Click on
the differently coloured words to see pictures of this production. Some
seem to have been taken in 2013, others are from 2016.
Vorabend: Das
Rheingold
Scene One. Curtains rise over gentle music to a mirror
suspended over the stage at an angle that points both to the audience and to
the stage floor. It is constructed of mirrored blocks which slightly distort
the reflection. At first I think it is a moving image projected onto a
screen, but as the lights gradually brighten, it becomes apparent that we
are seeing prostrate figures steadily becoming animated and squirming about.
Then it dawns on me that the opening scene is set in the depths of the
Rhine, where the Rhinemaidens, under the instruction of their father, protect
their hoard of gold. What we are seeing is a human portrayal of the fish.
Ingenious!
The fish become livelier, and
poke their heads out of the water like playful dolphins taking in the lay of
the land.... oops, the waterway. A few minutes later, they are all
up and darting around the revolving stage. Paying homage to and strengthening
the image of their watery home, the dancers are all wearing swimming trunks.
(Some of them are muscularly magnetic.) Enter the Rhinemaidens, who are oddly dressed as burlesque dancers,
complete with white feather headdresses and tufted tails.
Enter Alberich, the Nibelung, a
creature from the Underworld, arriving fully clothed but soon removing garments
right down to his hideous white underwear, in an attempt to lure the Rhinemaidens
into an amorous encounter. The maidens tease him, poking fun at his grotesque
appearance. All the while, as he chases and they scurry, the fish in the river
swish this way and that, appearing in the mirrored ceiling like a genuine shoal
escaping danger (an image for which we thank National Geographic and the BBC).
The maidens become too bold and dare
to show him their shimmering stones. Now the shoal raise their golden pompoms. The stage lighting shifts to orange and the pompoms glisten, while the
shaking of them produces the sound of coins being poured out of a giant sack.
Alberich continues to woo them, but ultimately grows angry at their taunts.
The maidens tell how the gold can be fashioned into a ring whose power
will subjugate the whole world to its owner. However, only he who
rebukes love can mould it.
Enraged by the maidens refusal and
insults, and overcome with greed and lust for power, Alberich swears off love and shoots into the
gold-carrying shoal in a frenzy until he entraps a weakling (played by a pretty
blond girl of about 12). Magnetized, the entire shoal is dragged away
triumphantly by the thieving dwarf (Alberich, the Nibelung), as the
maidens lament their folly and loss.
Scene Two.
The mirrored ceiling lowers and changes angle so the back is now higher while
the front rests on the stage. What we see is the marbled floor of the gods'
castle while lavish decorations (stuffed predators and exotic prey - all HUGE)
are lowered onto said floor. Wotan, the god of the
gods, is being reprimanded
by his wife, Fricka, for offering her sister Freie to the giants as
payment for building their castle. Enter the bass and baritone giants, Fasolt
and Fafner (each on a crane of the city cable guy variety). They demand
their payment, while Wotan attempts to delay until Loge returns.
Loge is the cunning one, himself not
a god, but risen through service to be treated as an associate and advisor.
Loge eventually returns with news of Alberich's hoard and the world-enslaving
ring. But he is unable to persuade the giants to exchange Freie for the promise
of gold that Loge has yet to steal. As the giants drag Freie away, the marbled
floor flips again, exposing the mirrored ceiling.
Scene Three.
Now the stage beneath is not revolving, but trapdoors have been opened
and light is streaming out from them, striking the mirror in showers of dazzling
white. Within the trapdoors, white ladders are visible, distorted once
again by the squares of mirrors. Soon, Nibelungen (German plural) start shimmying out of them, and they are revealed as the
tunnels of Alberich's gold mines. The Nibelungen have been subjugated and toil
at Alberich's pleasure (and punishment).
Mime, Alberich's brother (whom the
mean dwarf has also enslaved) has fashioned a Tarnhelm for Alberich. This is a
golden ring large enough to be worn as a crown and with the power to change
Alberich into any figure he likes. He puts it on. Enter on stage a 1920s style
magician pair, lady in pink burlesque outfit and man in tails and a top hat. They
wheel on a magician's box covered in BLING of awful taste and aptly named 'Tarnhelm'.
Alberich gets in and abracadabra, he disappears. However, his
commanding bass-baritone can still be heard, and he beats up Mime and terrifies
the Nibelungen slaves.
(I've seen Das Rheingold twice before on TV and the whole
cycle once on DVD. One thing about it that detracts from my enjoyment is that
Wagner didn't include chorus, nor are there ever many people on the stage. This
Rheingold made up for that with the silent shoal and the Nibelungen slaves, who
were also silent except when they shrieked in abysmal fear of Alberich,
three sudden, crescendoing, frenzied screeches as they scurried away from
the dwarf.)
Wotan and Loge arrive. They
disbelieve Alberich's tale of the Tarnhelm and ask for proof. Enter once
more the magical duo. He turns himself into a snake, carried by a go-go girl
(Melbourne's own comedic twist). The adversaries then taunt him, saying he
couldn't turn himself into something small. Glad to prove them wrong, when the Tarnhelm opens, a toad sits on a chair. Wotan and Loge bind him and steal his hoard,
his ring and his tarnhelm.
Scene Four.
