Continuing the occasional mash-up of SNLC with Demi Moaned's occasional opera series, 3CM starts with the usual question, changing just the title of the opera:
Anyone here see the Met-HD of Götterdämmerung today?
Given that the show ran 5 hours, 50 minutes, with the intermissions, obviously this is one for the diehards. However, for all its length, the plot can be summed up in one REM lyric:
"It's the end of the world as we know it...."
This production also marked the culmination of the now-notorious Robert Lepage staging with "the machine", as opera geeks have come to know/loathe/describe the 45-ton set that has more than once had a mind of its own. More below the flip.....
First, you can read the synopsis of the plot here. However, to make full sense of it, you need to refer to the first 3 operas of Wagner's cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen, where synopses are available from the Met's dedicated Ring site here.
As luck would have it, self SNLC'ed the earlier operas respectively, not that you cared:
1. Das Rheingold SNLC
2. Die Walküre SNLC
3. Siegfried SNLC
You can read reviews of this production from:
(i) Anthony Tommasini, NYT
(ii) Martin Bernheimer, Financial Times
While Martin Bernheimer is almost always entertaining for his ultra-snarky, take-no-prisoners reviews, and Tommasini can seem rather fey in his write-ups when it seems that he may want to wail on the Met at times, I took mild issue with a bit of MB's prose. I actually found the metallic "puppet" horse rather endearing, since most productions don't bother with any sort of horse, especially in the final cataclysm when Brünnhilde does her Thelma and Louise moment in the Immolation Scene. Likewise, I wasn't as irritated as MB by most of the imagery, although I'm sort of with him about the very end, where virtually nothing is left on stage, after the Rhinemaidens got what they came for and dispatched one character deserving of it at the end. The collapse of Valhalla could have had a lot more dazzle and imagery, where, for once, more cheap thrills special effects would have been welcome.
This lack of anything besides undulating planks and imagery does raise a question about how to stage one aspect of the very end of Götterdämmerung, namely, do the Gibichungs survive the conflagration of the hall and see Valhalla burn in the distance, or do they snuff it? The only prior production that I've "seen" (i.e. on TV),the 1976-1980 Bayreuth centenary production by Patrice Chereau, left the Gibichungs as witnesses at the end, staring blankly at the audience in the wake of the final fire. This Met production by Lepage, by contrast, clears the stage of the Gibichungs, presumably for practical reasons, to get them out of the way of "the machine" and its planks. Implicit in that, however, whether intended or not, is that the Gibichung race doesn't survive.
That comment about "the machine" also brings up what I mentioned about its notoriety over the course of the production, which Tommasini alluded to in his review here:
"In recent interviews Mr. Lepage, bristling at some of the criticism of his Ring has argued that he deserves more credit for the highly praised singing and acting, and that this is not a production about a set."
It is true that, from the 3 parts of this
Ring that I saw, the acting and singing were pretty darn good. However, given all the demands that "the machine" required in terms of all the building work that had to be done for the Met stage to accommodate the sheer weight of "the machine", not to mention its scattered foul-ups over the course of the 4 operas, Lepage protests too much about this "not being a production about a set". Sorry, Mr. Lepage, just by sheer force of scale, that's what it became. You should have known that with all the publicity around a 45-ton set, by definition.
This quote is the one case where Tommasini came as close as I've ever seen him come to Bernheimer-like roasting criticism:
"Part of me wanted to see the machine collapse into a heap of smoldering planks at the end of the Immolation Scene, which would have been appropriate."
Once past that, however, I pretty much enjoyed seeing this on the big screen. Maybe seeing it on a big screen made a huge difference for me, compared to Bernheimer. I also finally got to see, and hear, Jay Hunter Morris in his second opera as Siegfried. Even though I knew that he's from Texas, it was a shock to hear his regular speaking voice in intermission banter with Patricia Racette, since JHM has a total Texas twang and good ol' boy manner. I have to admit that I'm betraying a subliminal accent/class bias there, since JHM's speaking voice is one that isn't generally associated with opera or "high culture", where we almost expect always either an NPR-type of American voice, or at least certainly more "Northern". Yet he has a very friendly and warm manner, and seems quite genuine in his enthusiasm and good cheer. Little wonder that he won a lot of hearts and a big ovation at the end, besides getting through it all intact after nearly 6 hours.
