My story with Guy Cassiers’s production of Wagner’s Die Walküre is everything but uneventful: it had a very bumpy start in Milan (with one important compensation); than it became something truly impressive in its first season in Berlin, only to become something notably less spectacular one year later. In the fourth chapter of our chronicle, a trend seems to be confirmed – this evening’s performance proved to be even less compelling than last year. From the opening bars, one could see that the energy of previous years could not be reproduced this evening. Although the conductor could elicit some excitement from his musicians now and then, a sense of structure could not be produced, pace seemed to sag, the orchestral sound tended to be heavy and brassy and occasionally messy (the Walkürenritt was downright bad, a disappointing group of valkyries and the orchestra really poorly integrated). There were moments when the performance seemed to be on, but in a very incoherent way. Whenever Sieglinde and Siegmund entered in Tristan-esque mood, Barenboim would press the brake predal and opt for a dense string-based sound and heavily expressive style that maybe could have build into a Furtwänglerian experience if this could be sustained for more than two minutes.
His Sieglinde seemed to suffer from the same problem. In the first act, Waltraud Meier seemed out of sorts – low notes left to imagination, faulty legato, approximative pitch and very tense high notes. Later her voice would improve and produce some edgy but powerful dramatic high notes. She seemed particularly adept when she got a moment of Innigkeit and chromaticism. Then she would remind us of her younger self, offering sensuous and exquisite turn of phrases, with beautiful hushed moments.. As much of everything else in her performance, these moments too seemed calculated. There was no spontaneity in this Sieglinde, who behaved rather as if the Feldmarschallin had been kidnapped and held hostage by Hunding. That said, one cannot cease to wonder of how intelligent and perceptive her scenario is. For example, the way she sang So lass mich dich heißen, wie ich dich liebe: Siegmund – so nenn’ich dich convinced me that all other singers did not truly get what Sieglinde meant there. There is a lot to be learned from a performance with so many instances of superior understanding of the text like this, even if the results were undeniably vocally flawed.
I have seen Irene Théorin produce more exuberant top notes than this evening, but otherwise I have particularly enjoyed what she has done today. First of all, her voice was overall warmer – especially in the middle register – and rounder this evening than what I can remember. Although she usually finds no trouble in singing softer dynamics, today her mezza voce was particularly exquisite and effortless. She reserved her truly scintillating acuti for key moments and, as a result, her Brünnhilde sounded particularly youthful and touching. And she deals with act III as few other singers – it is truly an emotional journey, done with a very wide-ranging tonal palette and artistic generosity. If I sound mean by saying that Ekaterina Gubanova too seemed not to be in her absolutely best day, the explanation is that she was even richer-toned and more forceful last year.
Christopher Ventris is a great improvement in terms of casting in this production. He is the lest hammy Siegmund here since 2010 to start with. His is not a memorable voice, but one used with fine technique and good taste. His lyric approach to the role pays off in moments like Winterstürme and he can produce some powerful notes now and then. There are some underwhelming moments and some instances of indifferent delivery of the text, but I cannot help finding his singing refreshing in comparison to his competition both in the Schiller Theater and at La Scala. René Pape still struggles with the high tessitura, but he was in a better day this evening than last year. Although most of his upwards excursions were constricted or tense, his voice is naturally big and noble enough to offset this most of the time. In any case, he sails through the role in grand style, tackling Wotan’s act II big monologue with crystal-clear diction, sensitive delivery of the text and tonal variety. As for Mikhail Petrenko (Hunding), his bass was often poorly focused and sometimes hooty. In order to make for that, he often “acted with the voice” in a distracting manner.
Back home again for the Holidays? Congratulations and have a wonderful time.
– I have missed all the broadcasts of Théorin’s Walküre Brünnhilde, disliked her overthetop Siegfried Brünnhilde, but I enjoyed very much her Götterdämmerung Brünnhilde (in a broadcast last year from Budapest). Admire very much opera companies willing to cast 3 different singers as the 3 separate Brünnhildes.
– “sense of structure”: thanks! How few people make note of this, probably the most important element of a performance.
You’re back in Berlin! I was thinking the other day about how much I miss reading your reviews of performances here. I’ve been in Berlin for several weeks so far this year and have seen quite a bit of Wagner, both in concert and staged. When I have more time, I’ll share my thoughts on Sunday evening’s performance. Generally, I agree with you, but I found Frau Meier’s performance more rewarding than I think you may have.
Are you here for “Siegfried” and “Die Götterdämmerung” as well?
