Once again, I do feel honored to celebrate my blog's fifth anniversary, reviewing the yearly live streaming from the Bayreuth Festival, thanks to BR Klassik and 3sat, which take the magic of the Festspielhaus to millions of people worldwide, not always able to join the exclusive audience to attend a performance. This year, two new productions are premiered: Tristan und Isolde, which opened the festival, and the awaited new Ring, which was to be scheduled for 2020, but sadly the Covid-19 pandemic forced to cancel Bayreuth Festival for the first time in 69 years, after its 1951 re-opening. The Festival reprised its activity last year with a violent, radical performance of Der Fliegende Holländer (The Flying Dutchman), so because of the demanding nature of such an enterprise, the Ring was postponed for 2022. So, the telecast for this year has been Götterdämmerung, the final journey of the cycle. Nevertheless, Deutsche Grammophon is filming the complete cycle for a later pay-per-view release in their platform.
Many bets (Tatjana Gurbaca, Katharina Wagner herself for directing, and Riccardo Muti, Daniel Barenboim among others for conducting) were done for who would direct and conduct the 2020 new production, after the historical Castorf-Petrenko/Janowski one. But the result was a big surprise when it was announced that two unknown, young talents were commissioned: the then 30 (now 33) year-old Austrian director Valentin Schwarz and the Finnish conductor Pietari Inkinen would lead the new Ring. Inkinen conducted last year a semi-staged Walküre version as an advance. However, this production had to cope with many troubles: Pietari Inkinen, due to health reasons, had to leave and was replaced by Cornelius Meister, who had good reviews in the new Ring in Stuttgart. During the performances, troubles didn't stop: Tomasz Konieczny had an accident on stage while singing Wotan in Walküre so he had to be replaced in Act 3. And for this telecast, the scheduled Siegfried, Stephen Gould, had to retire for health reasons, so he has had to be replaced by Clay Hilley, who had a big success in this role in the Deutsche Oper Berlin last Fall.
A man of his time, Valentin Schwarz announced that he conceived the cycle as a Netflix series, with Rheingold as its pilot episode. Well, the Ring's duration is similar to one or two or even three seasons of a series in the famous TV streaming platform. While a watch of the complete cycle is needed, I can state that this is one of the most disturbing production of Wagner's Götterdämmerung I have ever seen from Bayreuth. From the pictures available on Instagram, we could get an idea of these TV-series aesthetics: a modern big house, vicious men dressed as in a Narco-series (Neflix's Narcos?), and extravagant, busty women. I cannot mention much more references as my Netflix culture is extremely low, compared to Mr. Schwarz's one, despite I am just two years his senior.
Götterdämmerung is the opera of death and resurrection. The destruction of the former order, the Ragnarok, and the birth a new world, without the greed, power and vicious schemes between gods, humans, dwarfs and creatures. A message of hope and redemption exploited by German nationalism until the wicked and evil extremes we know. And it is still used nowadays, with other obscure purposes by populist leaders and causes. Maybe for this reason, Schwarz delves into the most obscure, sordid emotions, conflicts, perversions and psychologies for his vision of this epic. And yet apart from the intended TV lenguage, the message seems not to be clear, unless we could get an idea when we have the opportunity to watch the complete cycle. Violence towards children is a matter which in occasions is necessary to be shown in cinema and television, because unfortunately it has always existed and still exists. However, when it appears on stage (and it did in plots like Reimann's Medea or Blanchard's Fire Shut up in my bones, here only suggested), in a plot which we known it is not mentioned, it becomes a harsh, disturbing and innecesary excruciating experience. And this is what happens to Siegfried's and Brünnhilde's daughter, according to this vision.
The curtain raises to show a big, furnished house, in which Brünnhilde is reading a fairytale to her child. Siegfried, the father, is watching the scene with a big sorry. When the child is alone and asleep, three horrendous creatures emerge from her and the other side beds: the Norns. The Prologue duet is an argue, because the main couple is splitting up and Siegfried leaves the home. The child has to witness her parents' divorce. Grane is an old servant who leaves Siegfried. In Act One, a white modern house show us the Gibichs as a new rich, vicious family, probably linked to drug-dealing, and a portrait of three ones in a safari over a dead zebra dominates the stage. Gunther is a thug, evil and stupid at the same time. Hagen seems to be more kind-hearted despite his toughness. Probably, here we could see the first gay kiss in Bayreuth history, as Siegfried and Gunther kiss each other to seal their brotherhood. Waltraute appears as a mature woman, desfigured by surgeries. At the end, Gunther (actually Siegfried, disguised by the Tarnhelm, here a dirty, worn cap) gags and ties Siegfried's daughter into a chair while trying to submit Brünnhilde.
