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Opera.uk, July 2011 |
John Allison |
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Wagner: Die Walküre, Metropolitan Opera |
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Die Walküre
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Robert Lepage’s new Metropolitan Opera production of the Ring is being
staged in collaboration with the director’s own multidisciplinary company Ex
Machina. Ironically enough, my attention was drawn to this fact during the
long wait for the delayed May 14 matinee of Die Walküre to begin. Locked out
of the auditorium, the audience was given no indication as to the cause of
the problem, and the Met seemed either too panic-stricken or embarrassed—a
high-profile hitch, it was also witnessed by hundreds of thousands of radio
listeners and cinema viewers around the globe—to explain why the performance
eventually ran 45 minutes late. Speculation was fairly evenly split between
a set malfunction and the possibility that the frail James Levine was too
ill to conduct, and eventually it transpired that a spiteful deus ex machina
had struck at the stage, not for the first time in this troubled project’s
history. A sensor in one of the giant planks that make up the set had needed
replacement before the show could start.
Seemingly the Met’s answer
to Broadway’s accident-prone Spider-Man, this Ring cycle has involved
reinforcement of the stage and is rumoured to be costing a staggering $40
million. Even if a figure of half that—as has been claimed by the Met’s
defence—is closer to the mark, it would not be money well spent. ‘Lepage aux
folles’, as Martin Bernheimer has dubbed it, involves an ugly and cumbersome
mobile sculpture (set design by Carl Fillion) made of multiple planks that
twist and contort into various singer-unfriendly obstacle courses. Sure, the
tree trunk we see at the start of Die Walküre tips up to make the roof of
Hunding’s hut; by Act 3 the planks have become see-saws on which the
Valkyries ride make-believe steeds, but their horseplay not only looked
absurd but felt cautious (at least one of their number had hurt herself at
an earlier performance). The planks also allow for the projection of naive
shadow-play onto the set, supplying, for instance, an irrelevant
illustration of Siegmund’s story of the Wölfing family. For the kitschy
Magic Fire, Brünnhilde is replaced by a body-double who hangs upside down.
So Cirque du Soleil, so … so what? In an effort not to frighten operatically
conservative New Yorkers, this expensive white elephant comes complete with
semi-traditional costumes (François St-Aubin) straight out of a Wagner comic
book. It’s hard to believe that this audience—passionate enough about its
singers—is really serious: applause broke out with the drop of the final
curtain, a good few seconds before the end of the quiet chord that the
orchestra strove to balance so well.
Making it all worthwhile were
the high musical standards enforced by Levine. Though the stricken conductor
had reportedly struggled through some recent performances, here he started
off with surprising vigour, and—even more surprisingly—maintained it. Tempos
were fleet, even by his own previous standards, and his wonderful orchestra
played with glowing focus and definition. With a feeling for the huge
musical arches, he never allowed the dramatic energy to slacken, nor did he
ever compromise the music’s great expansiveness. Levine is not scheduled to
conduct at the Met again until October, and many must have wondered whether
they were witnessing what will prove to have been his last performance. If
so, it will have been a worthy farewell from one who has served the house
with such distinction.
Vocal standards were similarly high,
and it is hard to imagine a better all-round cast being assembled anywhere
else today. But with Lepage offering no Personenregie and precious little
other illumination, each singer was left to upload their most generalized
interpretation. Tackling his first Siegmund, Jonas Kaufmann’s coolly-acted
and sometimes self-conscious character may have lacked the unfettered ardour
of his great predecessors on this stage, but he sang with subtle
musicianship and had reserves of power for a thrilling ‘Wälse’. Together
with the Sieglinde of Eva-Maria Westbroek, making her Met debut, he brought
shining ardour to the climax of Act 1. Westbroek supplied gleaming
tone and showed once again what a serious artist she is (everything she
wasn’t in Covent Garden’s Anna Nicole). Hans-Peter König was the admirably
black-voiced Hunding.
Looking ludicrous (enthroned on a ram’s-head
float) but sounding wonderful, Stephanie Blythe projected Fricka with
laser-like clarity and more vocal substance than is usually heard in the
part today. Bryn Terfel’s young personification of Wotan (quite bright at
the top of his range to match this) could have done with firmer direction,
and he made up a playful god as he went along, spanking Brünnhilde with his
spear during her ‘Ho-jo-to-ho’, but especially in Act 2 he sang with
absolute commitment and clarity. That leaves (in addition to an excellent
team of Valkyries) the hard-working Brünnhilde of Deborah Voigt, in some
ways an endearing figure but vocally out of place here, with a brittle,
narrow-bore voice in comparison with those of Terfel and Blythe. Hers was
the sort of Brünnhilde you’d be pathetically grateful to find in a
provincial house, but which seemed overparted at the Met.
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