Now in an undisclosed location. The stage floor is black, the ceiling has been
lifted away, the back of the stage is black, too. Wotan convinces the giants to
accept the trade: Freie for the gold. Either Fasolt or Fafner (I couldn't
figure out which; they were both dressed in Men-in-Black style FBI suits!!!)
struggles to let go of the beautiful Freie and commands his opponents to
surround her erect figure with the gold. Only if he is unable to see her will
the amount of gold suffice. As Freie disappears from the audience's view
within a tower of shimmering gold bars, the giant grows sadder. When all the
gold has been piled, he nevertheless catches a glimpse of her beautiful eye
through a crack and demands the ring to plug it.
Wotan is adamant it belongs to him.
Suddenly, from within the blackened posterior a door bursts open,
spilling brilliant light across the stage. Enter Erda, the goddess of the
Earth. She warns Wotan that the curse of the ring (placed on it by Alberich
after he was forced to relinquish it) shall destroy the gods. Wotan
begrudgingly hands it over. Erda exits through the same door, pulling it shut, plunging the depths of the stage once more into desolate darkness. Just then, Fafner kills Fasolt and claims all the gold
for himself.
After relinquishing the ring, the
gods are surrounded by a troupe of burlesque dancers in pastel colors, carrying
a matching feather fan in each hand. They prance around in typical cabaret
fashion as Wotan announces that their new home shall be named Valhalla.
The back of the stage is lit to reveal an endless staircase leading up.
The cabaret girls swish up it into a cone shape, narrow at the bottom,
broadening to the top. Through this cone, the gods ascend into Valhalla,
first Wotan and Fricka, followed by Freie, Donner and the other brother,
Froh.
There is lengthy, excited, whoop
whoop-calling applause at the end. The show has been magnificent !
The choice of costumes to my mind is
questionable. All characters are dressed in fashion of the 2010s.
Fricka's brother, Donner, god of thunder, carries a gun instead of a hammer!!
The music is brilliant, the
acoustics great, except that at some powerful moments, the soloist echoes.
That shouldn't happen!?!
Act One
- The curtain rises to a revolving stage, upon which stands a wooden shack. The
shack is shuttered and shut, protecting itself and its inhabitants as snow
falls from the 'heavens', piling up on the roof and stage around. After the second
revolution, the back wall (which faces the audience) has been removed and
Sieglinde sits quietly by herself. The snow continues to fall throughout
the act, but now only on either side of the shack. The stage ceases revolving.
Enter a wounded traveler, a Wälsung, a mortal. He has been fighting adversaries and has
lost his shield and sword. Exhausted, he pleads for refuge. Sieglinde
obliges, and gives him a drink. The pair become enamored with one another and
recognise a glint in each other's eyes.
Sieglinde's husband Hunding arrives
home, entering through the shack's front door, which is at the back in
relation to the audience. Not only is he sexy, his thunderous bass is hot
as hell. He listens to his wife's explanation and welcomes the traveler. He
asks why the Wälsung
is wounded. The Wälsung
describes how he stumbled upon a forced wedding, and how he slew all the
men guilty of entrapping the bride. Hunding declares that those were his kin.
He welcomes the Wälsung
to a safe night to honor the code of harboring travelers. But in the morning,
he says, he and the Wälsung
will duel.
Sieglinde drugs Hunding to make him
sleep, and then comes to tell the Wälsung where he can find a sword. The sword was stabbed into
a tree by a powerful man, her father, and only a true hero will be capable of
retrieving it. Sieglinde dubs the traveler Siegmund, thereby bestowing honor. (Sieg
means victory in German.) Slowly the pair, who are in fact twins separated at
birth, fall in love. They swear allegiance to one another.
Siegmund wrests the sword from its
seat. He names it Nothung. The music crescendos and the texture fills. The
conductor's young, handsome head is tossing about ferociously. The lights
go out suddenly. The audience goes wild.
The costumes now are a little more palatable.
Sieglinde looks like a country maiden. Hunding resembles a Russian
peasant. Wälsung/ Siegmund
looks hard-traveled. The music is so gentle that I annoyingly nod off
from time to time. Knew I should have napped!
Reentering the theatre on time like a good little boy, an
announcement heralds that there's been a technical issue. Act Two will start at 8pm, instead of 7:20,
as planned.
Act Two
- The curtain rises. Standing on the revolving stage is a spiral ramp not
unlike those at multi-storeyed car parks. This one might fit three characters
side-by-side. The spiral ascends in four loops right into the top of the stage,
and with the lighting it appears to be made of white marble. The ramp surrounds
a large vacant cylinder. The first to come down are Siegmund and
Sieglinde, running to escape the inevitable wrath of Hunding. They exit
at back left. Next arrive Wotan and Brünnhilde.
He is dressed as before in black trousers, a white shirt and brown
cloak. Brünnhilde is dressed like a casual horse rider or a lesbian potter.
She's wearing brown boots, brown corduroy (?) slacks, a T-shirt and a long
sleeved, unbuttoned shirt with the sleeves rolled up. As they descend, so too
do the stuffed animals from before. This time there are way more, they are hung at various heights and depths on stage, and they completely fill the
cylinder formed by the ramp. Wotan commands his daughter Brünnhilde, the
Valkyrie, to ensure Siegmund's victory. (The Valkyries are an order of female knights, I guess,
whose main task is to rescue the souls of fallen heroes and bring them to
Valhalla for eternal glory.)
In walks Fricka. She is also in the
same beige 1940s secretary dress (I was mistaken before)
she wore two nights ago. She once again admonishes Wotan for his poor
choices. As guardian of wedlock, she expects Siegmund to fall in the ensuing
battle. It comes to light that it was indeed Wotan who left the sword for
Siegmund because he has other things up his sleeve. Fricka insists that he
defend her honour. Wotan relents and countermands Brünnhilde to let the
adulterer perish. Exit Fricka.
