Wagner's Ring at Biwako Hall: Is Asia the last hope for wagnerian naturalism?

The global menace of the Covid-19 pandemic has affected also Opera Houses. In these difficult days in which stay at home is the best way to be safe, most of the major theatres have started to offer live streamings of their productions, to make the confinement happier and more bearable. The first one to close was La Scala. Early this month, the Biwako Hall had scheduled in Otsu, Japan, two performances of Götterdämmerung, the last journey of the Ring they have been performing since 2017, one opera per year. The Coronavirus forced to cancel the performances, but the theatre decided to film both performances without audience and to telecast worldwide on live streaming. As a result, the world could finally see one of the last attempts in recent times to set Wagner's Ring in the mythological, fairy-tale eras in which the libretto is originally set.

With all the resources 21st Century stage technology can offer, director Michael Hampe and set designer Henning van Gierke (who worked with Werner Herzog in the legendary Lohengrin in Bayreuth in 1990) have created a traditional, classical staging of The Ring, making sure to be as closest they can to the sets thought by Wagner and to see forests, the depth of the Rhine, and gods, dwarfs and heros. Years ago, Beijing premiered a classic Ring staging which became a hit on Youtube. Now it's the turn of the wagnerian Japan with this Ring. All we can see on the internet is a trailer for Rheingold, in-house excerpts of Siegfried uploaded in the Youtube channel of the tenor Christian Voigt, who sang the title-role, and the two Götterdämmerungs featuring two different casts.

The Beijing Ring had already used LED animations to recreate living landscapes and special effects. This one uses animations which interact with the rest of the set: that's how he could see the bird in Siegfried flying from one tree to another one, or the magic fire behind the Walkyrie rock, Grane running to the pyre, Waltraute riding through the sky. In Götterdämmerung's interludes, beautiful animations are shown: during the Siegfried's Journey through the Rhine there could be seen the valleys and waters being filmed and crossed, a beautiful forest during Act 3 prelude or the most moving, the procession during Siegfried's funeral march, in which Wotan joins in a distance, firstly as a giant shadow and finally as a tiny one as the men has disappeared and he remains the last one seen.

Siegfried features again the forest, green and deep, with a cave, missed in many present-day productions. The best image is the Walkyrie rock in Act 3, where the hero arrives and a mountain landscape is seen behind. In these excerpts seen in the video we can see the tenor Christian Voigt in four important scenes, in which he sings a correct Siegfried (despite the troubled high zone typical of today's heldentenors), and acting well, by developing the character, specially his insecurities before awakening Brünnhilde. Alongside him, we can hear Jun Takahashi as Mime and Ina Yoshikawa as a well sung woodbird.

Götterdämmerung, which can be seen complete, gives us an idea of the concept of this staging. The result is a good level spectacle: the Norns scene has here one of his best recreations ever: with a night sky full of stars and the fire flames surrounding the Valkyrie rock while Erda's daughters sing and spin. It will give way to a radiant day in the next scene. The Gibichung's palace is oddly minimal and too modern straight architecture for being from Early Middle Ages, as well as the costumes which seem to be more atemporal. Could it be a confrontation between Wotan's classic world and the Men's modern one? Act 3 Scene 1 shows the Rhine in a corner and the forest on the other one.

Wagner was really ahead his time by creating librettos which announced cinematographic writing, which such difficult indications to recreate even in 2020. When Brünnhilde lights the pyre, Grane, as mentioned, joins and runs towards it. The fire reaches the stage and we can see how the palace is falling, recreated by animation. However, the columns' set rise (a real fail) to show the Rhine with its maidens, which after drowning Hagen play triumphant with the ring while  the Walhalla is burning and falling. At the end, the depth of the Rhine is shown with the gold shining again within it, while the waving blue, pristine waters surrounds it and flow all over the stage.

Ryusuke Numajiri conducts the Kyoto Symphony Orchestra with good results, a performance between decent and rutinary. He seems to be inspired during the interludes, specially Siegfried's  arrival to Brünnhilde's rock or his Journey to the Rhine, or the Funeral March. The orchestra is really good, despite the brass section failing during the prologue. The Chorus ensemble was formed by the Biwako Hall Choir and the New National Theatre Chorus (the Tokyo Opera). Both ensembles have a formidable male section who were inspired, specially during the March 8, with a breathtaking pronunciation "Hagen, was tust  du?" during Siegfried's death.

Two different casts have sung each day. It's admirable to see that many opera singers in Japan are able to sing and perform Wagner with a minimum of level, maybe a result of the enthusiasm for German classical music in the country.

On March 7, the veteran tenor Christian Franz sang Siegfried. The voice is past its prime but he knows how to portrait the character and some middle register can sound still heroical. Stephanie Müther (Sieglinde in the next 2020 Ring in Bayreuth) was a Brünnhilde with a big voice and personality, but still to develop. Despite some plain high notes, her perfomance improves and at the third act she commands the Inmolation scene. Hidekazu Tsumaya's Hagen is nicely sung despite his voice is light for the villain. Mutsumi Taniguchi was a Waltraute with good intentions, decent singing but a bit fragile at the end. Shigeo Ishino and Fumiko Ando were respectively well sung Gunther and Gutrune. Fumihiko Shimura was a good Alberich. Norns had too much vibrato, and the Rhinemadens were okay.

On March  8, Erin Caves was a younger, fresher-voiced Siegfried, but his vocal sound was similar to Franz's. Kaori Ikeda has ups and downs in her devoted Brünnhilde: low and middle register are nice, seductive mezzo-like sound which reach their best moment in the Inmolation, but the high one sounds sometimes strident. She has a big voice, though. Kenji Saiki has a big voice for Hagen, but sometimes a bit gutural. However, he had a great performance in Act 2. Ikuko Nakajima was the biggest surprise of the cast with her powerful, amazing singing in her rendition of Waltraute. Her contralto-like voice was firm, well projected, and she acted very well her role. Mari Moriya was a magnificent Gutrune, with a dramatic soprano voice, even rivalizing un beauty with Brünnhilde in Act 3. Daisuke Oyama and Tomohiro Takada as Alberich and Gunther respectively were good in their roles. The Norns of this day were better and the Rhinemadens too.

At the end, the artists gave their final bows in absolute silence, since no audience was there, giving it a touch of surrealism. We must be thankful to the Biwako Hall and the artists for offering us these performances and discover a new classical Wagner staging, which are rare in our days. Japan and China have created their own alternatives, regaining the mythical stuff of the Nibelung world, using technology for magic. That could be a reminder to opera houses, an invitation not to disdain completely this way of represent The Ring, but to preserve as an alternative living together with the most astonishing modern stagings, since those Germanic epics are part of our literary and dramatic culture.

Here you can see the performance of Götterdämmerung from March 7, and here the performance of March 8. Here is the Siegfried performance excerpts and a trailer for Rheingold.