Hello, Walther! Thank you – I do appreciate. According to my original plan, I would have arrived earlier, but that, unfortunately, did not happen. Yes, I’ll be here for Siegfried And Götterdämmerung. Please let me know your opinion about the Walküre. I did enjoy Waltraud Meier’s interpretation, she is an artist of outstanding intelligence and intensity of expresion, but the vocal shortcomings were hard to overlook – at least for me – last Sunday.
I can hardly agree with your assessments concernig the “Walküre” on sunday in Berlin. With one exception: Petrenko was really the poorest Hunding I’ve ever heard!
But as far as I can trust my eyes and ears: Meier wasn’t “out of sorts” or as “flawed” as you assert. In the contrary, I found her in a very good mood and shape. I didn’t need much “imagination” to hear her low notes clearly, moreover I didn’t recognise much tension in the hights (though I noticed such tension some times in the past). Her masterful articulation in the first act was unique – only Papes was equivalent in the following acts. In comparison to Theorins (how to say?) totally incomprehensive mash of vowels and consonants, one must notice worlds between them. It’s just a pity.
I agree, Theorins voice was “warmer” and better focused now than in the performances in october last year: less slow, heavy vibrato. But unfortunately, her efforts to vary it into ppp-pianissimi parts (3. act) didn’t show any sustainability (potency). I admit, she really tries, but actually can’t yet vary her voice dynamically. These efforts remain attempts and seemed to me without a real feeling for measure…but ok.
Ventris owns, from my point of view, a very nice voice (especially the lyric site), but his “stage presence” as a “Siegmund” proved a bit insufficient.
Hello, Gerald! I am glad that you have enjoyed last Sunday’s Walküre and that we agree at least about some points, especially in what regards René Pape’s masterful articulation of the text (if you allow me to use your words). We do agree about Siegmund and Hunding. So we agree more than you seem to realize. And if we disagree at moments, that’s not bad, is it? It would be boring if everybody had the same opinion!
Overall, I thought the “Walküre” was more successful than “Das Rheingold.” “Walküre” at least some Personenregie, unlike “Das Rheingold.” Pape sounded good as Wotan, although there were a few weak moments as you have noted. I heard him recently as Gurnemanz at the Met, and the singing on that occasion was more consistently beautiful than it was last Sunday. He handles the text very well. I’ve heard Theorin live only once, at Bayreuth as Isolde. I appreciated her voice more this time. Although the vibrato is a bit intrusive, I found the line to be sound and the portrayal nuanced. Petrenko’s strengths as Hunding were his suspicious, virile, and menacing demeanor, but his voice lacks the heft to put the role across convincingly and his poor diction is also a liability. There are a number of better Hundings around. Gubanova did not make much of an impression on me. The voice has an effective cutting edge, but whether due to the direction or her own efforts, her Fricka remained, for me, a bit of a cipher. The Valkyries were a mess: some of the voices were not attractive, and the lack of ensemble in their singing was unacceptable. Their scenes made me wish for the Met HD, which despite its many problems featured an exceptionally well coordinated group of Valkyries. I found Ventris’s Siegmund to be good. I have heard Meier live only in recent years. Yes, I see your point that there were moments in her performance in which the singing was not topnotch. The best sung Sieglinde I’ve heard live recently was Anja Kampe in both San Francisco and Munich. BUT I found Meier’s portrayal of the role riveting. I had never seen her live in the role. She’s gotten deeply inside the role and improves the overall effect of every scene she’s in. (Again, in the Met Ring HD her 10-15 minutes as Waltraute were the best moment in the entire cycle.) I wonder about the extent to which her performance reflected the actual direction of the Cassiers production. I suspect that she brought her own sound dramatic instincts to bear on the characterization. As you see, I respond very favorably to what Meier brings to her performances.
The production was interesting, but never especially insightful or brilliant. It’s difficult to know in a revival how much has been lost (or improved) from the original run of performances. I found much of the video engaging (Siegmund and Sieglinde in the forest), but at times it seemed mismatched to what was going on elsewhere on the stage, for example, in the Walkürenritt. The Personenregie is weak. In fact, the Cassiers production reminds me in many ways of the LePage Met production … often visually engaging, but dramatically weak.
The weakest aspect of “Die Walküre” was the conducting. The orchestra often sounded just plain bad in both “Das Rheingold” and “Die Walküre,” and I mentioned earlier the ensemble problems on the stage The conducting was, alas, the worst of what I’ve come to expect from Barenboim: lots of highlighting and italicizing of isolated phrases, sudden inelegant shifts of tempo and volume, but never any sense of arc or overall shape. I recently read a comment about Barenboim that I found very apt: there’s lots of activity, but really not much going on.
I’ve gone on at great length here, but I appreciate the opportunity to collect some of my thoughts on the performance. It’s good to read your reviews of Berlin performances again.
