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Bloomberg, 24. April 2011 |
Manuela Hoelterhoff |
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Wagner: Die Walküre, Metropolitan Opera, 22. April 2011 |
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Sick Diva, Tripping Brunnhilde Enliven Met ‘Walkure’
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Sieglinde got sick and Brunnhilde tripped as the Metropolitan Opera unveiled
its new production of Richard Wagner’s “Die Walkure” (The Valkyrie) on
Friday.
This was the second installment of the four-opera “Ring”
cycle as envisioned by Canadian director Robert Lepage and a team as large
as the populations of Nibelheim and Valhalla.
Central to all is a
gigantic machine with movable slats, weighing in at around 45 tons and
requiring special support.
Last fall, a promising “Rheingold” showed
off a mesmerizing, stage-filling image of the Rhine with swimming maidens.
Even though the fabled rainbow bridge that takes the gods into Valhalla
failed to materialize on opening night, we looked forward to seeing them in
their new home.
It seems those giants didn’t build Wotan much of a
mansion. Unlike in most productions, there’s no sign of the place, though
there is a creaky chair elevator for wife Fricka.
The Wotans bicker
atop a flattened volcano. Meanwhile, those mere mortals, Sieglinde and
Hunding, forage in a ditch in front of a huge wall of trees. From row S,
they looked cut off at the knees.
Striking stage pictures are few.
Ach Du Lieber
Where’s all the wizardry we surely could expect
from Lepage and his many millions? The pervasive gray suggests Berlin
bunkers or Dresden after the war. For that wrenching moment at the end of
Act I, when Sieglinde and her beloved brother Siegmund sing of spring and a
new life, the set just took on a nasty green glow.
At least the
Valkyries offered a few laughs as they rode those planks like horses.
Lepage, a lauded man of avant-garde theater and Cirque du Soleil, seems
puzzled by opera. What to do with all those singers! As little as possible,
apparently. Vicious Hunding, for example, is sung by rotund Hans-Peter
Koenig who stood around amiably like jolly old Falstaff hoping for a pint.
We might as well be seeing a concert staging. There’s no space for
singers to interact without tumbling off an incline.
Deborah Voigt,
singing her first Brunnhilde, tripped running up the set to greet Wotan.
Ever the trouper, she waved cheerfully to the audience, and carried on with
a fine “Hojotoho.”
In a role that reduces even great divas to
shrieks, she sang with confidence and musicality. It would be nice if her
voice were larger, but after her amazing weight loss, she looked sensational
in her shiny tiny breastplate and since Brunnhilde doesn’t do much in this
production, we were often happy just to look at her.
Wotan’s Farewell
Key scenes went unexplored. Teetering close to a perilous drop,
Stephanie Blythe, the Fricka, boomed from the safety of her chair, leaving
the more athletic Bryn Terfel to climb around her. He’s found a better
barber since “Rheingold,” and sang with emotional range and magnificent
tone, especially in Wotan’s heartbreaking farewell to his beloved daughter.
By then some five hours had passed and it was time to say Aufwiedersehen
to Brunnhilde as Wotan surrounds her with a ring of fire that only the
greatest warrior will breach.
That scene, of course, points to the
next opera, “Siegfried,” wherein the tenor must do just that.
I hope
he is a fabulous Abseiler. Only a rapelling superman could reach the poor
thing who is hanging upside down from a cliff.
Dangling Double
As the fire music rose from the orchestra, Lepage offered his feeblest
idea of the evening: Wotan awkwardly pulled Brunnhilde offstage, so that
stagehands could dangle a double from up high.
Otherwise, I had a
good time.
Musically, this was a great evening, with James Levine
conducting a performance that flowed along with lovely details and grand
sonorities. That a man who has been in poor health can wave his arms for so
many hours without flagging was nothing short of miraculous and also
poignant.
Which brings us to Siegmund and his Sieglindes.
Unlike all too many Wagnerian tenors -- dry and hefty -- the lithe Jonas
Kaufmann sings with radiance and poetry. But Eva-Maria Westbroek,
in her Met debut, sounded a bit cloudy and looked frumpy for someone who had
just had a huge success as sex bomb Anna Nicole Smith at London’s Royal
Opera.
Before the second act began, general manager Peter Gelb came
out to announce the soprano was feeling sick but singing even so. As the act
ground on, she sounded astonishingly better. She also looked curiously
different.
In fact, she was different. She was the marvelous Margaret
Jane Wray, who got shoved out at the last minute when poor Westbroek
realized she really wasn’t up for another few hours of torment.
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