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rscFor those of you who have been waiting with bated breath to hear how the Met's Der Ring des Niblungen, if you want lots of detail, look behind the cut. If you just want a quick summary, well...
...it was really good. In fact, it was excellent.
This was (as I knew going in) a "traditional" production -- in other words, the sets and costumes are more or less in accordance with what Wagner specified, which is how I prefer it. I think, in fact, they're pretty much the same sets as were used in the version of this production that was telecast in 1990 and released last year on DVD. The staging has been changed in some details; in neither case do they follow Wagner's stage directions completely literally, but it's fairly close. Of course, there were a few things I would have done differently, but that's the way it's going to be until the alternate universe in which I get to make a cinematic production of the Ring comes into existence. (Hey, Peter Jackson, have I got a project for you!) The sets are quite impressive -- to the extent that there was a certain amount of entirely unnecessary oohing and aahing from the audience at some points, especially at the beautiful riverside scene of Act III of Gõtterdämmerung. (I myself was most impressed by the forest in Act II of Siegfried, which [perhaps not accidentally] made me think of Fangorn.)
My one major complaint (which was true in 2000 as well) is that much of the time the stage is just too dark. It's true that Wagner frequently specifies that a scene takes place at night or evening, but I suspect he wanted the singers' faces to be visible. Even the reasonably well-lit daylight of the first two scenes of Act I of Gõtterdämmerung was done in such a way as to keep the singers' faces, especially Gunther's, in shadow much of the time. The place where this was most annoying was in the final scene -- the fire, flood, and destruction effects were most impressive, but I couldn't even tell whether Hagen was actually on stage, even when he (presumably) plunged to his death -- if you didn't know, you really couldn't tell who was crying out "Zurück vom Ring!", nor tell what actually happened to him. Trying to see what they were doing about this, as well as admiring the rest of the effects, distracted me from much of the music during the last five minutes of the show.
And it's the music that really matters, right? Musically, this was a really excellent production. Levine's approach to the Ring has clearly evolved over the past 15 years, and the excruciatingly slow tempos heard on his 1988 recording of Die Walküre have mostly disappeared. This performance had real flow, keeping things moving when they needed to, and giving us time to revel in the beauties of such things as the interlude before the Waltraute scene in Act I of Gõtterdämmerung (which would have been even more effective if the set-change had been done more quietly).
The singing was almost uniformly excellent. The two major holdovers from the 1990 performances, James Morris as Wotan and Matti Salminen as Fafner and Hagen (and now as Hunding, too), are still powerful singers, although Morris is beginning to show some ragged edges. Plácido Domingo (Siegmund) is amazing -- you'd never know he was 65, either by looking at him or listening to him. Yvonne Naef (Fricka and Waltraute) was so good I almost didn't miss Christa Ludwig.
The Siegfried was Jon Fredric West, whom as far as I know I had never heard, and he was really impressive. Lots of power, but beautiful tone when required, and an agile stage performer. He doesn't quite look the part, but it's hard enough to find someone who can sing the role without worrying about how yong and handsome he appears.
The nearest thing to a disappointment vocally was Gabriele Schnaut as Brünnhilde. Her first passage in Die Walküre (not so much the Valkyrie yells as her description of the approaching Fricka) sounded really dreadful -- forced and ugly, and not well in tune -- and I though we were in for a rough time, but she got better as she went along, and really came into her own in Gõtterdämmerung. I suspect that she was not in the best of health on Tuesday -- she certainly sounded as if she were fighting a cold or something. Still, she had a tendency throughout to be inaudible when the orchestration got heavy; everybody (except West) had this problem from time to time, for which Levine is probably most to blame, but she had it more than others. My left-hand neighbor, who had heard her at Bayreuth (I think) a few years ago, said she had sounded much better, and speculated that she had overtaxed her voice in the interval, an ever-present hazard for international operatic stars (especially if they sing lots of Wagner).
Taking in the whole Ring live in the space of six days is a pretty intense experience if it's done well (I expect it's a tremendous drag if it's done badly). I'm very glad I got to do it last week -- it was truly wonderful -- but I'm not in a great hurry to do it again.
