
Donner ((Haja) and Froh (Brickner) were fine Gods – strikingly colourful and with more than a hint of the ridiculous – which is fine. Likewise, as a giggling hot –pink puffball-skirted Freia, Safar was excellent and entertaining – and very well sung.
But the central character, rightly in this work, was Loge – a wonderful gift of a part and Erod made a magnificent job of the part, with his flame-coloured full-head punk Mohawk look and striking turquoise, and very smart suit. He was clearly in charge and very elegantly detached from the shenanigans of the gods. In the scene with Alberich he came into his own while Wotan was very detached from everything that was going on. He seemed fascinated, hypnotized even, by the vast pile of golden treasure that Alberich had built up. Alberich’s transformations were partly done well; the dragon was very fine but the change into the toad was not effective; I have rarely seen this done well tbh – although, again, ENO I seem to recall did it well.
By this stage Kelemen had greatly improved as Alberich – and I loved his absurdly OTT military jacket, grotesquely over-hung with medals and jewellery. Kiss as Mime was sound but not as striking as some I have seen – again, a little underpowered I thought.
The Giants (Palerdi and Racz) were impressive, both physically and vocally and their seamless transition from images at the back of the stage in a lift-like construction to their actual appearance in 3D was excellently done. The killing of Fasolt was feebly done and did not seem to provoke the realisation from the Gods, (Wotan in particular) that the text and music demand. It is surely at that point that Wotan begins to understand the power of the Ring and so starts his plan to regain it. Here this moment was badly underplayed.
The final scenes were very fine though. Erda (Schock)made a dramatically impressive appearance, taking full advantage of all the new stage machinery that the opera house now clearly has and the final entry into Valhalla was marvelously done. There was not a literal rainbow at the end but rather the vivid color and glitter of the projected images, starting as points of colour mixed with the straight lines recalling architectural drawings, morphed into recognizable materialistic slogans and advertisements, with humans madly grabbing items and piling them into shopping trolleys. I wonder if this means we will have a capitalist/materialisit view of the whole piece…
But a very fine and thoughtful start to the cycle.