Would it be possible to meet you either this evening at “Siegfried” or Sunday at “Götterdämmerung”? I’d like to introduce myself. If you’d like, I can send you my email address.
Hello, Walther! I am sorry I wasn’t able to read your e-mail in time. Please send me your e-mail address and, yes, it will be great to meet – either in the Götterdämmerung or maybe if you’re going to Parsifal (Deutsche Oper). I’ll soon comment the rest of your insightful post.
Yes, I’d love to meet on Sunday. You can contact me at berntmsp@gmail.com. I have already seen Parsifal at the Deutsche Oper earlier this season, but will be there for Tannhäuser on Saturday.
Walther
Hello, Walther!
Thank you for your comment! I’ve read it with great interest.
a) Rheingold/Walküre – Yes, I do prefer Cassiers’s Walküre to his Rheingold, which has the dancers as “special feature”. I not only think that the dancers disturb the flow of the performance, but also that they give singers little space to ACT.
b) Gurnemanz is a roles that sits very comfortably in Pape’s voice and also a role in which he has long experience. The Walküre’s Wotan takes him to the limits of his upper range. Considering the beauty and scale of his voice and his musical and interpretative qualities, the results can be really satisfying, even with the occasional tension. It is very generous of him to go through these “perils” to try such an important role.
c) I saw Théorin’s Isolde in Bayreuth too and had a similar impression.
d) I believe that Petrenko does have the voice for Hunding and I’ve seen him in far better shape in the past. I have the impression that it is a moment for him to make a check-up to see what’s (not) going on.
e) I’ve found Anja Kampe’s Sieglinde here in 2011 beautifully sung (better than Munich 2012, when she was also very good). I’ve seen this production (Cassiers) a couple of times – Meier twice, Kampe twice. All the interesting things you’ve seen are Meier’s personal contribution. More than this – she has deepened her performance since the opening night in La Scala. This woman has a never-ending supply of insight. I wonder if she one day would consider to DIRECT a Wagner opera some day.
f) I don’t know what to say about Barenboim and the orchestra. Sunday was clearly below their standards. This was probably my worst experience with this conductor and orchestra in this repertoire. It sounded seriously under-rehearsed. One of the Valkyries, for instance, was hoarse and nobody seemed to care.
“here was no spontaneity in this Sieglinde, who behaved rather as if the Feldmarschallin had been kidnapped and held hostage by Hunding.” Heeheehee.
Its great to have RML back in his natural habitat!
Good to hear from you too, Cavalier!
Dear people,
I’ve been wondering a long time if I’d waste your and my time, by trying to defend the work of the dancers. Because reading all your irritation on that topic, I’m sure I won’t be able to change your opinion… which is totally fine.
It’s been very entertaining and luckily also instructive, to read all your expertise on The Ring-cycle. Not just on the staging, but also on the singing aspects. Unfortunately I’ve clearly been far less successful…
although, maybe I did ‘entertain’ in a very wrong way: “instead of having Friedrichstadt-Palast-like choreographies to portray that”.
You do confuse me a bit there, because in a former review you write: “I used “ballet dancer” half as irony and half to show readers that they were not dancers as in Friedrichstadtpalast/Las Vegas casino-dancers.”
Anyway, that doesn’t really matter either.
As I said before, I know I won’t be able to change any of your minds. Les goûts et les couleurs on ne discute pas.
But I bet you’ll tell me, it’s not EVEN a matter of taste… :-)
Anyway, I’ll leave that part for what it is.
I do would like to defend me and my colleagues (although I of course can only speak for myself) in the fact that you blame us, for leaving the singers little space to act.
I don’t think Stephan Rügamer and Johannes Martin Kränzle suffer from that, on the contrary. Of all the characters they are the less static in Das Rheingold… which I think has a lot to do with the interaction with the dancers.
I personally believe that the stage patterns are blocking the singers much more in acting freely. I wouldn’t know why someone can not act while I am ‘swinging my arms’ 5 meters further away…
And on the moments we do interact (all the Alberich scenes) I don’t think you can say that there’s no acting. Martin and Stephan are doing a great job there, and that is together WITH us.
That’s the only thing I wanted to say. All your other problems with us, I can’t say anything about. If you think we shouldn’t be there, that’s absolutely your right to do so… blaming us for blocking the singers in acting. I can’t agree on.
I don’t want to call you “Dear irritating dancer”, but point taken, I apologize for the choice of words. First of all, I am glad you have taken your time to comment – and reading your very reasonable and informative post has been no waste of mine – on the contrary. I would also like to explain that I have never found any of the dancers themselves “irritating”, as you have doubtlessly understood! I could never write anything about their performances per se (and I certainly haven’t!) for I am unfortunately completely ignorant about the art of dance. I have but tried to write about their use as a scenic tool in this operatic production.
