Last year, the Die Walküre opera performances at the Teatro Real were the last ones at its stage before the world stopped due to Covid-19, in which theatres were full, no masks and no safety distances. One year later, all these handicaps are preventing many opera houses still to perform, and they choose to stream audienceless performances instead, or even to re-open. In such circumstances, to perform Siegfried seemed impossible, and many were sceptical when it was announced in the 2020-21 season last June, with Madrid still in the last days of lockdown.
And Teatro Real did succeed, even when the country is still facing the third Covid wave, as the artistic manager Joan Matabosch has stated no reduction either in orchestra or length was considered. As a result, musicans have been distributed in the parterre balconies ( Harps, percussions, tubas), offstage (English horn) or even in the upper zones (the soprano singing the Forest bird). In the entrance, the staff offer to the spectators the possibility of take another mask after the second act.
The orchestra distribution for this run of performances
In December 2003, the previous Madrid production of the Ring featured an interesting direction by Willy Decker and an inspired conducting by Peter Schneider, as well as a great cast featuring Stig Andersen as Siegfried and Hanna Schwarz as Erda, being the best journey of that irregular Ring.. Seventeen years later, the sensation of equilibrium is the same, even surpassing in some aspects.
Siegfried is the opera of hope: the hero is the breeze needed after the undesired confrontation between humans and gods, and the psychological defeat in Walküre. His deeds fill the action with rays of optimism: these are the last moments of happiness before the destruction in the next journey, indeed the final words of the Siegfried and Brünnhilde "Lachender tod" are an ominous prediction. Everyone is expecting him: the good ones to the brave one who will restore the order disrupted by the failure of Wotan's pacts, and the evil ones to get Fafner's treasure and regain power. He doesn't know fear, and his unexperience and arrogance will help him to defeat everyone, despite their experience and age. However, his behaviour could seem controversial: Wagner's young hero is actually a brat. As a teenager, his actions are quite impulsive, he is not very intelligent, but as the chosen one, his violence, ingratitude and rudeness towards Mime in the first act becomes unsettling for a modern spectator, even when the nibelung is evil, hates the hero and only wants him to get the treasure; or towards Wotan in the third act, ignoring that old man is his grandfather. Only Brünnhilde is able to stop him, when he experiments fear for the first time prior to awake her and then the love of her divine beauty.
Robert Carsen takes all this to his vision of an ugly, polluted, corrupted, hopeless post-apocalyptic world, in which only decay is possible, ironizing Wagner's optimistic vision. During the first two acts, the forest is present. This forest is deprived of any green, as only cut trunks are replacing the complete trees. The grass is replaced by a yellow wasteland. In the first act, Mime's caravan (a recurrent element in modern productions of this opera) sets in the middle, with their dirty furniture outside, even an old wash machine in which Nothung is kept. Siegfried is dressed with militar clothes, like his parents, implying that humans are militarized in Carsen's vision. In Act 2, Fafner's appearances are the highlights: the first one with a dance of lights, in a masterful work by Manfred Voss, conveying the menace from the sleeping dragon. In the confrontation with Siegfried, two loader machine buckets spreading smoke represent Fafner's mouth, before appearing in his human form, bloodstained. Act 3 begins with Wotan's palace, now abandoned. Erda is a housekeeper, conjured by a drunk Wotan. The peak of this staging is the Valkyrie Rock. We see again Brünnhilde slept, surrounded of the remains of old words and weapons of the heroes she and her sisters used to take to Walhalla. Siegfried crosses virtually the fire, a fine line of actual fire, easy to cross.
Pablo Heras-Casado's rendition with the orchestra of the epic score is so far his best one in this Ring. His conducting has taken from the musicians an spectaular sound, specially from the complete wind section, which were supreme in the Act 1 prelude and in the English horn solo during the Forest Murmurs. The Brass section was superb too in the Siegfried's horn solo and in the Fafner scenes. Act 2 prelude was also magnificent, conveying the darkness, sinister mood of the dark forest. Clarinets performed very well, with their sound recreating an intimate ambiance before the hero realizes the warrior is not man. In Act 3 the orchestra was in full performance, with a powerful version of its prelude, with the strings shining at their best, and the Brünnhilde's awakening as an emotive, ecstatic moment.
Andreas Schager sings the title role. Known to the audience for his Rienzi and Tristan performances in Madrid, the Austrian tenor is one of the few tenors able to resist and succeed with the extremely difficult score. He knows the chracter's psychology at every detail, and his acting conveys Siegfried's impulsiveness, courage, even his comic side. His voice sounds heroical and youthful. In the Forging scene his singing is powerful, but he has some trouble in few high notes. The Forest murmurs were sung in a tender, but reserved singing, showing the innocence of the young hero at wondering about his origins. As mentioned before, he reserved his voice for the final scene, in which his singing is shown at its peak, with a heroic intonation, great volume, beautiful tone and resistance.
Andreas Conrad is a great Mime, with a grotesque sound and accomplished singing, but he lacks sometimes the volume. On the other hand, he can manage to sing an impressive low register, specially in the line "der Niblungen Hort hütet er dort", almost like a baritone.
Tomasz Konieczny reprises his Wotan of last year, now as The Wanderer. His singing can be noble, with a big volume and good singing, but in the first act he sounds gutural, as well as in his invocation to Erda. However, during his duet with her and specially in the monologue Dir unweissen ruf'ich ins ohr he regained authority, with a well projected singing. In his acting he portrays an elegant, wise man observing how events are developing.
Ricarda Merbeth reprises the role of Brünnhilde too. Despite her good taste at singing, the high tessitura of her character in this opera seems too much for her voice, and the high notes suffer from this, specially in the line "Heil dir, licht". Her rendition of Ewig war ich was, on the other hand, sung exquisitely, as well as the final high note, well heard throughout the hall.
Martin Winkler has a gutural, villainesque voice for Alberich, specially in his first monologue In wald und nacht, but he had good moments with his big-volumed, well-projected low register, in the terrible line der Welt walte dann ich, as well as in his duet with Mime.
Jongmin Park was, by far, the best singer in the cast. The Korean bass has a dark-toned, big-volumed bass voice, portraying an impressive and scary Fafner. Okka von der Damerau as Erda has a good voice, but not suitable for the goddess, lacking some volume. This singer has a nice tone (as she is an accomplished lieder singer), even some beautiful low notes, but she didn't sound as mystical and imposing as the wise goddess. Leonor Bonilla sang the role of the Woodbird, a beautiful voice coming from the upper zones of the theater, with a sweet tone.
My reviews are not professional and express only my opinions. As a non English native speaker I apologise for any mistake.
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