Well we have finally come to the
end of this epic adventure that Union Ave. Opera embarked on 4 years ago. All 4 operas of the Richard Wagner Ring Cycle,
performed in the Jonathan Dove revision and reduction. I commend them for the effort. But, now that it is over, I am left wondering
if it was really worth it. But more
about that later… (I will post the links to my previous reviews below).
First – The Bright Side:
The cast! By far the shining bright spot of this
performance of Götterdämmerung (hereafter just “G”) were the cast. And this cast was terrific. There was not a weak link anywhere in this
cast. I would say that of the 4 Ring
operas this cast was the best and the most consistent. Leading the cast was the brilliant Brünnhilde
of Alexandra LoBianco. She was one of
the only members of the cast who appeared in this role in the earlier Ring
operas and she was consistently outstanding, but her performance in G was
terrific. Someday I expect she will have
a chance to sing the entire role. I
believe she has a future ahead as a major dramatic soprano. Clay Hilley as Siegfried was also
terrific. I felt that he was much
improved from last year. He was good
last year, but this year his voice seemed freer and had more ring to it. Last year David Dillard played the Wanderer
and I had some issues with his performance, but he was a great Gunther. Vocally the role seemed to fit him like a
glove and in some ways he was the best actor on the stage. I believe that Hagen was sung by Neil Nelson,
who learned the role at the last minute to replace the previously announced
Hagen. Nelson was in town originally to
sing Leporello in UAO’s “Don Giovanni” (scroll down for my review of that
performance.) Nelsons was one of the
shining stars of that “Don Giovanni” which otherwise I felt was really rather
poor. But in G he was really
tremendous. His beautiful dark
bass/baritone captured the menace and wickedness that lay at the core of this
character. I hope to hear more from this
singer, he is a great artist. The other
members of the cast were also quite good – Rebecca Wilson was a strong and
effective Gutrune; Melissa Kornacki as Waltraute was wonderful in what little
remained of her duet and the same can be said of Timothy Lafontaine who
replaced Jordan Shanahan as Alberich (Shanahan sang Rigoletto this season with
UAO and was terrific.) The Rhinemaidens
were fine, their scene was so drastically cut that there was little left of it,
but what little they got to sing they did beautifully – and they had nice
beautiful costumes. I thought the
reduction of the vassals and the women to a total of 5 actually worked well and
the singers who performed these (now solo roles) did a nice job. On the whole the cast was excellent. One thing I have noticed is that the space –
Union Ave Christian Church – is a bit small for some of these voices. I’m not sure that anything can be done about
that but when Alex let loose she literally shook the space!
The Production was on the whole
excellent. This is a low budget Ring,
but they made the most of it. The
costuming was effective – I liked the uniforms much better in G than I did in
Don Giovanni where I thought they were woefully out of place. And the Rhinemaidens actually looked like
they just dragged themselves out of the river (that’s a compliment, they’re
Rhinemaidens afterall). Their appearance
almost made up for the fact that they didn’t get to sing what in my view is
some of Wagner’s most beautiful music from this opera. And I liked the projections. I thought they were an ingenious way of
moving the audience to the various locations and were effective. The ending was very clever and I will talk
about that below. On the whole it is a
good production and I would say that on the whole (with the exception of
Rheingold and some elements of Siegfried) the productions have been good and
effective. This was particularly true in
this production of G.
I’m sorry, but….
I cannot avoid addressing what I
consider the most glaring negative of the performance (not counting the
reduction and the cuts which I will get to in a minute) and that is in the
orchestra pit. The leadership of Scott
Schoonover was weak at best. His tempi
in places simply were too fast but the biggest problem was the orchestra. They have not been great before but they were
particularly weak in G (and Don Giovanni also actually – they did a good job
with Rigoletto). Is it the lack of
rehearsal time? Is it that the parts are
really hard? Or is it a
combination? Is it that the players
didn’t take it seriously? I do not know,
but sloppy, out of tune playing was the order of the day. The brass were an embarrassment, I heard more
split notes in the horns than I have heard in quite some time. The woodwinds and the strings were out of
tune, the strings were horribly sloppy and I was quite disappointed that
Siegfried’s Rhine Journey was cut, but upon reflection it was probably for the
best as I am not sure they could have played it. What remained was so badly played as to have
been an embarrassment. Ultimately it is
the conductor’s job to see that the orchestra plays the score well and so this,
in my view, ultimately comes back around to Schoonover.
The Edition – by Jonathan Dove
Since we are talking about the
orchestra I will say that over all some parts of the re-orchestration work
fine. But others simply don’t. The decision to include only 1 clarinet means
that the beautiful duet between the 1st clarinet and the bass in the
beginning of the Siegfried/Brunnhilde prologue ended up as a duet between the
flute and the bass clarinet. The flute
was fine, but it didn’t work. Even
though there was a tuba, this orchestration is missing strong low brass and at
the moments when the orchestra needs to take over, they were woefully
underpowered. And why is this timpanist
afraid to play loud! For heaven’s sake,
there are moments when the timpani should dominate. It never did.
The two major orchestral fantasies – The Rhine Journey and Siegfried’s
Death were cut and ruined by the cuts.
And the cuts! Good lord!