Anyway, it is valid to see someone speak for the use of dance in Guy Cassiers’s production – so far we had only one reader’s positive comment (“I have to say I liked the ballet dancers, or the idea of them at least.”) and the performance booklets haven’t even tried to really explain why this controversial idea was adopted at all (we were given instead an extensive explanation about that frieze in Brussels – and actually after reading about it, I got a bit closer to understand the use of dance here…)
Regarding the comment about good old Friedrichstadt-Palast, what I wanted to say is that the dancers seen on stage were NOT Friedrichstadt-Palast dancers (that is why I used “ballet dancers”, although reader Anna pointed correctly out that this was also not right), although the choreography sometimes made one think of something like that (one reader commented here: “they looked far more like refugees from a bad Las Vegas revue”).
As to leaving space for the singers to act, yes, you are right and again I apologize. You have said it far more precisely than I have. Of course, there was physical space for them to act – and the dancers had nothing to do with the Personenregie. I am glad you have said that and I thank you. I agree too about Stephan Rügamer’s and Johannes Martin Kränzle’s acting skills. I have certainly seen and written about that!
If you allow me one final comment here – I did not say that there should be no dancers in this staging (or any staging of Wagner’s Ring), I have just said that as devised by the creative team, the choreography was found by many – me included – distracting and unconvincing, regardless of how talented dancers individually were.
Wow, wasn’t expecting an answer THAT fast. Thanks for responding and even appreciating my comment.
I had understood the comment about the “ballet dancers”, especially after your reply on Anna, who correctly pointed out that we are contemporary dancers.
That’s exactly why you confused me with your review on 17/10/2010 where you wrote yourself: “OK, now I got the cameras under the waters of the Rhine, but I guess Mr. Cassiers and his team should have rather learned with Chéreau the craft of true stage direction. I’ll make it easy for them: the art of knowing how to place actors on stage and give them meaningful attitudes, instead of having Friedrichstadt-Palast-like choreographies to portray that.”
So, out of that I concluded you DO think we look like revue-dancers. No offense to revue dancers (I can also really appreciate that), but I understand they fit less in a Wagner opera… haha.
I really wonder in which part of our choreography you think we do. The only real short moment, where I think you could maybe make any connection to that kind of dance style, is when Loge is singing to Wotan about the 3 Rheinmaidens who are asking his help in getting the Rheingold back. On which Fricka replies that she doesn’t want to know anything about those water creatures, who’ve been tempting already many men into their bath/water.
Where, for me at least, it even makes sense that we 3 dancing girls would remind you of revue girls. If you connect to the libretto.
We do repeat that little phrase again later in the instrumental part, after Alberich has been caught as a frog. Maybe we should change the dance material there. It’s by the way the only scene for me, where I don’t feel a connection with the dance and the music (concept wise).
If you’d like me to enlighten you which ideas we have in mind during other scenes… I’d be happy to tell you.
Because we do have a clear idea why we dance certain movements.
For me it aren’t dance routines… they were created for this story and for this music.
I do understand our movements are distracting for many people, and especially for people as yourself, who are specialized in opera.
I assume you just want to hear the music and see the acting, which should contribute to the dramaturgy of the piece/libretto.
For me the dramaturgy and the insight of the characters are also very important.
I think that a mistake, often made, is that a director (who isn’t trained as an opera director) often just focuses on the text, without the consideration of the music, which definitely with Wagner gives a different layer in the context of the libretto. And on the other hand, that a choreographer often focuses only on the music (just feeling which atmosphere the music gives) without considering the text and even the knowledge of the leitmotif and everything…
although the music is often THAT clear, that instinctively you’ll make the correct connection. Especially with the ones who refer to nature.
We did do both… we also read the text, but still if I’d have the total freedom to do it my way, at this point (being much more familiar with Wagner’s music, and having read so much about him and the Ring) I’d do some parts differently or change them slightly in order to make them more contributing and more clear for the audience.
But then again, I think it would still distract you, as (although you didn’t say so) I think that you are of the conviction that the music of Wagner just doesn’t need dancers, as the music speaks for itself.
I also understand that point of view. It doesn’t NEED us.
I just think it’s nice to try some different things, which I understood you agree on too.
It’s a pity it doesn’t convince you, because I (we) definitely do the effort and not only physically.
