Watching a complete Ring is a unique experience. For a whole week, one lives in a two-tiered reality, half in a world of symbols and myth, half dealing with very prosaic questions, such as which is the best time for lunch in order not to be late for the Götterdämmerung performance starting at 16:00. This time, it has been even more unique: there is a world-changing event outside, with protests, the police, breaking news all the time. And there are opera-goers living the fear of a negative test and not being able to see the rest of the Ring. Worse: being sick and stranded far away from home, if you don’t live in town. And there is the opera house itself handling disinfection, hundreds of tests for musicians, extras, stagehands, replacements for very difficult roles. So it is a collective experience as never before, one where themes involving life, death, love, indifference, nature, society, hope and hopelessness are more than just concepts.
This means that a Ring conceived in such circumstances offered a special opportunity for a director to speak to and engage the audience more than the regular festival aperol spritz-sipping experience. This is one of the reasons why I was so disappointed with the Siegfried last Friday, when one had the impression that the director was addressing his imaginary friends (or foes) rather than the people in front of him in the auditorium. You may imagine how positive was the surprise of finding the foyer of the Deutsche Oper represented on stage when the curtains first opened this evening: I felt as if the director had read my thoughts and, maybe for the first time in this Ring, I felt being talked to. But not for long. Although the last installment of Herheim’s Ring is also the most consistent, it is also very frustrating in its agenda.
But let’s speak of the strong points first: the idea of showing the Gibichungen Halle as the world where we live, where we got away from our ideals and get our hands in the dirt – as much as Siegfried and Brünnhilde – is very successfully rendered by placing it in the very opera house where we were. The mythical level remains the “staging”, with its sets made of suitcases, gods in winged helmets etc. Also, the scene with Siegfried disguised as Gunther was probably the strongest point of this whole production: here we have both tenor and baritone on stage sharing their lines, using the same costume, including the Tarnhelm (here a clown mask, Alberich’s face). There is also a Hagen who is among us – he sings his scene with Alberich seated in the front row. He is the one who uses the myth, the staging to manipulate the public for his own purposes.
But there are considerable weaknesses here too: many scenes look like the budget was over and no huge idea came up – one has too often the sensation of high school theatre in some key passages (such as the immolation scene, no less). There are structural problems too. The migration agenda, for instance.
Yes, the Ring is about people on their way of changing their places in their social structure (Alberich and Wotan trying to get to the top of the power system, Brünnhilde being attracted out of the Walhalla into the real world in search of love, the Wälsungen lost in the world and trying to find home etc) – but it is not about the issue of migration in its religious/economic/politic dimension as we experience it today. These people are not agents in a power/love conflict as Herheim sees them, and their problems are far more immediate than a mythic/aesthetic discussion. So one couldn’t help wondering – what does all this have to do with them? Therefore, when we are shown a closing scene where the production is just over and a cleaning lady dusts the piano symbolizing the whole creative impulse of the myth as if it meant nothing to her, one has the impression that the director is really telling us that this work has nothing to offer to anyone with real problems, that it has lost its power of communication/inspiration/manipulation. If we have in mind the effort of all involved – the audience too – to be there for these performances, I am afraid I cannot agree with that.
The musical side of this Götterdämmerung too is in a way contradictory. Again, I cannot say this performance brought any special inside in its leisurely tempi and flaccidity of accent, heavily dependent on richness of the orchestral sound to draw the audience (and the brass section has again its small accidents now and then). However, when I think about it, it did not feel long at all. And this is no small feat. At first, I had the impression that the unusual sense of flow in scenes famous for their ”lack of continuity” (the scene with the Norns, the first Gibichungen scene, Siegfried’s death) was achieved by excessive roundness of its sharp angles – everything smoothed out in an all-purpose version of Knappertsbuschianism, but that would be unfair. There was a unique combination of fluency and depth of sound that made its performance very easy to follow.
In terms of cast, this Ring was crowned by Nina Stemme’s performance as Brünnhilde. She has achieved a level the Japanese would call “living national treasure”, in a sense that she displays a mastery in this part that it is not about her doing everything immaculately perfect, but rather a deep experience that allows her to go beyond simple perfection. Although she evidently sounds taxed by extreme high notes now, I found her more interesting and in charge than when I saw her sing it back in 2012 in Munich.
