Das Rheingold in HD

[rsc]

Yesterday jwg and I went to Rockport to see the HD cinema-broadcast of the Metropolitan Opera's new production of Wagner's Das Rheingold. A first for us on two counts: This was our first experience of these cinamtic broadcasts, and it was our first look at Rockport's new Shalin Liu Performance Center (since we never got our act together to get to the chamber usic festival this summer).

Although I'm going to carp a bit later on, let me start out by saying that this is a fabulous production, and I really hope and intend to get to see the whole cycle live next season. The much-touted technically-marvelous set works really well (most of the time), the musical performance is excellent overall, and the acting and staging is (mostly) very convincing.

I'll start by talking about the singing, since, no matter what else is going on, the singing is what really matters. Which means I really have to start with Bryn Terfel's Wotan.Terfel has only recently moved into Wagner, but you'd never know it; big, solid, attractive voice, commanding presence -- altogether a worthy successor to James Morris. I thought his acting was rather stiff, but the Rheingold Wotan is a bit of a stiff; I'll reserve judgement until I see him in Die Walküre.

I also want to single out for special praise Richard Croft's Loge and Eric Owens's Alberich, both of whom sang with beautiful expression and really brought their characters to life -- especially Owens; in my opinion, if the audience doesn't feel some sympathy for Alberich, he's not doing it right. None of this is to slight any of the other singers; it would be unfair to compare Stephanie Blythe (or, indeed, anyone) to Christa Ludwig, but other than that I have no complaints about her. The only performance I didn't like was the tenor who sang Froh (for some reason the printed program doesn't include Froh and Donner, and neither does the cast list on the Met's web site), whose voice was loud and coarse to my ears. (He was also nowhere near the beat in his last solo.)

The acting was generally excellent -- it was nice to see a Freia (Wendy Bryn Harmer) with real character, including a suggestion that she felt some sympathy for the lovesick Fasolt.

James Levine really knows this music, and gets wonderful sounds out of the Met orchestra. As has always been the case, I don't agree with all of his choices -- I like faster tempos than he does, for the most part -- but he makes it work.

All right, the production. There were times when I felt that the set called a little too much attention to itself, and I would have liked to see something that looked even a little bit like Valhalla, but the variously-tilting platforms contributed to dynamic elements that can easily be lost in this not particularly fast-moving piece. The descent to and ascent from Nibelheim were magical, and the Scene 3 set itself was spectacular. I thought it was cool that Freia, Froh, and Donner entered by toboganning down the slope, and Loge's fire effects were fun, if occasionally distracting. It struck me as odd that Fafner and Fasolt entered on opposite sides of the stage, and never went anywhere near each other until their fatal quarrel, but I suspect that this was a deliberate attempt to emphasize the divide between them.

The one place where I thought that directorial cleverness was distinctly counterproductive was the opening scene. It's all very well to give the Rhine maidens mermaid tails, but the result was to render them all but immobile, and everything in the music, the text, and Wagner's stage directions all insist that they are very mobile indeed in their native environment, in stark contrast to Alberich's difficulties under water; he shouldn't be able to get around better than they can.

All right, this turned out longer than it was going to be. Anyway, it was great, and I'm glad I got to see it.

Comments

[rsc.livejournal.com]

The Opera News (http://www.operanews.com/Opera_News_Magazine/2010/10/Departments/Metropolitan_Opera_Live_in_HD_Rheingold.html) site tells me that Froh was sung by Adam Diegel. It also tells me that Donner was Dwayne Croft, but I knew that already, as reference had been made in the pre-game interviews to "the Croft brothers". It would have been neater if the Croft brothers had sung the actual brothers Donner and Froh, but Richard would have been wasted in such a small part, and I sure wouldn't have wanted to hear Diegel as Loge.

[baybryj.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed the opening scene (along with the undulating river) but I have the advantage of being much less familiar with the score and stage directions than you.

Now that you have seen a Met HD production, what is your reaction - versus a live performance?

[rsc.livejournal.com]

I think it's a great that they're doing these -- a lot of people will get to see Met productions who wouldn't ever get to a live performance. And for myself, I enjoyed the experience; it has several advantages over a live (as in in-person) performance (besides the obvious ones that it's a lot cheaper and doesn't require traveling to New York): You can actually hear all the voices (as I was reminded by the review (http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-classical-beat/2010/10/going_for_the_rheingold.html) you pointed to elsewhere), and you can see people's faces, and catch details that might be hard to see from distant seats in the opera house. OTOH, you also have no choice about what to look at, and there's something about the feeling of being in the house and seeing the stage and set as a whole that can't be duplicated on the screen.

[alex elliott (from livejournal.com)]

We saw two Met in HD performances last season: Aida (which was pretty good) and Les Contes d'Hoffman (which was really super amazing - if it comes out on DVD I'm buying it). We'll probably see the encore of Rheingold in November. Our local simulcasts show in a big movie theater one block away from my workplace.

What I like about the simulcasts:
- World-class productions with world-class singers made available all over the continent.
- Getting to see details without binoculars.
- The audience seems to be genuine opera lovers, without any of the "see-and-be-seen" high society types you get at Canadian Opera Company productions who do things like talk through the overture because they care less about opera than about earning their Patron of the Arts merit badge.

What I don't like about the simulcasts:
- The movie theater sound system doesn't treat opera well - it comes out a bit muddy and odd.
- Because it's in a movie theater, some people find it acceptable to munch on popcorn, which causes annoying rustle/crunch noises.
- HD close-ups of opera singers on the big screen can be terrifying, and not in a good way. Last year's Amneris was particularly porcine and a pretty poor actor to boot.

[rsc.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I have to admit that a closeup of Bryn Terfel singing is not a pretty sight.

[rsc.livejournal.com]

Tangentially, my brother and I agreed many years ago that the ideal medium for the Ring is cinema -- meaning not a filming of a stage performance, but made as a movie, where all the "magic" can be achieved without technical compromise and fudging (I'd love to see a version where the Tarnhelm actually made Alberich vanish or turn into a serpent), and the spaciousness of the music can be matched by (a convincing illusion of) an equally spacious setting.

But it wouldn't be that easy to get it right; as my brother wrote in his doctoral thesis (quoting from memory, and therefore probably not exactly): "Wagner's music dramas await a producer-director with the enthusiasm of King Ludwig, the resources of de Mille, and the mythic imagination of Ingmar Bergman."

[lcohen]

long ago, i saw a production of it at the lyric that had the rhine maidens on bungee cord like things and a lovely lighting effect that made it seem like they were underwater. my recollection is that the parts were voiced by offstage singers so that the maidens could devote their attention to "swimming."

[rsc.livejournal.com]

Sounds interesting. Having the parts sung offstage has the disadvantage that it defeats the contrast with the final scene, where they actually are offstage, although this could be partially mitigated by amplification, I suppose.

The Rhine maidens' swimming is only one of many more-or-less-unsolvable technical problems that Wagner gave his director: People vanishing and transforming themselves into other creatures; piling up the treasure so it actually hides Freia without smothering her; in the other parts of the cycle, such things as flying horses, and of course the final tableau, complete with burning buildings and the overflowing river. (See my second reply to baybryj, above.)

[lcohen]

i don't recall that i knew at the time that it was being sung from offstage, but i later met one of the singers.