Hello again! I do appreciate your posting and I am learning a great deal from it. First of all, I have to say that I have never been to Friedrichstadt Palast but for one screening during the Berlinale… so I am hardly a specialist in revue either…! :-) You show me too much consideration – and I appreciate your kindness – when you ask me to clarify my opinion about specific points in the choreography developed for Rheingold, for a) I am just a blogger and that hardly qualifies as expertise; b) I am specifically ignorant about dance. However, if you would like me to give my entirely unqualified _opinion_, I would be glad to see the DVD from La Scala again (I would need to do that first, for it’s been a while since I last saw Cassiers’s Rheingold).
I am indeed of the opinion that Wagner’s music (and text) speaks for itself. That is why many of us still enjoy the experience when stagings are less than satisfying. However, Wagner himself would not agree with that. He understood his works as Gesamtkunswerk, and this includes theatre to start with. When it comes to dance, Wagner did not seem particularly keen on it, if we bear in mind the Tannhäuser situation in Paris, but again I don’t think that he would veto the use of dance in principle and that was rather a reaction to the kind of dance he had to deal with then.
In any case, you are right to point out that there various layers of meaning in Wagner’s works and that in many instances the music works as some sort of “collective unconscious” behind the text. An able director has to keep that in mind if he or she wants to stage any Wagner opera with minimal depth. I do see your point that dance shares with music non-verbal meaningfulness and that could be an interesting tool to add extra dimension to the concept on staging a Wagner opera. My point is that this happened only occasionally in this staging. For instance, although I did not truly liked it (but that’s a matter of taste and almost irrelevant here), the Siegfried disguised as Gunther/Brünnhilde scene in Götterdämmerung. There, the choreography added the extra layer of meaning that text and music suggested but theatre alone is usually unable to render: the overpowering/violation of Brünnhilde. It is a violent scene – but one usually never sees the violence on stage. But here one could see that – the dancers could bring the violence on stage and the interaction with Irene Théorin was perfect. During the intermission, me and some friends were talking about how she was quite a trooper there! :-)
The problem about Cassiers’s production – and I can only guess how difficult it might have been for the choreographer – is that the whole CONCEPT is not clear ON STAGE (in the booklet, it is very interesting, but the ideas don’t make into the staging itself). It was decided that there should be dance in it, but that seemed rather added upon than developed from the core. During Rheingold, there is dance throughout; in Die Walküre none at all (how about doing something about the most uneventful Walkürenritt in history?!); in Siegfried and Götterdämmerung, only in what related to the Tarnhelm (more or less, I am doing this by memory). Why? I have tried to understand the system behind that – why only the tarnhelm? In the current Bayerische Staatsoper’s Ring, Andreas Kriegenburg, for instance, uses the movement of human bodies (I don’t know if they are dancers or actors, so I won’t try to label this time :-) as the key element of his staging. So, whether you like it or not, you get the point – it is organically and systematically used. So you don’t think of them “here are the dancers again!”, for they are the pillar of the whole staging. So, after a while, they are not “dancers”, they are STAGING. I cannot say that about the Cassiers production. You have pointed out that Mr. Rügamer and Mr. Kränzle have beautifully interacted with dancers – and the audience could see that. For instance, Loge is a Protean figure and we can see that in how the dancers’ movement and his own movements were integrated and coherent. But can we say that about the scenes with Fricka, Wotan, Donner, Freia, Fasolt and Fafner? Some of these singers did not seem to know what they were doing on stage, let alone how they would interact with the dancers. The bottomline being – the concept was not clear, the director did not integrate all the elements: singer/actors, dancers, props, sets, text/music. So again – yes, it was wrong to say “the irritating dancers” – I apologize again – for the REALLY irritating thing was the lack of a clear scenic concept and the lack of integration of scenic elements.
For what I read in your comments, the dancers understood that they should be integrated to the concept, but the careful work of finding (not only physically, I understand that) the movements in Wagner’s music (as related to moods, Leitmotive etc) seemed – for my eyes, at least – to happen in an entirely parallel level from the rest of the staging (which didn’t seem hardly “organic” itself). If I asked, for instance, Mr. Pape – why are the dancers doing this or that when you sing “Mannes Ehre, ewige Macht, ragen zu endlosem Ruhm!”, would he know the answer? It didn’t look as he did.
I start to believe that you yourself had a far more comprehensive view of the staging than the director himself… but I won’t ask you to comment on that! It wouldn’t be elegant of me to do that :-) Thanks again!
Hehe, to be honest even I have never seen anything in Friedrichstadt Palast. :-) But I’ve seen some trailers of the performances in the subway in Berlin… so I do get the picture of their dance style. Which I’m sure is the same of yours :-D
Of course you can’t remember our dance; It was stupid of me to go so specific into movement details. I was just really trying to figure out ‘which moment would remind them of that sort of dance?’ But I guess I shouldn’t take it that literal… it’s probably just another way of showing the dislike of the dance.