Now a torrent of admissions spill
from Wotan's lips onto Brünnhilde's ears. In the time since Das Rheingold,
Wotan has wondered the Earth. He sought out Erda in an attempt to
understand everything. He has seduced her and Brunhilde and her eight
Valkyrie sisters are the product of that. (Fricka is aware of this
transgression and this is why she is adamant that he restore her honour.) Not
only that, but Wotan also seduced a Wälsung woman, thereby fathering Siegmund and his twin
Sieglinde. Since Wotan is forbidden by his own treaties to rescue the ring and
the gold from the giant, his wish is that Siegmund, who is not bound by
the rules of the gods, will win it back.
The gods exit through the ceiling,
the stuffed animals following. Enter Sieglinde and Siegmund, still
running. Sieglinde has a breakdown, admonishing herself for her
infidelity and incest. She tells Siegmund to leave her. Her powerful soprano is
shattering above the orchestra, her lament heartbreaking. She
slumbers. Enter Brünnhilde. She tells Siegmund that he will fall, and then join
the heroes in the halls of Valhalla. Upon hearing that he will not meet
Sieglinde there, he refuses. Brünnhilde agrees to spare Sieglinde, but
Siegmund remains unmoved. Enter Hunding, challenging Siegmund. Just as it
seems Siegmund will prevail, Wotan returns and with his sceptre breaks the
spell he placed on Nothung. The sword shatters and Hunding ends Siegmund. Brünnhilde
hurries Sieglinde away before Wotan sees her.
Dramatic climax in the music. Lights
out. Audience explodes.
The second interval is again
extended by 10 minutes!
Act Three
- The stage revolves as seems to be the theme. Our shoal of fish are there,
this time depicting soldiers on a battlefield. One by one, nine soldiers fall.
Exeunt the remaining army. From the ceiling - where once the ramp disappeared
and now only a gaping hole remains - descend upon playground swings first
three, then two more, and finally a total of nine Valkyries. Brunhilde is not amongst them. ( I'm dead certain Wotan said Brunhilde had eight sisters,
but I count nine.) They sing their famous call from
the Ride of the Valkyries, arguably Wagner's most well known section of music.
As they vacate their swings, they attach to them the nine fallen heroes, who
are slowly raised and disappear into Valhalla through the gaping hole in the
ceiling.
Now the stage is sadly bland all the
way to the end of the opera. Brünnhilde rides in on her horse (that's what the
libretto describes, but actually she enters from back right - as the
audience sees it.) She has Sieglinde, and while the adulteress says she'd
rather be dead because Siegmund is, Brünnhilde announces that Sieglinde is pregnant
with a hero's child. Gradually she wants to live again.
Brünnhilde asks her sisters to
protect her from Wotan's wrath, but upon hearing of her betrayal, they
refuse. However, when Wotan does arrive, they do in fact hide her.
Wotan prevails and banishes Brünnhilde from Valhalla. He also removes her
immortality and puts her to sleep. The first man to kiss her will wake
her and she will marry him. Brünnhilde convinces Wotan to surround her
slumbering body by a ring of fire so that only a true hero can reach her. He
agrees. The farewell is agonizing, and then Wotan puts her to sleep. A
genuine ring of fire ignites around her before our eyes. I'd so been hoping for
that.
This time, the orchestral
close is subdued and nostalgic. Curtain drops. Despite the production taking 7
hours instead of 5 hrs 40 mins, most of the audience sits through bow after bow
and cheers heartily, I among them.
Since Die Walküre,
things have transpired. Sieglinde is entrusted to Mime, brother of Alberich and
fashioner of the Tarnhelm. She dies in child birth, delivering Siegfried.
It's never really resolved whether or not Mime killed her (or am I getting my lines crossed with a TV
show). Mime also has Siegmund's shattered sword.
Act
One - Curtain rises. The stage is shallow,
extending only a little way beyond the orchestra pit. The back and
side walls are white. We are in Mime and Siegfried's dwelling. The left
half is Mime's workshop. There's a fridge, a TV (old tube style with the
thick back) and a microwave oven. A variety of tools and equipment is stacked
about. There's a large blue barrel, the type that Mexican drug lords
frequently use in movies to dispose of informants and other random enemies.
In it is a broom, bristles in the air, and other assorted sticks. Closer
to the audience stands a crank in a yellow casing, attached via a tube to
something silver-shiny that will be revealed as the sword smith's furnace.
There is what appears to be a cylinder of compressed air, tall, thin and
tan-burnt-orange. Mime wears white sneakers, blue jeans, a horizontally
striped shirt and an apron that matches the color of the cylinder. Behind it
all, on the wall hangs a piece of modern art.
The other half of
the stage, separated by a small, colored, transparent screen, is
Siegfried's bedroom. There's a striped two-man sofa and a double bunk. On the wall
above the top bed, glue tacked to the wall, are childlike drawings of animals.
Siegfried wears brown sneakers, matching jeans and a maroon long sleeved wintry
T-shirt.
Mime bemoans his
life of servitude to Siegfried, whose only repayment is a barrage of insults
and slights. Siegfried mocks Mime for being unable to smelt the leftover bits
of Nothung and fashion a new powerful sword. Siegfried storms out.
Enter Wotan,
disguised as a Wanderer. He's dressed as before except that he's wearing
sunglasses(!) and his long hair is loose. The vision resembles Dumbledore.
