Germany Wagner, Götterdämmerung: Soloists, Refrain and Further Refrain of the Deutsche Oper, Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin / Nicholas Carter (conductor). Deutsche Oper Berlin, 20.5.2024. (MB)
Manufacturing:
Director – Stefan Herheim
Revival administrators – Eva-Maria Abelein, Silke Sense
Set designs – Stefan Herheim, Silke Bauer
Costumes – Uta Heiseke
Video – Torge Møller
Lighting – Ulrich Niepel
Dramaturgy – Alexander Meier-Dörzenbach, Jörg Königsdorf
Refrain director – Jeremy Bines
Forged:
Siegfried – Clay Hilley
Brünnhilde – Ricarda Merbeth
Hagen – Albert Pesendorfer
Gunther – Thomas Lehman
Gutrune / Third Norn – Felicia Moore
Alberich – Jordan Shanahan
Waltraute – Annika Schlicht
First Norn / Flosshilde – Lindsay Ammann
Second Norn / Wellgunde – Karis Tucker
Woglinde – Lee-ann Dunbar
All issues, good, unhealthy, and detached, should come to an finish; or should they? The concept Wagner’s Ring is cyclical is widespread – many routinely confer with attending a ‘cycle’ – however it’s at the least open to criticism. Extra on that later, however this Deutsche Oper Ring has definitely come to an finish with performances of nice distinction, maybe essentially the most uniformly properly solid I’ve ever seen, and with astonishing conducting from Nicholas Carter, definitely the perfect I’ve heard since Daniel Barenboim in 2013. Not, in fact, to neglect the superlative taking part in given all through by the Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper, displaying itself as soon as once more to be the match of any (Wagner) orchestra on this planet, the Staatskapelle throughout city included. No Ring could be something in any respect with out Wagner’s reimagined Greek Refrain, main, commenting, questioning, seducing, thrilling, and chilling; this one, as translucent because it was darkly malevolent, as weighty because it was agile, did all that and extra. Solely now, within the ultimate instalment, it was joined by Wagner’s precise refrain, these of the Deutsche Oper as seemingly at all times excelling not solely vocally however as dramatic contributors onstage.
A Ring within the theatre is, in fact, its manufacturing too; this marked the tip of Stefan Herheim’s memorable staging. No Ring is ideal: it’s not, ought to by no means be, that type of work. It’s too large, too unmanageable, an excessive amount of a ‘world’ for that. This has contributed a lot, although, not least from its insistence on Wagner’s ‘three days with preliminary night’ as a musically pushed drama that navigates between the considerations of an ongoing ceremony and one thing explicitly up to date. In that, at its finest, it has penetrated to Wagner’s personal mythological apply, doing what it has proven and what it has urged to us. If the ultimate scene of Siegfried (evaluation right here) proved for me a uncommon disappointment, it additionally gained from what occurred subsequent — although I nonetheless assume it might have benefited from heightened consideration to the drama of Siegfried and Brünnhilde and fewer to the gang of copulating extras round them. Right here, although, on the onset of the Prologue to Götterdämmerung, the generational shift (which has already, strictly, been completed) is accompanied by a scenic one; or fairly, the motion passes between two primary settings all through, the previous one of many rehearsal room and piano, and the brand new one of many Deutsche Oper itself.
We most likely mustn’t make an excessive amount of of a distinction, or perhaps we should always, between actors and refrain. Maybe some have gone on to be viewers members, while some proceed of their motion and ‘additional’ roles. The extra necessary factor, I feel, is that two associated worlds much less collide than work together. There’s, in spite of everything, little level in telling a narrative if nobody is there to hear. In any case, the actors encompass blindfolded Norns (echoing the state at one level of the treble Woodbird), choreographically heightening the drama simply as they did to kind the Rhine within the first scene of Das Rheingold — and simply as they’ll within the ultimate scene of Götterdämmerung to kind the hearth, aided by hanging pink lighting.
Once more, a number of the strongest results are the best and, as Wagner put it, essentially the most ‘purely human’. Meyerbeer’s ‘results with out trigger’ are neither his enterprise nor ours, regardless of the (exaggerated) claims which were made for the elder composer’s affect on this drama. A level of grand opéra, sure, however different composers in that style, the creator of Rienzi included, loom bigger, which isn’t to say {that a} blazing account of the second act trio – courtesy of the orchestra, Carter, Ricarda Merbeth, Albert Pesendorfer, and Thomas Lehman – didn’t thrill, for it very a lot did.