Clay Hilley was again a solid Siegfried, really pleasant of tone, textually clear and right on the spot in terms of personality. Even a bit short in the lower end of his voice, Albert Pesendorfer was a powerful, intense, hypnotic Hagen, well contrasted to Thomas Lehman’s warmer-toned a bit grainier Gunther. Okka von der Dammerau offered a richly sung, glamorous Waltraute. Jordan Shanahan again sounded rather velvety and noble-toned as Alberich, but that’s me being picky. Among the minor roles, Beth Taylor stood out as a dark-, firm-toned First Norn.
I HEAR VOICES 
Symbolism over substance. Isn’t that the crux of the mess we are in politically and every other way in public and cultural life?
The irony of this bogus political scam to separate people from one another by pitching shallow resentment and fear at us. It is truly Wagnerian. If Herheim was a deep thinker he might have tapped into that, instead he fudges on profundity and wallows in “cool” images, depending entirely on his cast, if they are fortunate to not test have tested “positive” for the sniffles.
I am so bored with bureaucrats crowning themselves Royalty and proceeding to insensibly destroying Civilization in the name of safety from an ersatz threat, solely to empower themselves.
We, the audience, if you will, are minions, like Mime and his chums hammering at the anvils, threatened and demonized by an army of Alberichs in Brussels and Beijing. Again, very Wagnerian.
Our Richard would have relished such an obvious side-swipe at the kernel of his vast canvas, as an opportunity to create and enrich his operas, but would have despaired at the nullity of the venal little minds that have musicians, and singers, in masks, living and breathing, in a manner of speaking, in fear of inevitable death.
If Herheim was the perceptive genius he thinks he is he would have adjusted his mind-set from banal symbolism, the stupid piano, and focused on the opportunities in the details that abound in his scores and delivered something monumental, a production for our frightening times, instead we get a pile of vague mush dotted with good individual performances, here and there, of a standard variety.
It sounds like his Berlin cycle is nothing but the usual display of jumping from one highlight to another, from the Rhine Journey to Waltraute to the big trio to the Death March and Immolation.
Your commentary seems, and forgive me, this is not a criticism of your fine reviewing, a little bored. This seems to me to be the natural response of a sophisticated, worldly opera expert, being low key instead of viciously vitriolic, as I would have been.
What is sad is that Donald Runnicles, like Christian Thielemann, have stranded in this age of stupidity and have a difficult enough time mustering a half-decent cast only to be crushed by the banality of a half-assed academic display of boring onanism on the part of megalomaniac production teams and corrupt bean-counters pretending to be House Intendants.
But the parties after opening night are still grand, I have no doubt
HO-HUM.
It is always darkest before the dawn.
So Götterdämmerung-esque.
Hi, Jeffrey! I don’t know if “bored” is the right word, maybe “unenthusiastic”. I have just reread my writing about the old Götz Friedrich Ring and, yes, the tone is edgier and I notice that what I here describe as ok-ish sounds there as “God-awful”. Objectively, this has to do with the acknowledgment that the level of orchestral playing in the opera houses in Berlin id way above average, more than I imagined when I lived there and may have taken it for granted. Subjectively, this “omicron Ring” was for me exhausting – all the testing, all the suspense, all the looooong intermissions with the mask. There was a point when I was in the mood of Wotan’s monologue in Walküre, act 2. But ultimately vo gridando pace e vo gridando amor with Amelia’s trill on top of it haha, while hoping next time the director is a little bit more emotionally and intellectually honest. Actually: hoping that everybody were a little bit more emotionally and intellectually honest 😉
It’s fascinating to read you find Stemme preferable now, which I agree with. It’s interesting that now that she’s no longer in her absolute prime I actually find the basic sound itself more pleasant, more of a piece. When she was younger I have to admit the sound seemed very harsh and more pushed. I wasn’t even sure she really was a dramatic soprano honestly, when I saw her first Munich Gott it seemed like she would keel over at the end of act two. Now that she’s gotten older and it isn’t as easy, I actually find her production as a whole easier to take. The sound now has a Varnay-ish woody texture and I think the registers are actually better blended together. And her way with the words has grown in leaps and bounds. Long may she reign.