His sceptre too, right from the Das Rheingold, is gnarled and imperfect.
Mime wishes him away, but Wotan insists on hospitality. He offers his
head if he can't answer three questions. The foolish dwarf asks first who
dwells in the Underworld (Nibelungen), second who dwells on the surface
(Giants) and third who dwells in the clouds (Gods). Wotan berates Mime for
asking questions to which he knew the answers, while he failed to ask what he
needed to know (how he might fashion the sword, Nothung). Exit Wotan.
Mime hammers at a
new weapon. Smashing the hammer on the anvil on stage is rhythmic and forms an
intended part of the percussion. Siegfried returns and breaks the new
sword over his knee. He then curses Mime, grabs Nothung's splinters and
on stage fashions a new blade. He turns the crank, which feeds the bellows (the
pipe), which cause the coals to burn in what appears to be a real BBQ/furnace.
The blade turns hot-orange, he hammers (rhythmically, part of percussion),
cools it in water from which escapes (genuine?) steam, heats, hammers, cools.
Then he attaches the hilt. Triumphant, he threatens Mime, then cuts a
hole in the back wall to boast the magnitude of his achievement.
Act
Two - As the overture plays, we are treated to a
display of genius, a depiction of the dragon (Fafner, who converted
himself using the Tarnhelm). We see on the curtain before it rises, a
projection of the actor's face, so large it covers all four storeys of fabric.
The curtain rises.
What had been the
back wall of Siegfried & Mime's dwelling has moved deeper onto stage. It
stands now across stage centre, and we'll see later that its supporting columns
fit snugly on the revolving part of the stage. The projection now falls on this
wall. The actor has his back to the audience. He sits in front of a dresser,
slightly left of centre stage. We get to watch as he pulls hideous faces.
Despite the grotesque expressions, he is scrumptiously handsome,
muscularly shirtless. (It is only after rereading the program notes that I discover both Fafner and Hunding are played by the same actor.)
The hole cut
earlier by Siegfried is now circular and large. It roughly matches the position
of the dragon's mouth. The dragon slowly applies stage makeup.
Circus-clown-zombie white is smeared all over, except for the eyes, which get
black. Last comes lipstick, thickly enlarging his lips.
The stage revolves
half-way. We see the back of the "wall". Its 3D shape imitates one
half of a polystyrene strawberry tray, but this is three storeys high and wider
across. The columns and beam are made of scaffolding; a lattice holds the flat
bits of the structure (i.e. the wall). Grass on the ground is represented by
thousands of tiny squares of green crinkle paper. This is the mouth of the cave in which the dragon
lives. Alberich guards the cave.
Enter Wotan. God
and Nibelung mistrust one another, but Wotan asserts that Mime is planning to
use Siegfried to slay the dragon, then Mime plans to poison Siegfried and steal
ring, helm and hoard. Exit Wotan and
Alberich.
Enter Mime and
Siegfried. Mime explains that he hopes the dragon will teach Siegfried
fear. Siegfried is unmoved by the dwarf's words. On the grass he lays down a
checkered blanket of autumn yellow-orange and white. A spectacular clarinet
solo (started in fact by the oboe, then handed to the flute, before it is
surrendered to the clarinet) is heard, representing a songbird trying to
communicate with Siegfried. Siegfried
wishes he could understand, but he doesn't. Now the hero rises, walks to
the cave mouth and stabs the dragon in the heart. As he does that, red
canon-confetti (like those used at birthday parties) explodes from the cave,
signifying blood splatter. The dying dragon comes on stage through the cave
mouth, not shirtless, but STARK NAKED!
Siegfried tastes
the dragon's blood and instantly understands the songbird. She suddenly
personifies and dances onto the stage. That beautiful clarinet solo is now
imitated by the soprano. The songbird warns of Mime's treachery.
Enter Mime. He
tries to placate Siegfried, but while Mime thinks he is verbalizing his
lies, due to the dragon's blood, both Siegfried and the audience hear his true
intent. Mime is slain. Siegfried follows the personified
songbird-dancer-soprano in pursuit of Brünnhilde, the sleeping beauty.
Act
Three - Curtain rises. The back and angled
sides of the "wall" have been demolished, leaving only the
columns and connecting beam that supported it. In the middle of the stage,
prostrate and writhing, as if in a nightmare, lies Wotan. He rises and the
stage stops spinning.
Enter Erda. She berates Wotan for banishing Brünnhilde and for his many other follies. She points out his hypocrisy, following the letter of the law in all matters but his own. Wotan confesses that he no longer cares if the gods are annihilated. On the contrary, he now wishes it. Exit Erda.
Enter Alberich.
The pair argue over each other's intentions. Exit Alberich.
Enter Siegfried, following the personified songbird. Wotan tries to
stop him from freeing Brünnhilde, but Siegfried shatters Wotan's sceptre.
Wotan points to the mountain with the vault of fire that protects the
slumbering Brünnhilde. The stage lights brighten and dim unevenly in shades of
flame.
As Siegfried
approaches the mountain, from the columns and beam drop shimmering 1980s style
casino curtains, the ones with sagging semi-circle loops. They're golden
and sequin in appearance, representing the raging inferno. The stage revolves. Brünnhilde
enters in a wooden crypt surrounded by transparent plastic sheeting. The
crypt is on the revolving stage while Siegfried disappears to the back, behind
the sequin curtain. When it rises, we see the hero and also Brünnhilde's horse,
Grane. It's not a real horse but a life-sized sculpture.
