1st Ring @ROH - Rheingold

Bryn Terfel as Wotan© Clive Barda/ROH 2012

 

This a newbie's tale of the Ring, so you have been warned! If you plan to snigger at probably obvious Ring-beginner mistakes and throw piles of reference-recordings at me, shoo! This is MY RING :-)

Spoiler alert, don’t read if you don’t want to know how it looks like :-)

My bench-seats are not great, in fact not at all, I chose the wrong side, the right hand side has all the harps in it and more instruments, so the view is even more obscured than normally and this production unfortunately has quite a lot going on towards the back of the stage and towards the right, so I didn’t see all I would have liked to. Thankfully, I’ve got R2 as well and much higher up, so hopefully will be able to see a bit more. But it is a pity because the visuals are very good, it’s not over-cluttered, but the stuff that is there has meaning and it’s important and good to see it. The bits I didn’t see were mostly the Valhalla behind the Gods which is sort of upstage. Also didn’t see a rainbow staircase that apparently appeared at the end. I only saw one huge dragon hand, but there was I think more of its body to be seen backwards. And I wish I had seen a more facing view of the amazing translucent huge globe holding the Rheingold; did see most of it though.

 
It isn’t going to be my favourite of the cycle, (that will always be Walkure for the very human touch and story and the very flawed characters that live in it, it’s just more emotionally intense, I suspect probably most intense of all), this one is setting things up and you get to know the different worlds and their powers, their conflicts, the politics etc. And you get a first glimpse of the characters, mainly Wotan, Alberich of course too, some of Fricka and quite a bit of Loge, who turned out to be a much less appealing character than I thought, a kind of scheming, manipulating little worm. Not a nice character, I always felt he was a cunning little thing, but there is a streak of evil in him which was very apparent yesterday.

 
I really like the whole thing, this is definitely a Ring for me, yes the story is told and there are all the tricks you need and they speak about, but at no point is it risible or do they appear as funny props. I guess because it is represented fairly realistically, ie the dress is Victorian period - sort of- , not entirely modern but recognisably classical, women in long white dresses, elegant hairdos, Wotan and the other gods in elegant evening dress. It makes the magical props stand out and you get more of a sense that they mean something, and are not just there for decoration. Wotan has his big old stick, that he wields with power, they eat Freia’s golden apples of youth and Wotan bites one in pieces bit by bit when he goes to Nibelheim, obviously pacing its powers until he can come back up in Freia’s absence, she being with the giants. Nibelheim is a sick laboratory type thing of evil monsters, I guess maybe with reference to Nazi experiments in WW2, but not necessarily, just evil monsters, cutting up bodies to bits. Which is why the dragon becomes a kind of an overlarge monster as one of its huge hangs grips Loge. Did remind me of Gozilla, but would not have thought about it had Keith Warner not said that in his Japan Ring the dragon was Gozilla :-p The frog was a nasty big toad, well, big enough to be seen and held in a hand :-) And so on... the ring was shiny and could be very well seen and people were fascinated by it indeed.

I was completely riveted for the entire time, had it not been for my back acting up in 3h of straight sitting on those benches. Urgh... but it will get better as intervals are long in the rest of the Ring.

I loved the Rhein, the maidens were really naked, which I did not expect, but they put some rags on when Alberich appeared. I sosososo loved the translucent big globe with the gold inside, shimmering in a very appealing manner. I also liked the way water was suggested by having sort of greenish lines slowly dance on all the black shiny marble walls of the stage box. It was very well done, simple, but very effective.

I tried to listen out for the music as much as I could, I did get distracted by stage business at one point or another, but it’s well constructed; you do get to enjoy stretches of music and take a good guess of what they mean. And thank God I had read the synopsis in wikepedia which gave me a good idea of what to listen out for ;-) , The ride to Nibelheim with the anvils must be one of the highlights, it’s brilliant! And some things from the Saturday Insight stayed with me too, the 3 chords John Deathridge mentioned during the insight - amazing, you can really hear them all throughout, I wish I could explain them in words, but I can’t; that sequence of three sounds is really present all throughout and comes back again and again, so glad he pointed that out. And the motives are so clear, the staging helps clue your ears in, they naturally show you the props you need and the timing is absolutely perfect so you can hear each motive. That is why I really think it is brilliant! I mean I have never heard this opera live before, and only read a synopsis, but I could follow it step by step, word by word and most importantly listen out for the music in a perfectly harmonised way, you really felt like aha.. this is it, that is this motive or the other :-)

Which means the orchestra did play marvellously indeed. At the very end before the path to Valhalla appears or so,( or was it one of Donner’s thunders?hm..) the brass was ever so slightly off I thought, but not sure, i’ll have to hear it again to know, but the rest, just perfect, very very beautiful, nothing too forceful, nothing too loud, just right. From my own expectations of loudness I would say quieter than I expected, but since this is mostly about dialogue, probably not supposed to be ear-bashingly loud. I loved the way it started, the house lights went down and it became all black and in the darkness the music emerged, which went perfectly with the dark bottom of the Rhein where we came onto. Oh and check this out… Pappano’s batton was luminescent!!! How cool is that!!! It had to be, so that they could see what he was showing them ie that droning music that becomes the Rhein, but it was cool :-)