Same with the ballet, where I wondered in the beginning: ‘what ballet?! We’re crawling over the floor?!’
I do totally agree on your vision, that although it seemed that Wagner was not particularly keen on dance… it should be looked at in the context. And in those days there was only ballet.
Because mostly we just get plainly that remark: Wagner didn’t want ballet in his piece. Which I find very short minded.
What nobody ever mentioned, so maybe it’s a very personal idea/taste of mine. I did think that the dance with costume and everything, fitted the feel of the Germanic mythology. (not a refugee revue feeling)
But that has of course nothing to do with layering the context of the story.
YES, I agree on the violation of Brünhilde! I think that’s the only reason why people don’t boo us in Götterdämmerung HAHAHA.
I think (some of the audience, not you hihi) forgive us for ‘destroying’ Siegfried’s Rheinfahrt, because we do leave an impression in the last minute before the curtain closes haha.
It’s my favorite scene by the way. And also hers I think :-p
But seriously, I totally get you. I think you’re absolutely right… although it’s not of your taste, at that point we put an extra layer. In Das Rheingold we’re often just showing the same layer… and apparently not clear enough, so it even feels detached sometimes and just distracting.
Actually in the beginning we were all the time on stage in Das Rheingold. I always refered to ourselves as ‘the moving props’ haha… we were the moving decor. But they took us out more and more, I can imagine it became all a bit ‘much’, with the projection and all the singers on stage… On the other hand, as we got taken out more and more. I felt it became even worse. You notice our presence much more, as we every time have to sneak in, do a dance and sneak out… Then it became really… ‘oh lets do a little dance’. And we’re hated anyway, so taking us on and off didn’t make the difference.
Don’t bother about the irritating, I’m ok with that. I never took it personal. I know you find our ‘presence’ irritating, which I repeat you absolutely have the right to do so. And I understand it has more to do with the concept (or the lack of it). I especially had problems with the blame that some characters didn’t have space to act, because of us. Otherwise I wouldn’t have reacted.
I understand a lot of your frustrations.
We did get a very painful stroke from a certain Mark Ronan, who wrote that the dancers were UNMUSICAL in Götterdämmerung!!! I’ve never been so insulted:
I know the whole opera by hard. I hear every little mistake the singers make. I feel straight away when the maestro starts to speed up the music, or stretch it (and every night is different), without having to watch him or having a souffleuse helping me through.
But, who knows, maybe I did do a very bad job that day, or maybe one of my colleagues did. :-(
I must say, I appreciate your commentary more. Even if you’ve called us irritating. :-)
On the other hand, I’m really happy I’m not a singer in your hands, because I don’t know how they survive all the criticism, whether it’s correct or not, I definitely would DIE of the pressure that would be put on me. Then again, in some way I guess they are paid enough to either handle it or pay a shrink. hihi :-)
Sorry, now that wasn’t very elegant of me, but I just HAD to mention. I got quite shocked, the first time I started to read reviews and blogs.
Also intrigued though :-)
It also made me understand why there’s so less cooperation in the different art forms in the opera. (Don’t get me wrong, I’m not blaming you specifically. I’ve no idea if they even read blogs) But everyone just seems so busy with his own thing, instead of the Gesamtkunstwerk. I’m not used to that in the contemporary dance world. I would ask dancers and singers which lights are difficult to work with, BEFORE I make my light design. Same for the costumes etc. and/or opposite. I’d ask which kind of costume or wig they are making me and make my choreography towards that. I won’t even start about the surface of the stage…
I just feel everything is too divided.
Maybe it was just with this production, but as an outsider that’s the feeling I get.
About the other singers: We’re not moving on that sentence of Mr. Pape, but I’m sure he doesn’t know why we crumble down just after that sentence when Fricka wakes him up. I’d love to have some extra rehearsals with the singers… and actually, I’d prefer to have them privately so we can leave all the protocol behind, where opera (in my eyes) struggles with.
BUT it’s all a matter of time and time is money. Still, I think having spend so much money on a production, it’s not understandable to not finish it off.
That little amount of extra money can be nothing compared to the production budget that’s used already.
Well, I hope I don’t get fired after having spoken my opinion. Hopefully there’s nothing in my contract about ‘not replying on blogs!’ :-)
You can always bother me with questions about the dance after you’ve watched the dvd again. (I’m not so fond of that dvd myself, there’s some bad stuff seen on the close ups. :-( But what the hell…).
It would be of course much easier to just talk it through.
But I’m only again in Berlin on Saturday and Sunday. And seeing you replied at 4.03 am, you might be already again in some other part of the world. If you’d be in Milan in May or June…
But I can also try to write it out, if you refer to text and scenery, I guess I can find out easily, which moments you’re talking about.