After braving the
flames, Siegfried bizarrely thinks he's come across a sleeping (male)
soldier. He debates, then wakes him. He's shocked when he realizes "Das
ist kein Mann". Equally incomprehensible, upon seeing her lovely
womanhood, Siegfried experiences fear for the first time. She rises from her slumber to the most ethereal music so far. (The instrumentation and harmonies astonish me, and carry me into the cosmos.) What happens
next (though musically outstanding) annoys my sensibilities. Brünnhilde
suddenly starts spouting insanities (in my opinion, as an outside observer).
She is tortured that by knowing a man, her virgin purity will be shattered,
thereby rendering her worthless not only to herself, but also to the very
man who'd ravage her (and love her dearly - toggle sickening cliché violins).
She spouts this nonsense for ages, which means the exquisite music continues
longer. Bitter Sweet. In the end, the star-aligned lovers fall into each other's
arms and sing a powerful consuming duet. The audience starts clapping before
the orchestral coda ends. I wait. The minute the beautiful Finnish conductor's
soft silky locks stop bouncing, I'm on my feet, whoop whooping, hands raised
high above my head, applauding with the energy required to raise dumbbells.
I'm overwhelmed. I'm out of breath. I'm spent. And now I'm
hoarse....
Before describing Götterdämmerung, I wish to give an overview of the Ring Cycle, some facts and
some reflections.....
Wagner's magnum
opus, Der Ring des Nibelungen, is a truly monumental artistic
achievement, one about which critics, authors and academics have been writing
for more than a century. Indeed, even the various productions, singers
and directors have been the subject of study and of countless books.
Wagner wrote both
the libretto and the music. The libretto is based on Norse sagas and the German
epic Nibelungenlied. It took him 26 years to complete. Not only that, Wagner in
fact designed the Bayreuth Festspielhaus specifically for The Ring. Its
construction was funded by King Ludwig, who also supplied a real, live horse to
play Grane in the premiere in 1876. Thus the birth of the annual Bayreuth
Festival, which continues to this day, 140 years later. Take that, Cats,
Phantom and Mousetrap! Ppffff
This is opera like
no other. Indeed, Wagner called it music drama, not opera. Two
techniques, mainly, set it apart from the Verdis, Puccinis and Mozarts. (Don't
get me wrong, I LOVE their works.) The first is through-composition. This
means that there's no repetition in the music. Each new section is entirely
new. In the arias and choruses of the other great men of opera, repetition is
what makes them so memorable. The Ring avoids this. Second is
sprechgesang. This is a music-dramatic ideology in which the melody and rhythm
of the vocal line should imitate closely ordinary spoken inflections. This
contrasts with creating a pleasing melody and then forcing the words into it.
Wagner was in favour of sprechgesang. Those others preferred the
melodious approach (although all employ sprechgesang in the recitativ, that is,
the parts that aren't aria, duet, trio or chorus, i.e. the parts that everyone
forgets how to sing). (This ideology is taken much further in the first half of the 20th century by the likes of Schönberg, Webern and Berg.)
Because of these
features, much of the music, wonderful as it is, washes over me like slow
rapids down a river. The parts that stand out, the parts that I love, are:
1.
the octet sung to the famous Ride of
the Valkyries accompaniment in Act Three of Die Walkure;
3.
the exquisite birdsong in Act Two of
Siegfried;
4.
the ethereal music that accompanies
Brünnhilde's awakening in Act Three;
5.
the scene in which Siegfried dies in
Götterdämmerung;
6.
the music associated with Siegfried
and Valhalla.
Taken as a whole, most of the music throughout is in the lower registers. Many of the characters are male, and many of them are bass or baritone or bass baritone. The masculine brass section of the orchestra is very busy throughout, with more than normal use of the big (deep) tubes.
So how does Wagner
tie it all together? He uses leitmotivs.
Hundreds of them. He is not the first composer to use them, but their use in
The Ring is thorough, throughout and thoughtfully brilliant. A leitmotiv is a
short musical theme, usually from four to perhaps 20 bars in length, that is
associated with a character, a prop, a setting or an event. Each
character in The Ring has his own. There is a leitmotiv for Valhalla, for
Nothung, for Grane, and the list goes on. Each time that element appears in the
libretto, the leitmotiv sounds, in its original form or in some variation that
is nevertheless instantly recognizable. I have two recordings of The
Ring. Each one contains 16 hours of music. There is no way I remember it all.
However, when it comes onto my stereo randomly, I instantly know
it's The Ring.
The music is so
perfectly matched to the action I sometimes forget the actors are
singing and that there is any musical accompaniment.
Here in Melbourne,
I learn some things, and am told some lovely anecdotes. I get chatting with my
neighbours in the back row. Brian tells me that Australia is home to the
world's best opera house. The exterior is in Sydney while the interior is in
Melbourne. He says this in response to my report that I had been unimpressed
with the interior in Sydney. Between Brian and me sits a different patron each
day, someone who's come for only a single performance. For Die Walküre, that
patron is indeed a chorister who will perform in Götterdämmerung
on Monday. (I'm overjoyed to hear that the final opera has a chorus, though
it's fleeting, I'm warned.) He is here in support of his girlfriend who
is making her professional debut as one of the Valkyrie sisters, the first one
to sing on the descending swings. He says that many performing artists hate
putting on shows in Sydney because the acoustics are bad, the stage is cramped,
and the wings barely exist. He also says that each of the current operas
employs progressively more instrumentalists. Das Rheingold has an orchestra of
about 100 players, and I think he says Götterdämmerung
will employ 125!