Act Two shows us Hagen boxing alone, while Alberich appears, now old, wearing a brown leather jacket (an evocation of Rocky Balboa and Paulie?). Now the scene is void, using lighting and trasparences, creating an ominous effect. Siegfried appears with the child, and Gutrune. The poor child is now mistreated by the servants, with Hagen as the only kind person she will meet apart from her mother. The choir appears in a black habit, wearing a red mask portraying Wotan (a mixture of Star Wars' Palpatine and Kubrick's Eyes Wide shut?), in an ominous scene, with Hagen protecting the little girl. The scene with Brünnhilde confronting everyone and protecting her child is the most theatrical of them all.
Act Three is the most aesthetical. It opens in an empty, dirty pool representing the depth of the Rhine. Its daughters are three old prostitutes, watching the scene while Siegfried and his daughter try to fish into a small pond. At the bottom, a dusk landscape with the sun setting, in an orange tone. Hagen kills Siegfried with a razor, while the rest of characters watch in the upper zone of the pool. After a moving farewell scene between the hero and his daughter, Hagen escorts her kindly, very protecting to leave the pool while the Funeral March sounds. At the end, Brünnhilde appears to sing her scene, and everyone leave step by step the scene. The Rhinemaidens actually "kill" the child, by putting her the Wotan mask because she falls inmediately dead, while her mother is singing the Inmolation inside the pool. She kisses Grane's head (this servant was tortured in Act One, and now beheaded) and lies alongside her husband. Then, soon after Hagen is leaving the scene, the landscape disappears to show lots of fluorescent tubes, and in the pool the image of two twin fetuses embracing themselves is projected as the curtain falls. Are they the children bringing a new hope to mankind or are they just a new, horrifying experiment? Or is it the end of a TV-series, with lights turning off?
But even when many people was disappointed by what they saw on stage, they weren't dazzled by the musical part either.
Cornelius Meister, in the orchestra pit, didn't reach an uplifting rendition, but a rutinary one, with the orchestra as the saving vehicle, because of their glorious level and sound. But if tempi are sometimes slow, sometimes is somewhat fast, unfit in such moments like the Funeral March. Rather than spectacular, it was a conventional, accompaigning conducting instead, at least in this opera. He got a strong boo at the end. The chorus, however, was as glorious as usual, led by Eberhard Friedrich, specially the male voices in Act 2.
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Irene Theorin sang a Brünnhilde which still sounds nicely, but her prime is largely past. Middle register is still beautiful, nice, but high notes start to be opened, and in Act 2 sometimes yelling. She saves the performance with her experience.
Clay Hilley, replacing Stephen Gould, was, however a great surprise. This young heldentenor has a, somewhat baritonal, somewhat youthful (in high notes and register specially) voice. Using, reserving his voice with intelligence, instead than wasting it as many tenors do, and his firm, well projected high notes make him one of the revelations of this season.
Albert Dohmen, is linked for the third time to a Bayreuth Ring: first as Wotan (in 2006-2010), later as Alberich (in 2015-2017), now he appears as Hagen. Not a proper role and tessitura for his fach, but his tone, his low register and his experienced singing and acting make him fit for the role, having a great success and being by far the best singer in this cast.
Michael Kupfer Radecky as Gunther was better acted than sung, but he sings well this role, despite not having the most beautiful voice. Elisabeth Teige is the best female voice with her beautifully sung, dark, dramatic-toned and rich-voiced Gutrune. Olafur Sigurdarson as Alberich seems a bit light-voiced for the part, but in his sinister scene in this opera, his singing is perfectly fit. Christa Mayer is a well sung and acted Waltraute, with that dark, somewhat contralto tone.
The rest of the cast sang in a good level, but more nice than breathtaking. Okka von der Damerau as the First Norn is more sweet than mystical despite singing well. Kelly God, on the other hand, gave a good rendition of the Third Norn. The beautiful and talented Stephanie Houtzeel reprises the role of Wellgunde after having sung it in the previous Bayreuth Ring, but the leading Rhinemaiden was Lea-ann Durbar as a shining Woglinde. We must mention the brave actors playing Grane and Siegfried's and Brünnhilde's daughte, because of all tricks the had to endure onstage.
As usual in Bayreuth, a big boo waited, from the complete audience, to the stage team, which had to receive in total quiteness a big disapproval. Schwarz seemed to have to keep a stiff upper lip, but his face was a complete poem. Meister and Theorin got also respective, strong boos. Ovations were for the orchestra, for Dohmen, Hilley and Mayer.
Bayreuth, as a werkstatt, an experimentation atelier, is a laboratory of staging trends, artistical and even political discussion for decades. In Germany, it is always in the national point of view every summer. Successful or not, Valentin Schwarz, Katharina Wagner, and even the booing audience have reached their goal: that we discuss about this production. And thanks to German television, the millions of people in the whole world can join this debate. Nothing could make Wagner happier.
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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