Again for now, although, to Herheim. (In a way, the excellence is fake, albeit essential to say something in any respect.) The theatrical ‘enterprise’ of dressing up continues to loom massive, enabling characters to change into – maybe even to depart behind – ‘themselves’, in addition to actors to change into characters. White sheets change into improbably massive marriage ceremony clothes for Brünnhilde and Gutrune, their entanglements, their attract, and their bodily risks providing visible metaphors aplenty. Rhinemaidens, in dropping their exterior trappings, change into Norn-like, hieratic, of their warnings to Siegfried, Carter’s quasi-liturgical dealing with of the rating each reflecting and main that. Hagen assumes Siegfried’s heroic costume, whereas Siegfried fatally loses his. Gunther is likewise reworked from preliminary silliness (not a criticism, however fairly a commendation of Lehman’s alert efficiency) into one thing extra. The white tie of an ‘artist’ is the important thing, or at the least it appears to be, as it’s for Siegfried’s transformation (as properly, undoubtedly, as no matter it’s Hagen slips into his drink). Their scene on Brünnhilde’s rock may be very properly dealt with, each initially equals, sharing the strains, earlier than Gunther fails and Siegfried should take over ‘as’ Gunther — earlier than, in fact, returning to the Gibichung Corridor, the place the sleep into which he retains falling (Hagen’s doing?) overcomes him. It appears additionally to overwhelm throughout his ultimate scene, staggering about, not ‘himself’ — till he can lastly change into himself at his dying, absolutely in step with Wagner.
Within the meantime, Hagen’s departure into the viewers for his Watch proves, with additional Brechtian use of home lights at crucial moments, a telling and hanging coup de théâtre. First, he finds Waltraute there, his intimidation a prod to the mission she undertakes to her sister. Then he conducts the dialogue with Alberich from there, his father on the stage, Siegfried sleeping. Alberich’s presence as clown of dying, spying the motion, even attempting to drive the ring from the sleeping Siegfried’s hand, visually informs not solely his son’s look however that of zombie friends to the abortive weddings. As we hear the Nibelung and his ring musically envelop the motion, so does he color the contributors too. Not for nothing does he manically play the piano on the finish of the primary act and resume his efficiency in the beginning of the second. His longtime antagonist seems too, actors assembling to point out, first throughout Waltraute’s narration and now and again thereafter, Valhalla’s throng of gods and heroes, a weary Walvater lastly descending to the piano to obtain Brünnhilde’s final judgement.
Earlier than (re-)turning to the shut, I ought to add a bit in regards to the vocal performances. Merbeth mixed the headstrong virtues of her Walküre Brünnhilde and the lyrical ones of her Siegfried efficiency right into a memorable assumption of her function. Clay Hilley once more proved tireless – as tireless as a Siegfried can ever actually be – and dedicated because the doomed hero. Pesendorfer and Jordan Shanahan’s Hagen and Alberich solid spells each darkish and magical by way of voice and stage presence alike. Lehman’s Gunther and Felicia Moore’s warmly sympathetic Gutrune captured the troublesome, typically thankless essence of their characters, at all times alert to the actual calls for of the staging. Annika Schlicht’s chalumeau-like Waltraute was as a lot of a vocal and dramatic pleasure as her Fricka. Norns and Rhinemaidens had been uniformly glorious. This was, I’m delighted to reiterate, at the least the equal of any Ring I’ve heard in uniform excellence of casting, and maybe greater than that. There might have been starrier casts; there might have been particular person performances ‘bettered’ in a method or one other, for there at all times can be. But throughout the board, the Deutsche Oper’s sturdy sense of firm will take some beating.
Following departure of all from the stage and a wonderfully oracular picture summoning up recollections of Delphi, but in addition of Patrice Chéreau and Pierre Boulez revelling in Wagner’s personal revisiting its prophetic indeterminacy, we return to the place we started: rehearsal room with lights, emergency exit, and piano, no signal of suitcases, refugees, or anybody/-thing else we’ve got seen in between. A cleaner (with a touch of Erda to her?) involves verify all is correctly. All has been washed away, or has it? Others will likely come alongside to stage the work once more. The query stays whether or not they’ll have discovered something. For Wagner’s ‘watchers’, these ‘women and men moved to the very depths of their being’ had been all alongside supposed to suggest this was not totally a return, that consciousness had been created or raised. The Ring ends not in E-flat-major, however in D-flat, the important thing of Valhalla. Over, then, to those that have made it, us included. Solely, given the achievements up to now of ‘human consciousness’, who would wager in opposition to catastrophic repetition?
Mark Berry