I go back and forth with Herheim, but it’s been a while.
Hi, Peter! My story with Stemme is similar to yours. I took some time to “get” her, but I really find her voice – if less generous at the top – more consistent, richer, fuller. Basically: we agree. 😉
The big question now – who is singing Brünnhilde right now other than her? The Zurich Ring has announced Nylund in the role. And that’s something I wasn’t truly expecting… even in a small theatre like that.
Honestly, I don’t know. Between Nylund and Harteros adding Isolde and the former singing Brunnhilde (a bad decision IMO) it seems increasingly clear that at the moment there are no real up and coming dramatic sopranos on the horizon. Kampe is supposed to be getting all the Brunnhildes but she’s as old as Nylund and while she has held up remarkably well for someone with such an ersatz way of singing it still seems like a dubious prospect to be adding these roles that late into your career. It seems like the way the business has evolved young singers aren’t up to these roles. So all these old lyric/spintos are getting cast. Martina Serafin is another example of this. 40 years ago, someone like Lise Davidson should be at a point where she is singing those roles now IMO.
Irene Theorin seems to be the only singer who has managed to keep a certain standard of quality across a long period of time, but she’s Stemme’s age and while I personally like her she’s hardly some revelation. Now that Dalayman and Herlitzius have moved down a rung, it’s basically just those two. And Stemme was so obviously better than anyone that I think people were just content to let her own this rep. But I sort of fear for these roles once Stemme packs it in.
I don’t blame Davidsen for being careful. It’s not an issue of “young people should not sing dramatic roles” but of personally knowing you’re up to it, not only in terms of voice and stamina, but also in terms of interpretation and also mental disposition. As for other people willing to sing these roles these days – yes, there are the lyric sopranos with big voices. For Siegfried, I’d actually think it is not a bad idea. You probably saw Naglestad in Munich and it was really fine. I see people like Serafin, tend to prefer the Walküre, because the tessitura once the hojotoho is over is lower, but I don’t know. The real killer there is the Gōtterdämmerung, especially act 2. I don’t think either Harteros and or Nylund (particularly) have the edge they need for something like that. I have no idea if there is someone in a small opera house with the potential for it. I noticed that the Swiss soprano whom I saw in Internezzo in Basel and again as Freia and one of the Valkyries in Berlin managed her Hojotohos exceptionally well – those notes just flashed into the auditorium. So maybe one day, who knows? I have never heard Tamara Wilson live. I noticed she was going into some big stuff – Isolde, Turandot. What’s your take on her?
Oh I wasn’t blaming Davidsen. But in earlier eras a singer her age would have sung hundreds of performances of a much wider variety of repertoire. The singers who sang Brunnhilde during that time added it at a younger age. The whole business (conservatories, five year planning etc..) doesn’t really work that way anymore and I don’t know that singers are taught how to foster stamina frankly. In the meantime Davidsen, a phenomenal talent, seems very green and unformed for more than someone on her level would have been at another time. Just IMO and it’s not her fault. But it was not a common thing for someone with a voice of that size to be figuring out how much stamina they have 30 years ago. I just think singers are at a disadvantage now in that sense.
Naglestad was terrific yes, but while she definitely is on the lyric side of things she does have a tone of thrust and gleam up top. Thought they have nothing in common at all she reminds me of someone like Cristina Deutekom, a coloratura with real muscle and heft and gleam in the upper third that allowed her to successfully go a notch above her pay grade. I think Nagelstad basically could sing anything she wanted to as long as it lay in the upper middle.
I haven’t had much experience with Wilson and live I’ve only seen her in Italian repertoire and as Chrysothemis. More recently I heard excerpts from her first Fidelio and she wasn’t good, but it sounded like an off night. She certainly has the size and heft for those roles and it’s a very well equalized voice overall, maybe a little weaker lower down. It’s not the most memorable timbre and she’s not glamorous onstage but she is attentive to the words and she’s a game performer. The Forza I saw her do at ENO in the Bieito production was excellent and she sold the production quite well. I liked her recorded Empress. Isolde seems like a not unreasonable role for her but I get the impression she’ll wait and see how that goes before she considers something like Brunnhilde. She seems like an obvious Sieglinde and I imagine her doing that instead. But who knows.