On to the singers, which does tie into the production perfectly. The only one who vocally felt and sounded a bit harsh at times to me was Loge (Stig Andersen), but he still fits the character. I just couldn’t follow his German particularly well and I didn’t really want to read the surtitles to add another distraction from the proceedings. But it is hard to be basically skipping about the stage most of the time and not sound slightly out of breath at times ;-) In general terms they are amazing! Not perfect textbook singing, I am sure certain people will find better examples of more beautiful singing and so on, but in terms of what they achieve - they don’t play the characters, they are the characters. It must be one of the best acted operas I have ever seen, added to dedicated and above all versatile and colourful singing. I don’t even know if to call it acting, it’s simply complete engagement with the character and commitment to what they have to do to portray the character. I mean I am in awe of Wolfgang Koch’s Alberich, he gets kicked around rather cruelly by those Rheinmaidens, I mean vicious pinching, kicking and so on; those are not nice women, well neither is he a nice dwarf ;-) But I never understood the banter that goes on there before quite so clearly, it’s not as they usually tell it “oh these maidens so fair and he comes along and chases them”. That isn’t it, even in the text that definitely isn’t the way things happen. They play with him, mock him, pretend to like him only to then make fun of him. It is pretty cruel and you can see how he could hate them for it. Generally Alberich gives as good as he gets, but he has to sing rolling round, up and down, on his belly, on his back, in the most unlikely positions and he does it with conviction wow!!!! And just as he was as Sachs earlier in the year at the ROH, he takes about 5 min to warm up the voice and to build up its volume, but he is as he was in Meistersinger as master of pacing, of judging how to sing and when to push and when to hold. He doesn’t put a step wrong. He really really masters Alberich. And he is perfectly understandable, between Bryn and him I never had to look at surtitles, not only in understanding the words, but understanding the meaning of them from the tone of their voice. What a treat! And poor man, did they make him look ugly! You wouldn’t recognise bright, amiable, even young in WK’s case- Sachs in him, in anything, attitude etc. He is Alberich through and through.

But it’s true for the rest too, Sarah Connolly is Fricka in every gesture, from the demanding to the sweet and warm , she really acts in every movement. The 3 Rheinmaidens were harmoniously and flowingly sung by Nadine Livingston, Kai Ruutel and Harriet Williams. They sounded both alluring and mocking at the same time. I liked the fact that there was again this kind of egoistic, evil streak to their beauty. Fafner and Fasolt are a hoot! It’s always fun to see and hear Eric Halfvarson (Fafner), nobody does and makes evil sound scary quite like him ( he’ll always be my favourite and most frightening Inquisitor in Carlo :-) They look nothing alike the two giants, and Fasolt is really sweet, Ian Patterson, singing marvellously, what else?! :-D He really is in love with Freia and she kind of fancies him too, but the other giant is really evil. They each have their very distinct personality and you can totally recognise it. And in their acting and dialogue with Wotan you can understand all the envy and the resentment they have for being forced into peace by him and his contracts. There is this whole conflict underneath between them and Wotan and the Nibelungs, who they had been fighting before and Wotan made peace with his contracts and all of this underlying history cleary comes through in their attitudes, words etc. Mind you, Fricka’s family is also totally weird, dysfunctional, her sister is Freia and she kinda’ fancies Fasolt, but gets lead around by Fricka and actually then wants to be won back by Wotan, but she is sort of undecided and disappointed when Fasolt chooses the gold over her. Froh who is also Fricka’s brother is a kind of a useless fancy bum, fancy clothes and all that, because he is a god, but pretty vain and shallow otherwise. Donner has a bit more guts, but not more brain. And none of it is overacted, you get just enough of it so you understand the family-picture. Of course Wotan has his work cut out with such a family on his wife’s side, useless bunch as they are and not very bright. It’s in no way a superior world given its inhabitants which shows you how hard it will be for Wotan to keep them, ie the gods, at the top of the pile.

 
And it also explains why he has Loge as an ally, although the other gods despise him, with Loge being only a half god.. at least he has brains :-p But of course he is also resentful, given that the gods mock him and dislike him, so he is neither accepted as part of their world, nor has his place in any other. Which is where Wotan finds something in common with him, as he belongs to their society but doesn’t feel as part of that vein and silly bunch either, and his ambitions go far beyond theirs.

