Der Ring des Nibelungen 4:
Gotterdaemerung. Wagner Days MUPA Budapest
June 16th 2019
And so the world ends. It’s been an epically fantastic journey and to have the chance to see the entire work over the four-day span Wagner intended has been wonderful. The mastery of scale demonstrated by the composer and conductor has been stunning and my admiration for Wagner’s extraordinary creativity and epic sweep of mind has been even more confirmed.
It’s odd but I feel that I do not have agreat deal to say about this – certainly not the production and production style. The concept of being semi-staged, as it is called was always an interesting one and seeing this cycle confirmed that it was a very good way to do it and allowed one to focus on what was important – the visual and psych-drama was there in the music AND in the staging – but unlike a full-scale production where the staging can at times overwhelm the music, here the balance was marvellously maintained. Not all aspects were absolutely right – as indicated in my comments on earlier works but here it seemed to me, all was good. The final conflagration was superbly done and one of the rare times where stage picture and music were in perfect accord – too often the stage picture is a pale indication of what is happening in the orchestra – and not too much was done – the right visual tone was struck for the apocalypse but it allowed, finally, the music to do the talking and as we retuned, with impeccable musical timing to the opening image we finally saw how ‘in my end is my beginning’.
Musically the performances met all the demands asked of them; normally that should be expected but in Wagner – not always so – and the mere fact of being able to say this is, in itself, an indication of a remarkably high standard; too often it has to be something along the lines of ‘they did well considering…’ but here no such caveat was needed.
Vinke and Foster were, as ever stunning, both vocally and in terms of acting. Foster was as bright-voiced, powerful and expressive in the Immolation scene as she was at the start of the evening – and Polina Pasztircsak was an exceptionally fine Gutrune – truly a harmed and innocent bystander in this whole saga. Her strange and powerful little scene while waiting for Siegfried to return from hunting was wonderfully expressive and poignant and a masterly example of Wagner being able to add and develop a character even in the final moments of an epic such as this. Pesendorfer was at his best in this work as Hagen – almost as gloriously deep and rich as some great Hagen’s of the past like Gottlob Frick et al. the summoning of the vassals was as thrilling as I have ever heard it – and the chorus easily as good as the Bayreuth one – which is quite something.
And really, that’s it; an amazing experience – and I am now going to order my tickets for the cycle next year – but will I avoid the temptation to go to two cycles – I am sure that had I been here during the second one I may well have succumbed.