It’s just time consuming to write about movement, instead of showing or watching it. But I’m up for it…
This conversation turned out much more ‘elegant’ than I had expected ;-)
Thank you
P.S.: To conclude, now that I’ve let it sink a little bit and read what I’ve written again. I understand/ even agree in many of your frustrations, but I’m sure we do have a big difference in taste as well.
Especially as you are into opera and not into dance… you don’t want dance. I think we could have done a better job in trying to find extra layers, but I also like to show the same layer as what the music and libretto say. Just to have something extra for the eye… but you don’t NEED that and so don’t WANT that.
I guess we also could have done a better job in that (showing what the music says or in giving the feeling of the music), because it seems we were also not clear enough in that part, for a ‘not used to dance audience’.
+ not everybody is able to work with us the way Mr. Rügamer and Mr. Kränzle did. Some people just don’t have it in them, others are not interested or too stressed to do so and with some characters it’s also less possible. I mean, it’s much easier to play with Loge than for example Wotan. But we should have done more effort with the other singers. And as you’ve pointed out… just the fact of knowing what we are doing and why… would make such a difference in relating towards each other. This, in the end, I regret the most.
Actually, there should be a dinner party BEFORE the start of the creation, not AFTER ;-)
P.S.2: Sorry for the spelling mistakes (I know the whole opera by heart (not hard), narrow minded instead of short minded and being a singer ‘in your hands’ is probably also literally translated from my language…but I think you got what I meant :-) )
Well, I’ve seen the same trailers – one of them involving dancing on a water-covered floor (so you can see the connections… :-) )
The connection with mythology and dance is interesting – in various levels. First, in many cultures, ritual and dance are interconnected – and many deities present themselves (in the sense of “manifestation”) in a dance-like way (in other words, you could tell someone has “embodied” them by the way they move). In a deeper level, theatre and ritual are interconnected – and actors, singers and dancers are embodying gods et al on stage, aren’t they? However (now I am speaking of my personal view) it shouldn’t feel like “dance” (as in the sense of a dance performance as in “let’s see Béjart’s Boléro at the Opéra”), but a special kind of dance understood as a theatrical tool. In the case of German mythology, I could only see this as something rawer, more “primitive” (in the good sense of this word), something less educated/trained, something non-dancers could naturally do (of course, dancers could do the most elaborate parts – as in Sasha Waltz’s Dido and Aeneas, all singers are very much integrated in the choreography in simplified movements that are the very basis of the more complex movements performed by dancers). This might be fun – to do and to watch.
Well, I don’t want to help you to get in trouble with the director :-), but the fact that the use of video, dancers and actors was piled up rather than developed as a whole is something one can notice while watching this production. When Waltraud Meier declared to the Italian press “the director only cares about the videos and leaves us there without further explanation…”, one could see that. This is theatre – if you don’t put it on stage, nobody will guess it should be there (even an absence has to be presented on stage…). Now that you’ve mentioned it, yes, the fact that you had to exit and enter and again and again more or less gave every appearance of the dancers the sensation of a “routine”.
As for the whole “unmusical” business”, well, if I am not mistaken, there is an Isadora Duncan anecdote – a reviewer called her unmusical, she (obviously) did not like it and insisted to schedule an appointment to discuss that. The reviewer did show up with a hearing aid (and we are probably talking about a hearing trumpet back then…).
Not everybody being apt as Mr. Rügamer. Well, this is true. I don’t think it is a wise idea to make someone do what he or she is simply incapable of doing. But the issue is a little bit more complicate. First, it is not true when one says that a singer was just standing there while he or she is singing. There is a whole “internal choreography” (in some singers, not so “internal”, I’m afraid…) going on there related to breath support – one has to coordinate complex movement down from the pelvic floor up to chest, back/neck (plus tongue, mouth etc). When the musical phrase is more complex, those movements are necessarily going to be more complex (for instance, take a look at the body of a soprano when she is singing those high staccato notes during the Queen of the Night’s Der Hölle Rache). That means, when you add other movements in particularly vocally difficult passages, this has to be well discussed with the singer in order for him or her feel natural with that. And one should respect when he or she says “here I need a break”. Then there is the issue of some people having more “corporal conscience” than others. A production of Der Ring des Nibelungen is an expensive affair and is not going to be discarded too soon. That means – it cannot be tailor-made to the talents of one particular person. In 10 years, you’ll have the junior Spielleiter reading an annotated libretto saying “Here Wotan opens the arms parallel to the body and looks up and then lifts one foot” and having to convince a famous bass-baritone that he is supposed to do all that (of course, he will not if he doesn’t feel like it). So I guess there should be a spectrum of possibilities for different kind of singers – if there is a Rügamer, then the works; if you have a wooden fellow instead, how could that be simplified and still make sense and look organic. More than this, if you explain these people WHY they are doing these movements, maybe they can come up with something that would make more sense for them and still coherent to that idea.
