Switzerland Wagner, Das Rheingold: Soloists, Extras on the Zurich Opera Home, Philharmonia Zürich / Gianandrea Noseda (conductor). Broadcast stay (directed by Michael Beyer) from Zurich Opera Home, 18.5.2024. (JPr)
How ought to the Ring cycle be carried out and the way ought to any new staging be reviewed. Firstly, ideally it ought to play out over six days with a break day between Die Walkϋre and Siegfried and additional day’s grace earlier than Götterdämmerung. Nevertheless, in Zurich it takes 9 days to get from the start to the tip of the cycle presently being streamed stay on the opera home’s personal web site and likewise accessible on medici.television. There are critiques of the person operas on Seen and Heard so maybe I don’t should be unduly forensic in my evaluation and definitely since I agree with a lot that John Rhodes wrote about Andreas Homoki’s Das Rheingold in Might 2022 (overview click on right here).
There could possibly be one total critiques or feedback on the 4 operas in two components; excited about it, I consider it’s value ‘voicing’ my opinion of every of them as I see and listen to them. I can’t go far down reminiscence lane to however my first Ring cycles had been that by Glen Byam Shaw and John Blatchley for Sadler’s Wells/English Nationwide Opera and Götz Friedrich at Covent Backyard within the 1970/80s and there have been many Rings – north, south, east and west – since, with a quantity just lately reviewed for Seen and Heard. Ah the directorial excesses I’ve been witness to, however I try to method every new staging with an open thoughts, and such is the case right here in Zurich. Homoki is quoted as saying ‘Generally you need to simply clear away the garbage after which individuals say, oh no, it was simply the garbage that we beloved a lot. OK, then too dangerous.’ Within the metropolis the place Wagner conceived most of his Ring, Homoki’s Das Rheingold is (nearly actually) a clean canvas with the naked partitions of the three rooms on a revolve he reveals us (not less than right here in Rheingold) as ‘simply house as if you’re in heaven, the place there’s not time’.
Every part of Christian Schmidt and Florian Schaaf’s set principally has two aspect doorways and one central window and right here they’re tailored to counsel the bedrooms of the Rhinemaidens, the drawing room after which the eating room of the gods (with its lengthy gold desk). It reeks of a palatial home, I might counsel Zurich’s Villa Wesendonck, although I used to be reminded too of Bayreuth’s Wahnfried. That drawing room with its heavy leather-based furnishings is dominated by a big cupboard on the rear utilized in quite a lot of methods; notably for Alberich’s transformation right into a ‘life like’ dragon and a relatively extra risible toad. It’s also the supply of a blinding white mild Donner conjures up as he sings ‘Heda! Heda, Hedo!’ Nevertheless, there isn’t any Rainbow Bridge or Entry of the Gods in Valhalla who simply sit round that giant desk while Wotan shuts the door on the lamenting Rhinemaidens.
However, Wotan (unusually nowadays) really has a spear and a hoop which is a hoop, although the Rhinegold originally is only a small nugget. Alberich additionally has a correct gold Tarnhelm (right here a series mail coif as from a medieval go well with of armour) The Nibelungs (bowler hatted and masked in black) pile up giant chunks of gold and one in every of them is used to despatch Fasolt. Homoki may additionally be making a remark about greed and capitalism versus industrialisation as a result of at one level there seems an enormous pile of (char)coal and Alberich has the highest hat and fur coat of a rich Victorian entrepreneur.
The 4 scenes of Das Rheingold are offered with the curtain coming down between them and, sadly, the Descent and Ascent from Nibelheim – no criticism of the luxurious Philharmonia Zurich is meant – is accompanied by the worst anvils I’ve ever heard, sounding merely like cowbells. In Christian Schmidt’s costumes, Homoki’s Rhinemaidens replicate the interpretation calling them ‘silken issues’ and are platinum blondes in white pyjamas, Alberich known as a ‘vagrant’ and that’s how this ogling, dissolute-looking character first seems climbing although the window. There begins loads of chasing by means of the varied rooms which is a function of this Rheingold, as is the usage of the window akin to when Wotan and Loge exit by means of it on the way in which to Nibelheim. Additionally, Freia will stand on the windowsill to be obscured by an enormous pile of ‘gold’.
The gods are richly attired together with Wotan in pink velvet brocade coat, Fricka in a barely matronly robe, and Donner and Froh with boaters and cricket bats as if off for a day watching cricket at Lord’s. One other motif of this staging is a big gold framed canvas displaying a – Caspar David Friedrich-like – Rhine (?) valley with Valhalla on excessive and Fafner bursts by means of it at one level: the ‘giants’ are dressed like Bavarian foresters. This principally leaves us with a mercurial, barefooted Loge, right here, owing an ideal deal to Johhny Depp’s Jack Sparrow (Pirates of the Caribbean) or his inspiration, Keith Richards, although neither had Loge’s armoury of flame results.
Due to the comparatively small opera home the total complement of musicians for Das Rheingold is outwardly not used and, I perceive, this consists of solely having two (out of 4) harps and 4 (out of eight) double basses. Though the music is grandiose when it must be, as heard by means of loudspeakers, it has a extra intimate, chamber-like fragility and transparency of orchestral textures and permits each phrase to be heard. Effectively-played and equally well-conducted by Gianandrea Noseda.
A lot of singers reappear by means of the Ring and will probably be commented on repeatedly. Tomasz Konieczny’s resonantly sung Wotan is weak, ineffectual and simply swayed, he brandishes his spear nevertheless it seems to offer him no authority in any way. Extra nice singing from Claudia Mahnke as a decided, manipulative Fricka, who’s one thing of a harridan; Kiandra Howarth is an agitated Freia who appears to take a flowery to David Soar’s lovelorn, sympathetic Fasolt who falls sufferer to Brent Michael Smith’s avaricious Fafner.
Xiaomeng Zhang sings with some heft as Donner while Omer Kobiljak’s Froh is extra attractively sung. The Rhinemaidens – Uliana Alexyuk (Woglinde), Niamh O’Sullivan (Wellgunde) and Siena Licht Miller (Flosshilde) – are extra individually distinctive vocally as a trio than generally you hear and Anna Danik is a magisterial, blindfolded Erda who appears like an older relative of these Rhinemaidens. Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacker is a dependable Mime although I’m but to be satisfied by Christopher Purves as Alberich. He portrays all his character’s feelings from lust and boastfulness to frustration and despair, however his singing sounds barely under-powered to me and too Lieder-like at instances. Lastly, Matthias Klink’s sarcastic Loge believably reveals who was actually is in cost for many of this Rheingold.
Jim Pritchard
Featured picture: Das Rheingold 2022: Matthias Klink (Loge) and Tomasz Konieczny (Wotan) © Monika Rittershaus
Creatives:
Producer – Andreas Homoki
Set and Costume design – Christian Schmidt
Assistant Creative stage designer – Florian Schaaf
Lighting designer – Franck Evin
Dramaturgy – Beate Breidenbach, Werner Hintze
Forged:
Wotan – Tomasz Konieczny
Donner – Xiaomeng Zhang
Froh – Omer Kobiljak
Loge – Matthias Klink
Fricka – Claudia Mahnke
Freia – Kiandra Howarth
Erda – Anna Danik
Alberich – Christopher Purves
Mime – Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke
Fasolt – David Soar
Fafner – Brent Michael Smith
Woglinde – Uliana Alexyuk
Wellgunde – Niamh O’Sullivan
Flosshilde – Siena Licht Miller