The technical
issues that extend our intervals on Wednesday are, I am told, quite severe.
During the dress rehearsal, one of the actors gets trapped on a swing,
high in the air. Some of the automations don't work. The place where Brünnhilde
is put to sleep is meant to rise out of the centre of the stage. It doesn't.
Instead she lies level with the burning ring of fire, slightly obscured
from the audience. John and Joyce (more about them later) add that their
son works at the opera house. He confirms that the issues are of such a nature,
normal protocol dictates that the show be cancelled and the audience sent home.
The only reason Opera Australia doesn't do that is because this is The Ring!
On to my own
personal technical issues. When I booked these tickets, flights and hotels, I
did it very carefully. I wanted to limit as much as possible the days I'd
take off work. Cathay Pacific flies out of Melbourne at 00:50 each day. Götterdämmerung
is set to start at 16:00. The recordings on my computer last around 4 1/2 hrs.
Add two 30-minute intervals. I should be out of the theatre in plenty of time.
Except that just before leaving Taiwan, Opera Australia sends an update, announcing
that the first interval is 90 minutes! and the second 40 minutes. I'll get out
the theatre at 10:40. Mild panic sets in. No worries, I'll figure it out.
I go to pick up my
tickets on Monday morning. They're not at the theatre; Opera Australia
still has them. I explain my situation. The lady is fantastically helpful.
She tells me to book an Uber cab in advance, leave my luggage at the
cloakroom, and dash out the second the show ends. She even suggests I
exit through stage door, and leads me that way, a crutch in each hand. There
the receptionist warns that Uber drivers can never find the exit, so they
advise me to leave from the patrons' exit.
I go across the
road to Opera Australia to pick up my tickets. The receptionist there
tells me the show will end at 10:45. She says to change my flight.
I try, with every ounce of hope and determination, but there is no
helping it. Short of purchasing a ticket on a different airline, there is
nothing to be done. On Wednesday I approach the cloakroom attendant and
explain. He says I certainly can leave my luggage there and pick it up after.
I decide that in
order to feel comfortable about the Uber ride, I need to test the service
first. I install the app on my phone and determine to use them to take me to Tante
Erna's on Friday. (In the end I don't use Uber...) I also introduce myself to
Joyce and John, who are sitting at the end of my row. I ask could we exchange
seats for the final act on Monday? They agree.
During Wednesday's
elongated intervals, the Götterdämmerung
chorister tries to sooth me by pointing out that the opera will be done by
11PM. What?! I decide on Thursday morning to shelve all the stress and
panic about missing the last act. I book a new flight with budget Air Asia,
get a room inside someone's Southbank home (a stone's throw from the
theatre) on AirBnB (cheaper), cancel my original Cathay Pacific and request a
refund. Damn it. I feel both relieved and poor....
Worries put to rest, it's back to the here-and-now. Each interval, I
watch the patrons. I love the Western style of enjoying the theatre. A
glass of wine before and another if the interval is long enough. I don't
partake for fear of needing to wee before the curtain. Later when I sit down
and smell said alcohol on the breaths of my neighbors, I am no longer so supportive
of the habit.
Dritter Tag: Götterdämmerung
Prologue
- The curtain rises to reveal a large canvas hanging almost the height of the
stage, and almost as wide. It hangs only as far back as the wall in Mime &
Siegfried's dwelling. It cascades onto the stage. At its lower end, there are
two parts, one that hangs behind three female characters, the other held by the
characters in front of themselves. The canvas is like a giant upside down bib,
with the characters standing in the empty neck of it. On the canvas is a painting
of nature: mountains, trees, blue-pink sky. The painting is also upside down.
The three characters are the Norns, daughters of Erda, dressed as milk
maids of 100 years ago. They're sewing the canvas. They sing about the state of
affairs. One reminisces, then passes the thread (of the conversation) to
the next, and so on. Then they lament about what will be, similarly taking
turns to express the dire trouble the world is in. Once Wotan visited
them to gain wisdom. At that time, he'd taken strips off the world ash tree
to make his sceptre. Recently, he sent his gods to chop down the world ash.
Its logs are piled up for firewood in Valhalla. The Norns despair. The huge
canvas is suddenly released from its supports and crumples to the ground. Exit the
maidens.
Behind is a large
A-framed structure, like the frame of a barn. It reminds me of the shack at the
start of Die Walkure, but this one is much larger. There are four sets of
pillars and rafters affixed to each with beams, but no walls. The whole thing
stands on a raised floor. It revolves atop the stage floor. There is a mattress
on the floor with someone on it. No, some bodies. When the revolving stops,
only the front pillars and rafters are lit. The color makes it look wooden. Brünnhilde
is dressed in a white autumn nightie. (I say autumn because it's not light, but
it is sleeveless.) Siegfried is with her. They sing of their mutual love
and affection, (I am the eagle, you're the wind, etc.) Brünnhilde wishes she
didn't have to stay alone in her fire-protected home. But she understands that
her hero needs to go out and do great deeds. Siegfried gives Brünnhilde his
ring, and then he goes off. We hear his leitmotiv. Enter our fish-soldier
silent chorus. They fill the 'barn'. As Brünnhilde's shoulders drop, so do
theirs. As the leitmotiv becomes fainter and fainter, Brünnhilde exits.