This is how well done their characters are in this production, that I could get all of this in just 3h and just from their singing and acting. I also like the fact that it’s not pretty or beautiful in a classical sense, the women look nice but the men? None of them would classify as beautiful on stage in their costumes :-) But it works, you don’t want them to look any other way, from Koch-Alberich in his dirty sort of longjohns and his ugly brown pants after his has the gold and has climbed his particular social ladder, to Loge’s flaming red long curls and slightly short sleeves on his tails ( he dresses like the gods but looks nothing like them as not even close to their slickness ;-), to Bryn’s slightly balding head of hair with no wig and terribly scarred one eyed face , which makes him no less of a god of gods :-) It’s quirky, very detailed and it so works.

Bryn Terfel is just… ohhhhh, I could wax lyrically about him for hours!!! The singing is very smooth, except for maybe 2,3 moments when the line is long and rather strenuous, but you actually never think his is singing, it really feels as if he opens his mouth to say things and do things. The way he builds the character and at the same time holds back, you really feel like you have glimpses of him and there is sooooo much more to understand and see underneath. The way he pacifies them, the way the smooth surface cracks every now and then and you get a sense of how much he wants power for himself. It’s especially evident whenever Loge suggest he should give the gold back to the Rheinmaidens, (but it is almost as if he taunts him knowing Wotan would never give it up if he could have it for himself). You also get a sense that his attention is no longer with Fricka, yes, as a companion, but he wants to be out there, on adventures. You also totally get the sense that he has an agenda, a plan of his own. It’s hard to explain, because it is complex and not at all transparent, but playing those insights and suggesting the layers underneath cannot be easy. And he is commanding in presence as well as vocally, he’s definitely the leader of the pack ;-) He seems to me now as comfortable in the role as he was when I saw him doing Hans Sachs and that is quite amazing considering how different these two are. I’ll always love his singing, the earthy beauty of his voice, and I’ll always cherish the fact that he can bring the intimacy of the liedsinger even to huge parts such as Wotan. It’s those moments when you catch Wotan almost unguarded, trapped in his thoughts, fears and feelings that are so powerful with Bryn. It’s true that once he is on stage he rules it and you can’t help but follow Wotan and be interested in him and want to know more about this conflicted god. ( I have to say I owe quite a bit of my discovery and subsequent love of Wagner to one Mr Bryn Terfel, he was part of my very first Wagner live as the Hollander, he was my very first Sachs, now he is my first Wotan, he’s a very convincing advocate for the music and the strength and depth of Wagner’s most complex and conflicted characters :-))

I really liked Gerhard Siegel who sang Mime, really good, too short a part for him almost, such a voice full of clarity and character. And OMG I just realised Donner was Peter Colman-Wright, our Beckmesser from January! I did think what a nice voice, but I would have never recognised him! Another one who gets brownie points for good acting.

All in all a very good beginning, it’s not one to make you heart weep, it’s more like a detective story - to figure out what everyone wants and so on and what they are like and enjoy the tricks in the music, but it was very well done in all aspects. Really wish I had seen more of it , ie stage-wise. I’m not a big fan of the stories themselves and the tangle of politics and power and greed, or the way Wagner chose to build it, there are other stories in opera I like more, which I guess is why I was always partial to the Walkure of the whole Ring. BUT, thanks to Keith Warner and his clever production, to Pappano and this cast I am hooked :-) They made me follow the story in all its details and above all they told me the story in an involving and at the same time challenging manner. It was never patronising, never ridiculous or over simplistic and always striving for the human complexity of the characters. I guess that was , besides the music and its clarity and strength in painting imagines in sound what won me over, the complexity and depth of characters. They never felt like puppets in Wagner's hand and placed to make the convoluted story work. It felt as if the story got tangled and knotted and complicated because of all the different directions each character tries to pull things to make their own desires, wishes, obsessions and greed come true. Maybe it is what Wagner intended, I don’t know, but this production made me believe it. I can’t help feeling so incredibly lucky to see this Ring now, no better one to keep me interested and focused and engaged. I mean they were so good I hardly remembered to watch or think about Pappano in the pit! 

I did buy the Ring program- brick! Must weigh a ton and costs 20 pounds! But since there will be no DVD I did want to have a memento of it. Problem is, can I make myself drag it with me so I can get some of them to sign it for me, I can’t imagine not having it signed by as many of these people as I can as they are all so brrriliant!

I’d say after this first night that my first experience of the Ring will be a successful one, on more levels than expected. I was hoping to be charmed by the music and I’ve found easier access to it than expected, thanks again to my favourite orchestra and conductor. I never expected to believe in the drama, in fact I could hardly have been more sceptical (I still think Siegfried is a royal bore and a fool and no sane women would want such a hero, but we’ll see about that in due time… ), but I was convinced and puzzled and entertained and I’m intrigued so see what is next :-) ( well, I know what is next, but you know what I mean :-)).

Went to bed last night with it in mind of course and woke up when my radio went off (BBC Radio3)… with Bryn!! Singing a song :-) But it was the weirdest thing being woken up by Wotan :-) In a nice way, and then they played the overture from Meistersinger and it did feel almost like another composer, boy is that miles away from the Ring!! MS has so far been my favourite of the Wagners… I wonder if in a week’s time I’ll still say the same :-)