Siegfried

[rsc]

jwg and I are in the midst of a busy week, culturally-speaking: Saturday afternoon we went to Revere to see the Metropolitan Opera's HD simulcast of Wagner's Siegfried; Saturday evening was the annual Harvest Ball in Jamaica Plain; Sunday afternoon we attended the Boston Cecilia performance of the Bach St. Matthew Passion, and tomorrow night we're seeing the Boston Lyric Opera's production of Verdi's Macbeth.

This post is going to be a mini-review of the Siegfried.


This is the third opera in the Met's new production of the Ring cycle; we had already seen the simulcast of Das Rheingold last year, and a live performance of Die Walküre this spring. I think this is the best production of the three I've seen so far.

As far as the staging and set go, the famous moving planks didn't move around as much as in the first two operas, and so didn't call attention to themselves as distractingly; meanwhile, the projection effects -- including what appeared to be actual water, reflections and all -- were striking and effective. (When Siegfried, in Act I, describes to Mime how he found out what he looked like by looking into the stream, we actually get to see him dong it.) Some nice touches of humor: Mime, smoothing out Siegfried's hair in the opening scene, find a nit -- and eats it; the Wanderer, having settled himself at Mime's hearth, takes off his shoes with evident relief. (Never mind that the text indicates that he's travelling on horseback.)

One very interesting idea I had never seen before: When Siegfried plunges the sword into Fafner's heart, the spell that turned him into a dragon is broken, and he appears as the original Giant. (This has the added advantage of letting the audience actually see the singer.) The dragon itself, on the other hand, was kind of silly, and we never see more of it than the head and neck -- which also requires Siegfried to disappear into the cave-mouth to deal him his deathblow.

I found two pieces of staging unconvincing: the Wanderer essentially surrendering to Siegfried before the breaking of the spear, by kneeling and laying the spear down on the rocks for Siegfried to hack in two; and near the end, at the moment when Brünnhilde finally and unequivocally yields to Siegfried, and should throw herself into his arms, they separate, and proceed to sing their final love duet from opposite sides of the stage. (As my brother said, this allows them to get a running start for when they finally do embrace at the end of the duet.)

All right, enough about the visuals; what about the performance itself? Put simply, I thought it was great. James Levine's health problems have forced him to withdraw from the production, and he has been replaced by Fabio Luisi (about whom I knew nothing going in); much as I've always (mostly) admired Levine's Wagner, I don't feel that anything was lost; Luisi clearly knows what he's doing with this music. My one gripe about Levine in these operas has been his preference for slow tempos and, especially, some rather self-indulgent stretching of what I think are relatively minor climaxes (although his later performances are much improved in these respects over his recordings from the 1980s). Luisi seems to favor brisker tempos in general (there were actually a few places that were too fast for my taste, which is unusual), and this helps to give the music the dramatic sweep that it must have to be sustainable over such long periods.

I really liked all the singers. Bryn Terfel (Wanderer-Wotan), Deborah Voigt (Brünnhilde), and Eric Owens (Alberich) had already shown us what they could do in the previous operas, and Gerhard Siegel really came into his own as Mime, convincing us of the character's evil intentions and inner torment without squawking (as so many Mimes do). But I have to make special mention of Jay Hunter Morris's Siegfried; this is a young singer from Texas who filled in at relatively short notice for the originally-hired Gary Lehman (who had to withdraw because of illness), and he simply took total possession of the role. It's a fearsomely difficult part, and it's not unusual for even the best Siegfrieds to have moments when they're painful to listen to; not so with Morris, who sang beautifully throughout. (I once again have to mention that I have no idea whether there were balance problems in the opera house, as I know has been the case with some of the singers in the earlier operas.) And he even made me sort of like the character, which is not easy -- Siegfried's kind of a dope, and a frequently obnoxious one at that. It probably didn't hurt that he was pretty to look at, and an absolute charmer in the backstage interviews during the intermissions.

I notice in rereading my post about Die Walküre that I also singled out Jonas Kaufmann's SIegmund for special praise; I guess the Met has been fortunate this year in its Heldentenors.

I'm looking forward to seeing the final installment (Götterdämmerung), although there's a difficult schedule conflict for the February simulcast; it remains to be seen what we will do about that.

Comments

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Ooh, that's what four or five hours for an opera? Did they break for coffee I hope ;)

[jwg.livejournal.com]

There were 2 half hour breaks. In addition to blank screen they showed some interviews including of the charming Texas accented Jay Hunter Morris who sounded like he was really having fun. And you got see how cavernous backstage at the Met is. They sold sandwiches in the front before it started (and later) and we bought some and ate them during intermission one.

[maxauburn.livejournal.com]

I've always enjoyed Wagner!

[neild.livejournal.com]

The dragon was exceptionally silly, but, honestly, a singing dragon is a silly idea to begin with, so you might as well go with it. It makes perfect sense that Siegfried would never learn fear from a dragon like that! I also liked that Fafner turned back into a Giant for his death scene.

In Siegfried's scene with Wanderer, I was thinking that it makes no logical sense, since Wotan knows what's going to happen, and in fact he WANTS Siegfried to awaken Brunnhilde, why then does he try to stop him? So to have him seemingly give up makes the confrontation seem more fateful.

And, I thought it was a wise idea to save the running and jumping into the arms bit for the very end. I remember seeing one Siegfried practically knocked senseless by having to catch a running Hildegard Behrens.

Hooray for tenors!

[neild.livejournal.com]

You really get your money's worth when you see Wagner!

[rsc.livejournal.com]

My take has always been that, although Wotan knows (and wants) what is going to happen, Siegfried is so rude to him that he gets pissed off (the stage direction for his cry of "Es floh dir zu seinem Heil!" says something like "breaks out in sudden wrath"), and can't help but challenge the brat. Also, just as he has spent the first part of the scene establishing that Siegfried is the independent agent that Siegmund could never be, he has to establish that Siegfried is not, in fact, afraid of his spear.

you aren't making this up, are you?

[trawnapanda.livejournal.com]

very young and very handsome and very strong and very brave and very stupid?