The silent chorus dances in couples, including gay pairings, though the actors
seem reticent and uncomfortable . The dance is nothing special. Their
moves are not unlike my (laughable) rudimentary choreography for elementary students.
Near the end, four couples of real ballroom dancers step closer to the
orchestra pit and show their skills.
Unseen behind the
dancing, voiceless chorus, the set has changed unnoticed.
The music blends
seamlessly into...
Act
One - We are in Gunther's castle, which is on the
banks of a river. He is King of the Gibichungs. A treadmill stands on the left,
a step machine on the right. There are two modern, thin, transparent
plastic armchairs, one in front of the treadmill, the other in front of the
step machine. To the right stands a wooden water shelf with steel legs. The
whole place looks like it was designed by an interior designer, all steel and
minimalist, where everything fits but the personality of the inhabitants is
nowhere to be seen. The only contrast is that two pieces of classic art have
been lowered at the back. Now all the pillars and rafters are lit, and they
shine silver. Hagen, Gunther's half brother, is dressed like a butler or hotel
bellboy. Gunther and his sister Gutrune are dressed in white gym clothes.
Hagen catches them up on the Ring, Tarnhelm etc. Gunther worries about his
popularity. Hagen suggests both he and Gutrune should marry to raise their
approval rating.
Hagen suggests that
Brünnhilde is just the right sort of distinguished maiden for Gunther.
Gunther wants to know how they could wed, since she's already married.
Hagen recommends using a potion to trick Siegfried into falling in love with
Gutrune. (A Midsummer Night's
Dream, anyone?) We hear Siegfried's leitmotiv.
Gunther changes on stage. He removes his gym threads, all the way down to
tighty whiteys.... well, tighty blueys. Two valets help him to don his
more regal suit. Now he looks like a pilot. Gutrune goes off stage to change
into an orange ensemble. Siegfried arrives on a boat. He delivers an ultimatum:
to fight or to befriend the king and his court. After some
getting-to-know-you-s, Siegfried and Gunther swear a blood oath of allegiance:
brothers they are now. Gutrune gives Siegfried a celebratory drink, which is in
fact her magical potion. Instantly, our hero falls in love with her. Exit
all except Hagen, who sits in a chair front centre. He is lit. The rest of the
stage darkens. So too does the music; the tuba has much to say. We can
just make out stage hands changing the set as Hagen, in his menacing bass,
reveals his true intent: capturing the ring!
The stage revolves
slowly, ominously. It is the first time I've seen it go anticlockwise. Brünnhilde
lies on her mattress. She hears the Valkyrie leitmotiv. Enter one of her
sisters, dressed as Brünnhilde was in Die Walküre, like a lesbian potter. The
sister brings grievous news. She repeats what the Norns divulged at the start,
that Wotan has had the world ash chopped down and splintered for firewood.
She adds that Wotan called a gathering of all the gods, but that he is
just sitting, silent. Valhalla is on edge, tense, expectant and afraid. The
sister begs Brünnhilde to return the ring to the Rhinemaidens. Brünnhilde refuses,
declaring that the ring signifies Siegfried's love. Exit the sister.
We hear Siegfried's
leitmotiv. It's played a few times. The pillars and rafters look like they're
reflecting an angry sunset, but then they turn bloodred, signifying that
something dangerous has passed through the ring of fire. Siegfried arrives
looking like Gunther. (He has used the Tarnhelm to disguise himself. It is in
fact the same actor who plays Siegfried, but his ginger locks have been
dyed black - a wig, I guess because later he is ginger again - and he
wears Gunther's regal uniform. This is the only time we see Siegfried in
anything other than his brown shoes and pants and maroon sweater- like
T-shirt.) As "Gunther", he claims Brünnhilde for himself. She
hides and then fights, but ultimately loses. Gunther-Siegfried wrests the ring
from her.
Act
Two - The A-frame has been covered by an off white
marble colored tent. There are eight cottage windows on each of the long sides
and six on the short sides. Each window has three panes across and four up. At
the top of each window is a semi circle with three pie-slice panes. As it
revolves, all sides are closed. From within, a dim light warms the ambiance. It
seems like there's someone inside, slightly off centre? When it ceases moving,
Hagen sits outside it on the same modern transparent plastic chair that was in
Gunther's gym. Alberich creeps all the way across the stage from right to left,
hands like those of a witch, gnarled fingers pointing. He returns to where
Hagen sits, and it is revealed that he is Hagen's father! He caresses Hagen
creepily, demanding his help to recapture the ring. Hagen swears to gain it for
him. Exit Alberich.
Enter Gutrune,
dressed in a white dress, or is it a bathrobe? Soon Siegfried arrives back,
faster than the others because he was transported by the helm. (I have forgotten that the helm has
this Dorothy-not-in-Kansas power.) He announces his
success, and it's settled: they will be wed. Exit Siegfried and Gutrune. Hagen
hails the neighborhood men. They scurry in from the back, left and right, and
also along the aisles beside the audience, left and right. They bring
weapons (guns). They wear black suits with white shirts and bowties. Has
Gunther been attacked? sings the first chorus of the Ring Cycle! (Aahhh,
chorus. I've been yearning. ) Why the call to arms? To celebrate marriage.
The stage revolves. One 8-window side has been removed. Within the tent
is a banquet hall, prepared for a feast. Women stand about in Royal Ascot
frocks and hats. All table cloths hang all the way to the floor. Bouquets
adorn the tables. From the top part of the A ceiling hang four lamps with
spherical covers: from the front red, pink, green, beige. The chorus enters the
banquet hall, each man taking a lady's arm. They continue singing, but the
ladies don't join in. The music has a celebratory tone.
