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 day without work 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 top of the cycle presently being streamed stay on the opera home’s personal web site and in addition obtainable on medici.television. There are evaluations of the person operas on Seen and Heard so maybe I don’t must be unduly forensic in my evaluation and positively 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 may very well be one general evaluations or feedback on the 4 operas in two components; desirous about it, I imagine it’s price ‘voicing’ my opinion of every of them as I see and listen to them. I cannot 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 attempt to strategy 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 folks say, oh no, it was simply the garbage that we liked a lot. OK, then too dangerous.’ Within the metropolis the place Wagner conceived most of his Ring, Homoki’s Das Rheingold is (virtually actually) a clean canvas with the naked partitions of the three rooms on a revolve he reveals us (no 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 various methods; notably for Alberich’s transformation right into a ‘sensible’ dragon and a fairly extra risible toad. It is usually 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 enormous desk while Wotan shuts the door on the lamenting Rhinemaidens.
However, Wotan (unusually today) truly has a spear and a hoop which is a hoop, although the Rhinegold at the start is only a small nugget. Alberich additionally has a correct gold Tarnhelm (right here a series mail coif as from a medieval swimsuit of armour) The Nibelungs (bowler hatted and masked in black) pile up giant chunks of gold and one among them is used to despatch Fasolt. Homoki may also 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 introduced with the curtain coming down between them and, sadly, the Descent and Ascent from Nibelheim – no criticism of the sumptuous 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 is named a ‘vagrant’ and that’s how this ogling, dissolute-looking character first seems climbing although the window. There begins a variety of chasing by means of the assorted rooms which is a characteristic of this Rheingold, as is the usage of the window similar to when Wotan and Loge exit by means of it on the best way 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 large 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 excellent 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 complete 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. Properly-played and equally well-conducted by Gianandrea Noseda.
Plenty of singers reappear by means of the Ring and will likely be commented on repeatedly. Tomasz Konieczny’s resonantly sung Wotan is weak, ineffectual and simply swayed, he brandishes his spear however it seems to provide him no authority in anyway. Extra wonderful 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 typically 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
Solid:
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