That is why the part of having everybody on the same page is very important – if the concept is clear for everyone, even if someone goes astray, he or she will be able to find orientation in the big ideas behind everything. So, if you have dancers and singers interacting, I cannot see how this could work properly if they are not sharing the creative progress or at least being rehearsed together. If you have someone grabbing them and lifting them while treating themselves “Entschuldigung, Herr ___ , aber ich fürchte dass, ich Sie anfassen muss”, how could that possibly work?!.
Criticism and singers. Well, I don’t think that the blogs created the stress placed by audience and critics on singers. I guess that already in the days of Francesca Cuzzoni and Faustina Bordoni you had people “supporting” favorite opera singers against… everybody else. And critics tended to be far less pleasant those days, involving unflattering and often rude comments on physical appearance etc. I guess that technology brought about two extra difficulties: faithful recordings and Internet. With good recordings, you can compare one exceptionally gifted person such as Maria Callas or Birgit Nilsson with people who are “only” very talented. And that’s not really fair. Before the Internet, one had to buy the New York Times to read what the review would be saying about this or that performance. Now you just google one name and has someone from Ulan Bator saying that a Latvian singer has missed her high C in a performance in Seattle. Is that bad? On the same note, the Ulan Bator blogger could be saying “There is a singer from Cochabamba who is an EXTRAORDINARY Brünnhilde” and this person could get the kind of publicity she would not normally have. The problem is – while the New York Times is supposed to check if the person writing there has enough knowledge to write anything about music and theatre, anyone can publish anything in a blog. Therefore, I don’t think singers should read them. At all. They should trust people with acknowledged ability to assess what they are doing – someone they actually trust. And I guess that this is what most of them do.
As for the DVD, I’ll give it a look and, if I can come up with something that doesn’t sound terribly silly, I’ll let you know. Unfortunately, I am not in Berlin anymore (don’t get me started on this or I’ll get very depressed) and no Milan for me in May. You’ve guessed it right – I’m eight hours ahead in Tokyo right now…
Well, don’t apologise for spelling, if you can spell Flemish correctly, I already find you a genius! :-)
Hehe, yes there’s the problem again… you don’t want to see dance, you want to see movement. As if I’d go and see a dance performance and I don’t want the singers to sing opera, just make sound… because I don’t want it to sound educated, something the dancers could also do themselves too :-)
Which of course could be nice as well, but I don’t mind to have them both trained and collaborate and respect each others discipline in art.
Well we did rehearse together with the singers in Milano, but most of the stuff goes through rehearsal directors… I remember asking once in Milan, if I could attend the ‘aftertalk between the artistic crew and the singers’ after a dress rehearsal, because I just wanted to KNOW what the other problems were. We should be on the same page on everything, not just having my rehearsal director telling me what the dance notes are…
I know about the singing being an “internal choreography”, nicely said by the way! And I totally agree about simplifying movements if needed, also when there are replacements. But they should work with us, not with a spielleiter READING what movement they should make. I experienced the same again with a new Siegfried last week, with whom we worked only 5 minutes before the show!
All the small things I had predicted to go wrong, went wrong… the rehearsal director didn’t think it necessary to practice, neither explain that part, as the singer just had to ‘stand’ there. Tssss.
For the blog thing, I meant critics in general… professional reviews too. I guess it’s the same in ballet. I just find it very hard. Imagine someone would review me saying that I almost lost my balance on that one moment, but because of my technique I could cover it up a bit. That my arm should have been more diagonal though and that my foot should have been more pointed during the “Mannes Ehre”. That this other dancer last year did a better job, but was unfortunately a bit more stiff in her neck.
Pfffff, I’d just be: Did you like it or not! I’ve put my soul in this you motherfucker! haha… I think I’d be more busy with myself and MY movements, instead of the Gesamtkunstwerk… as I’d be very stressed. It’s just very weird for me, that’s all. :-)
Thanks for the ‘Isadora Duncan anecdote’!
And also for the lovely conversation…
Have a good time in Tokyo, enjoy the ‘toro’ (best sushi ever, I never find it here!)
OK, touché… I’ve got your point about having _real_dance in production.
I’ve read about the missing-Siegfried+new Siegfried situation… 5 minutes… well, this couldn’t have run smoothly :-)
Thank you too for this conversation. You’ve really got me thinking here.
And, yes, until you eat real sushi in Japan, you don’t really know what it is… :-)