Enter Gunther and Brünnhilde
from the left. She's stiff. She wears no veil, and the train of her wedding
dress is very short. From the right enter Siegfried and Gutrune. She is
wearing a veil, and her dress has a longer, more appropriate train. With her
enter four bridesmaids, two tall, two slightly shorter. They stand in pink
heels and wear very short pink frocks. As Hagen makes announcements and
introduces the couples to the gathered crowd, Brünnhilde won't toe the line.
She sees the ring on Siegfried's finger. Shocked, she accuses him of
betrayal. She enters the banquet hall, throws some tables about. The wedding
cake goes flying. The guests gasp. The stage revolves. When the open side
of the hall is hidden, all but Gunther, Hagen and Brünnhilde exit
unnoticed.
The remaining trio
argue about who has been betrayed and who is guilty of betrayal. Eventually all
agree Siegfried must die. Brünnhilde declares that her magic protects Siegfried
from attack, but she confesses, because she knew he'd never walk away
from someone in need nor shy away from a fight, she'd not extended the protection
to his back. They further agree that to protect Gutrune, they'll kill him
during the hunt and blame it on a wild boar. Brünnhilde stands on the left,
Gunther on the right and Hagen in the centre. Facing the audience, they
deliver a powerful trio. Gunther and Brünnhilde call on the gods for justice.
Hagen calls on Alberich to reclaim his rightful place as lord of Nibelheim. The
guests return. In the end, the two brides and the two grooms cut the cake
together, four hands on the knife. Lights out.
Act
Three - The tent over the A-frame is gone. We now see
its real material of construction: steel or steel alloy. The Rhinemaidens are
there. They are dejected and comical in their display of it. One kicks her toes
into the ground. Another picks at her headdress, plucking it with her hand in a
fashion that mimics a chicken pecking at seeds. When she rises to walk across
the stage, she has one shoe on and one shoe off. The third bashes her head
against a pillar. Enter Siegfried. The maidens become hopeful. They try
flattery to convince Siegfried to return the ring to them. When that doesn't
work, they threaten, warning him of the curse on the ring. He is unmoved.
The next day, the
gentlemen go hunting. Siegfried, Hagen and Gunther arrive first and
chit-chat. Next, the choristers enter. They're dressed as before, but
sans jackets and bowties. One of them wheels in a shopping cart of beer. Some
carry guns. Three sheets of paper with drawings of animals drop from the ceiling;
they have lines and circles, evidently intended for target practice. Some men
take aim. The guns really crack and the targets are genuinely hit, but with
pellets, I guess, though I'm certain I saw a flash of igniting gunpowder.
Siegfried describes his upbringing, and the events of the previous opera.
When he tells of the songbird, the melody, now sung by his tenor voice, is
identical to that sung by the soprano bird-dancer-singer from the previous
opera. It's a fast arpeggioed passage, difficult for any singer, yet both glide
through it with grace to spare. Hagen feigns shock that Siegfried was
previously betrothed, yet swore an oath on Hagen's weapon. (Was this for
blood-brotherhood with Gunther or marriage to Gutrune?) Hagen kills him. We
hear the same ethereal music as Brünnhilde's awakening, then angry brass.
Siegfried hails Brünnhilde with his last (dramatically eeeelongated) breath.
Choristers pick Siegfried up from where he lies slain, front of stage, just
right of centre. They carry him to centre stage, where they "embalm"
him, erect.
Now we're back at
the castle. Brünnhilde slowly, very slowly passes across the back of the stage,
from right to left. She's wearing a long white charity gala dress; it
hangs to the ground. Gutrune enters from front right. She asks after her
husband, Siegfried. She's had bad dreams. Shortly she sees his corpse,
lets out her first tortured scream. She collapses on the floor, weeping.
A group of extras lays flowers in a circle around Siegfried's body. Hagen at
first tells Gutrune that he was killed by a boar. He soon admits the truth.
Hagen and Gunther exchange heated words before advisor pushes king to the
ground. Later, Hagen shoots Gunther dead. Gutrune's second gut wrenching shriek
fills the room. Brünnhilde is torn and tortured. She's lost her man, but
he has atoned for his betrayal.
Brünnhilde compares
Gutrune's tears to children crying over spilled milk. "You stole my
husband in the first place." She hails the Rhinemaidens and promises to
return the ring to them. A fire creeps up the front and back pillars and
rafters, and along all connecting beams. Brünnhilde steps into the circle of
flowers laid by the silent masses. She picks a bunch up and ignites it, burning herself together with her slain lover. Behind them, a curtain rises to reveal
the steps of Valhalla as we saw at the end of Das Rheingold. Upon them sit all
the extras who've been fish, soldiers, miners, choristers, dancers. There are
way more than I thought. These are the last words from the synopsis handed out
before the show: "( Brünnhilde) throws a torch onto the pyre and throws
herself into the flames. As the river overflows its banks, and the Gibichung
hall is consumed, the Rhinemaidens, dragging Hagen to a watery grave,
regain their gold. Flames engulf Valhalla, leaving a human world redeemed by
love."
The audience again
starts applauding before the orchestra is silent. I try to wait, but I fail.
Extras take a bow, minor characters next. When the main characters take theirs,
we're all on our feet. Over and over. The conductor gets deafening
whoops. Then something happens I've never seen. The entire
orchestra comes to the stage. My arms hurt.