It is like taking a razor blade to a great painting and cutting out the
parts you don’t want to look at. Ok, I get
that the point was to create a version that could be performed by smaller
companies using younger voices in smaller venues, with a smaller budget and a
smaller orchestra, and also one that stays without a certain boundary regarding
length and it is here that I have to say I am not sure it is worth performing
this version. I don’t mind the younger
voices, at all – that has been the strongest part of this venture. I don’t mind the reduced production values
for they have excelled in this. The
orchestral reduction has been problematic which might be partly the fault of
the performance. But the cuts are
horrid! They are a hack job and they
completely destroyed the musical integrity of the work. In G, we begin without the Norns, ok, but
even the next scene is cut in half as is the Rhine Journey. And this is just the beginning. Throughout the first two acts we have cut
after cut after cut. But the worst was
what Dove did to act 3. There was little
left of it. Most of the Rhinemaidens
scene – cut; a huge section of Siegfried in the woods telling the story of his
adventures – cut! Heck, we didn’t even
have him lift his hand in death to prevent Hagen from taking the Ring!
I suppose that Dove and others
thought that perhaps because Wagner includes so much recounting of the story
that those parts were prime targets of the cuts. What they forget is that those scenes always
add another dimension and move the plot forward in some way. And cutting those scenes creates plot
problems. Example #1 – Mime was
completely cut out of Rhinegold which affected our understanding of the
development of the Tarnhelm and denied us a glimpse of the young victimized
Mime before we meet him in Siegfried as the evil, scheming weasel he has become. This cut ends up making Mime a
one-dimensional character.
Example #2 – Cutting the 3 questions
contest between Mime and the Wanderer from Siegfried. Yes it repeats the story for those who may
not be up on it, but it is a contest. A
contest that Mime is foolish enough to enter with Wotan, disguised as the Wanderer
(whom by the way, he recognizes – I believe).
We learn a bunch of stuff in that contest – principally that Mime has
been lying to Siegfried. Mime knows the
entire story of Siegfried’s parentage and the whole story of the sword and
everything else, but he has been telling Siegfried he knows none of it. So when he looses his head, the Wanderer
grants to Siegfried the taking of the prize (killing Mime), it is retribution
for Mime’s dissembling.
Example #3 – Not only does
Siegfried re-tell the story of his adventures in act 3 of G – forging the
sword, fighting and killing the dragon Fafner and finding Brunnhilde, but he is
aided in his recollection by the administration of an antidote to the potion he
took in act 1 which made him forget.
This cut removed the anti-dote.
We went from the Rhinemaidens to Hagen spearing Siegfried. It was too abrupt and it was not
justifiable. That cut was beyond bad –
it was inexcusable!
This will be the last time I will
ever attend a reduced or cut Ring cycle.
If they do it again I won’t be in the audience. I am at an age now that I simply have no
patience for this. And one last note:
the advertising that UAO did suggesting that the Ring in its original form was
long and boring was offensive and unnecessary.
They could have found a way to promote the reduction without insulting
those of us who feel that the complete Ring is perfect as it is and is not too
long and certainly not boring. I always
feel that the whole thing is always over way too soon.
Redemption
I want to close my reflections on
this production with some reflections on the close of G. The score calls for Brunnhilde to light a
funeral pyre for Siegfried, she sings her famous immolation scene and then
charges into the fire on her horse Grane. This then catches the Gibich Hall on
fire which then spreads to Valhalla itself and incinerates Wotan all of the
gods. Then the Rhine River overflows its
banks, the Rhinemaidens swim in and take the Ring, when Hagen tries to get it
from them they simply pull him underwater and drown him. Presumably the waters recede and a new age
dawns. During this we are treated to
some of Wagner’s most beautiful music.
We have several motifs which his weaves together, but the motif that
dominates is this one:
(Ok this is a little
odd – but the motif appears around 40 seconds in)
Now we had heard this motif one previous time – Sieglinde
had sung it just after she had been told she was pregnant by the dead Siegmund
and would give birth to Siegfried. She
sings this – and it is glorious:
This is called the “Redemption by love motif” by some
commentators who have labeled the motifs, I believe Wagner never labeled the
motifs himself). It begs the question –
what form does this redemption take? Who
is redeemed? By who, or what?
I started thinking about this after
this performance. The UAO production did
a beautiful job with this. The fire
(projections) engulfed the stage and then projections of water overwhelmed the
fire and then – we move to the heavens and the whole theater was engulfed in
stars and pictures of the heavens. It
was quite beautiful and effective. But
it got me thinking? Why? What was the point of the heavens? How does that bring the point of redemption
out? And how does that answer the
questions posed above. And I have to
say, that despite its beauty, it simply doesn’t. Are they suggesting that God in the heavens
is offering us redemption here? That
would be an interpretation that is not supported by the score or in any way by
Wagner himself. What is redeemed –
humanity and the world are given a new beginning. By whom or by what – I believe the answer is
love. The overwhelming love that is at
the heart of the major relationships is ultimately what is victorious. Those who renounced love, who sought power
are ultimately destroyed. Including the
gods - These gods who prove themselves to be impotent because they have pursued
power.
When I first saw the current Lepage
Ring at the Met I was perplexed by the ending.
All of a sudden a bunch of statues representing the gods then proceed to
shatter before our eyes. I didn’t get
that. But after seeing this UAO
production it suddenly dawned on me – that the Met presentation of this ending
is fricking brilliant! Love not only destroys the gods – but shatters them for
they are but projections of our human strivings after power, and gold and all
the selfish things that alienate and destroy us. The love that redeems also shatters the false
gods who are ultimately powerless in the face of love.
Ultimately most of the great
religions of the world have learned this truth – love is the power of
redemption and is more powerful that all the other powers of this world. But we continue create false gods for
ourselves; we continue to pursue that which will destroy us; we continue to
promote hate and exclusion. Wagner and
UAO and the Met and every other company that produces the Ring reminds us that
it is ultimately love and only love that has the power to redeem us.
This is perhaps one of the most effective performances of
the final scene featuring the magnificent Hildegard Behrens with a brief
appearance by the equally magnificent Matti Salminen as Hagen.
And here are the links to my reviews of all of the previous
Ring performances by UAO:
