Der Ring des Nibelungen: Metropolitan Opera On Demand

Das Rheingold
https://www.metopera.org/season/on-demand/opera/?upc=811357015513

Die Walküre
https://www.metopera.org/season/on-demand/opera/?upc=811357015483

Siegfried
https://www.metopera.org/season/on-demand/opera/?upc=811357015490

Götterdämmerung
https://www.metopera.org/season/on-demand/opera/?upc=811357015506&fbclid=IwAR2goRmaou-50WRVgxqzKnafC8dMZ-3v7xLrlIZNBBEpVoR3jqcu1uGfqSk


Der Ring des Nibelungen
Richard Wagner
MY FIRST COUCH RING
Metropolitan Opera On Demand
#CoronaCouchOpera, Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn
25th - 28th March 2020

4-stars

It’s been over two weeks since my last post. Yesterday, one week into my own #StayAtHome, I sobbed for the first time. I’ve just come out of director Robert Lepage’s Ring Cycle as part of New York’s Met Opera nightly opera streams. Spread over four days with my own in-house catering and distractions I would never let anyone get away with at the theatre, the hours spent with Wagner’s great gift to life made an appreciated and connected experience with his smorgasbord of richly portrayed characters.

I sobbed for Siegfried’s unjust death, Brünnhilde’s suffering and loss and perhaps amongst those emotions came a few for our own reckless world. Lepage’s Ring culminated in a riveting Götterdämmerung to finish four quite unforgettable days.

The Ring teaches us that everything is connected - man, nature, reason and spirit - and that hope should never fade for a new order where rule is governed by fairness, not by power and greed. There’s a particular saliency in its themes right now with the world in crisis like we haven’t seen in our day. Will what we learn now about ourselves change us to act responsibly when things improve? No other point in living memory has given us an opportunity so glaringly.

I saw Lepage’s Das Rheingold 9th March last year but missed the rest of the cycle. The Met Opera nightly streams are audio visual recordings of the four works when they first premiered, beginning over the 2011/12 season.

For me, Götterdämmerung and Siegfried make up the better resolved parts of Lepage’s Ring, both of which give a greater sense of character action-reaction. And the grained Gibichung Hall comes up superbly as one of the more splendid applications of Carl Fillion’s mechanised set. However, I’m still left feeling this one ever-present gargantuan piece of machinery limited the potential for ideas during the course. Likewise, the costuming. But of absolute pleasure and excellence was a music that deepens our sense of humanity by artists of incredible talent.

Jay Hunter Morris maintains the gung-ho spirit Siegfried lives by with a cheeky glint in the eye and a fabulously heated golden tone to go with it. He also convincingly makes the journey from ignorant youth to awakened manhood, easily winning sympathy on his gallant adventure.

As Brünnhilde, Deborah Voigt is at her most fierce and affecting when shamed before the Gibichung, then singing with beautiful emotion and sincerity over Siegfried’s body before Brünnhilde’s final act of wisdom and selflessness.

Hans-Peter König is an unswerving force whose grand, monolithic bass gives hateful character to Hagen, Iain Paterson is impressively sturdy and resonant as a distinguished though insecure Gunther and Wendy Bryn Harmer is maiden fair and radiant voiced as Gutrune.

Way back, starting with Das Rheingold, Bryn Terfel is a masterful Wotan, rock solid in voice while subtly exposing troubling fissures in his command. Eric Owens wows as the big standout as Alberich, presenting greed and sinisterly ease in tones of dark and swampy strength. Stephanie Blythe is full and rich as Fricka in all her imploring genuineness. Richard Croft weaves his way about splendidly as Loge but it was Dwayne Croft’s thundering Donner who I particularly loved in the smaller roles.

Next up, in Die Walküre, comes the chorus of fiercely singing Valkyries, Deborah Voigt untiring in voice, slicing the air with razor sharpness as a fearless, high-spirited Brünnhilde and Bryn Terfel back solidly with more huff and puff as an anguished Wotan. When Jonas Kaufmann opens the first act, it takes little time to sink into his suave and endlessly smooth tone as Siegmund and develops in increasingly robust and gallant form as his fate progresses. Eva-Maria Westbroek gives a sensational performance, the most convincing for me, with singing that yields heart wrenching psychological clarity as part of Sieglinde’s journey while Hans-Peter König is a colossal-voiced Hunding who few would want to cross.

By the time we get to Siegfried, with singing that gave it all, a round of lozenges to soothe well-worked throats seemed in order. In the title role, coppery tenor Jay Hunter Morris is the fearless Wälsung and one we get to know with great intimacy, his penetrating blue eyes and long blonde waves exuding youth with dynamite in the voice that burns constantly to the passionate and heroic finale.

Vocally gnarled and animated, Gerhard Siegel puts on a brilliant show as Mime, a slimy, fidgety weasel channelling a good draft of Benny Hill. Act 1 certainly is the highlight as Siegel and Hunter Morris pace and deploy the drama with seamlessness and interest. Bryn Terfel brings a sensitively tempered aspect to The Wanderer, Eric Owens makes a lion-strength return as Alberich and, when Brünnhilde is finally awoken, she is given lush, poetic beauty by Voigt, though the top forte at times felt forced.

Thanks to all, including the hardworking Met Opera Orchestra, who propelled and oiled the entire drama exceptionally and filled my living room with an experience I’m generally only accustomed to at the theatre. Looks like there will be more to come.