...it was really good. In fact, it was excellent.
This was (as I knew going in) a "traditional" production -- in other words, the sets and costumes are more or less in accordance with what Wagner specified, which is how I prefer it. I think, in fact, they're pretty much the same sets as were used in the version of this production that was telecast in 1990 and released last year on DVD. The staging has been changed in some details; in neither case do they follow Wagner's stage directions completely literally, but it's fairly close. Of course, there were a few things I would have done differently, but that's the way it's going to be until the alternate universe in which I get to make a cinematic production of the Ring comes into existence. (Hey, Peter Jackson, have I got a project for you!) The sets are quite impressive -- to the extent that there was a certain amount of entirely unnecessary oohing and aahing from the audience at some points, especially at the beautiful riverside scene of Act III of Gõtterdämmerung. (I myself was most impressed by the forest in Act II of Siegfried, which [perhaps not accidentally] made me think of Fangorn.)
My one major complaint (which was true in 2000 as well) is that much of the time the stage is just too dark. It's true that Wagner frequently specifies that a scene takes place at night or evening, but I suspect he wanted the singers' faces to be visible. Even the reasonably well-lit daylight of the first two scenes of Act I of Gõtterdämmerung was done in such a way as to keep the singers' faces, especially Gunther's, in shadow much of the time. The place where this was most annoying was in the final scene -- the fire, flood, and destruction effects were most impressive, but I couldn't even tell whether Hagen was actually on stage, even when he (presumably) plunged to his death -- if you didn't know, you really couldn't tell who was crying out "Zurück vom Ring!", nor tell what actually happened to him. Trying to see what they were doing about this, as well as admiring the rest of the effects, distracted me from much of the music during the last five minutes of the show.
And it's the music that really matters, right? Musically, this was a really excellent production. Levine's approach to the Ring has clearly evolved over the past 15 years, and the excruciatingly slow tempos heard on his 1988 recording of Die Walküre have mostly disappeared. This performance had real flow, keeping things moving when they needed to, and giving us time to revel in the beauties of such things as the interlude before the Waltraute scene in Act I of Gõtterdämmerung (which would have been even more effective if the set-change had been done more quietly).
The singing was almost uniformly excellent. The two major holdovers from the 1990 performances, James Morris as Wotan and Matti Salminen as Fafner and Hagen (and now as Hunding, too), are still powerful singers, although Morris is beginning to show some ragged edges. Plácido Domingo (Siegmund) is amazing -- you'd never know he was 65, either by looking at him or listening to him. Yvonne Naef (Fricka and Waltraute) was so good I almost didn't miss Christa Ludwig.
The Siegfried was Jon Fredric West, whom as far as I know I had never heard, and he was really impressive. Lots of power, but beautiful tone when required, and an agile stage performer. He doesn't quite look the part, but it's hard enough to find someone who can sing the role without worrying about how yong and handsome he appears.
The nearest thing to a disappointment vocally was Gabriele Schnaut as Brünnhilde. Her first passage in Die Walküre (not so much the Valkyrie yells as her description of the approaching Fricka) sounded really dreadful -- forced and ugly, and not well in tune -- and I though we were in for a rough time, but she got better as she went along, and really came into her own in Gõtterdämmerung. I suspect that she was not in the best of health on Tuesday -- she certainly sounded as if she were fighting a cold or something. Still, she had a tendency throughout to be inaudible when the orchestration got heavy; everybody (except West) had this problem from time to time, for which Levine is probably most to blame, but she had it more than others. My left-hand neighbor, who had heard her at Bayreuth (I think) a few years ago, said she had sounded much better, and speculated that she had overtaxed her voice in the interval, an ever-present hazard for international operatic stars (especially if they sing lots of Wagner).
Taking in the whole Ring live in the space of six days is a pretty intense experience if it's done well (I expect it's a tremendous drag if it's done badly). I'm very glad I got to do it last week -- it was truly wonderful -- but I'm not in a great hurry to do it again.
Re: this brings back nice memories
Date: 2004-05-03 09:32 am (UTC)