If the story of Götterdämmerung has just one loser (although given that it's about the end of the world, just about everyone loses - with one exception, of which more later), it's probably Gunther, the king of the Gibichungs. In the role, Iain Paterson even managed to put on a "Mr. Cellophane Man" hangdog, slouchy expression as things spiral out of control. Fortunately, in his intermission chat, Paterson comes off as infinitely less loserly than Gunther. Yet in his acting skills, during the Act III Funeral March, without singing a note, when he picks up the sword Nothung, his facial expressions convey someone who gets back a little dignity, away from that hang-dogness, as he has his OMG moment and starts to get a clue about Hagen's evildoings. He didn't commit the key crime in Act III, but he realizes that he shares in the guilt.
Likewise, the conductor, Fabio Luisi, the Met's new principal conductor (and most probably their next music director, contrary to the bloviations of the worst and most sensationalist writer in classical music, Norman Lebrecht [a.k.a. Norman the Idiot] - but I digress), did a fine, generally unobtrusive job of controlling the proceedings from the orchestra pit. Luisi is far from a show-off as a conductor, and perhaps isn't exactly the most exciting thing since sliced bread. But at the risk of sounding like back-handed compliments, Luisi supported the singers well and paced matters nicely, so that we came in at just under the projected running time of 6 hours, even with a 10 minute late start to accommodate latecomers in the audience (for once, no delays due to "the machine"). If nothing else, Luisi "plays well with others" as a conductor, which may not be ideal for the Met or all, but may have to do for now.
With the ladies, Deborah Voigt did fine as Brünnhilde, as in Siegfried, and Wendy Bryn Hamer did likewise as Gutrune, Gunther's sister. This was actually Hamer's 3rd Ring role, as she was Freia in Das Rheingold and one of the Valkyries in Die Walküre. Of course, in Hamer's case, being cute and blonde doesn't hurt :) . Götterdämmerung is also the only Ring opera that features chorus, who did well also. (BTW, both JHM and DV shook hands with the prompter at the curtain call. One wonders.)
I mentioned that just about everyone loses in Götterdämmerung, except the Rhinemaidens, obviously, given that it's about the end of the world. However, there's also Alberich, the greedy Nibelung dwarf whose theft of the Rhinegold and forging of the ring in the first opera sets the whole chain of events in motion. The contrast between Alberich and Wotan, who then stole the ring from Alberich, is notable in their ultimate fates. Both of them have resorted to various subterfuges, including siring offspring as proxies, to try to recover the ring. By the end, however, i.e. the fourth opera, Wotan has had the World Ash Tree cut down and its logs piled around Valhalla, for the final conflagration, because he's apparently just sick of it all. Alberich, by contrast, is utter ruthless selfishness personified, and just wants his ring back so he can continue to f--- over the world as much as he wants. In his one scene, the dream scene with his son Hagen at the start of Act II, Alberich makes clear that he wants the ring back and doesn't want the Rhinemaidens to get it. In Act I, however, via the Valkyrie Waltraute (a luxury cameo from Waltraud Meier, BTW), Wotan wishes out loud that if Brünnhilde would return the ring to the Rhinemaidens, its curse on the world would be lifted. In other words, he doesn't want back the ring for himself, finally. In the end, Wotan, for all his faults (and goodness knows, he has many), ultimately recognizes his guilt in the saga, and is willing to expiate that guilt at the end. Alberich has no such qualms of conscience, and AFAICT, is still alive at the end. He basically screws the world over, and pretty much gets away with it. (Sound like any wingnuts that you know?) I'd love for there to be a production of Götterdämmerung where at the end, the Rhinemaidens find the sword Nothung in the funeral pyre ashes, Alberich suddenly appears on the horizon, and the Rhinemaidens take the sword and give Alberich what he deserves with it.
This is also kind of odd, because in principle, with the Rhinemaidens reclaiming the ring at the end, in principle, the curse on the ring is gone and the gods could be saved. Yet Wagner called the work Götterdämmerung, after all, "The Twilight of the Gods". The British composer Robin Holloway perhaps summed up as well as anyone why the destruction of the gods and of Valhalla occurs nonetheless:
"The gold and the curse have counterpointed each other throughout Twilight because their meaning is intertwined; the waters have been ravished of their treasure which thereby becomes unclean; its restoration to them cleanses it and restores what is right. But this apparently simple act involves a complex tangle, every thread of which has to be sorted out. As part of this an old order has to disappear, and now comes the second fire, promised by the Norns, rehearsed by Waltraute, implicit in Loge's final words in Rhinegold - the destruction of Valhalla."
Citation: Robin Holloway, "Motif, memory and meaning in Twilight of the Gods", from On Music: Essays and Diversions, 1963-2003. Claridge Press, Ltd., p. 52 (2003)
Not much else to say, is there? With that, time for the usual SNLC protocol, namely your loser stories of the week, or maybe you even saw the HD-cast today of the opera, and can comment on it.