2nd Ring 'ROH - Siegfried

Susan Bullock as Brunnhilde and Stefan Vinke as Siegfried in Siegfried © Clive Barda / ROH 2012


Finally onto the second half of the Ring after two first halves!
Why didn’t anybody tell me I’ll nearly overdose on adrenaline before the end? Two days before the Siegfried  and 2 Rheingolds, 2 Walkure and 3 Ring-Insights down I found out I could hardly sleep and shreds of music, singing and images were happily bouncing round my head at all hours of day and night. In a way I’m not surprised that it had an effect on me but it is the first time I am loosing this much sleep about an opera. Or finding the switch between day-time work and night-time Wagner nearly impossible to make.

My next Ring, as I have no doubt there will be more ;-) will definitely be under different circumstances. I’d really like to do this on it’s own with no distractions or interruptions. I meant to give this first one my full attention, energy and concentration, so I’m pleased it has impact, just didn’t expect it would be quite so overwhelming :-)

Managed to recharge my batteries enough in time for Siegfried and had a most wonderful afternoon this Sunday at the ROH. And I am happy to report I’ve come away with a much improved opinion of Siegfried :-) And another dose of adrenaline speeding through my system which will probably keep me awake until the final doom!

There are a thousand things to say about this Siegfried, but probably most importantly that it is by no means a lesser opera than any of the others in the Ring and also no less entertaining. I like it as much as I did the other two and I couldn't really pick a favourite as there are simply too many things to enjoy about it each in turn. One thing I can say though, emotional turmoil and musical amazement aside, it’s the most FUN I’ve had in 6h of opera in quite some time. Yes, fun! There is absolutely nothing wrong with having fun and smiling and having a giggle during the Ring. It’s a story and it is supposed to be good theater  Yes, different aspects of it may be familiar and strike quite a few chords. But it is not real, nor a piece of history, in as accurate. It is real for the characters in the story and so it should be if the drama of it is to be good, but we are allowed a smile or even a more ironical view of proceedings. And for me this production allows us this view in a very quirky way. We can’t be the characters, but we can understand them, sympathise with them.  And we don’t need a bear roaring on stage or a bird chirping, or even a dragon, what we need is to believe that for Siegfried they are real. And on top of some grueling singing, this is very hard task to master.

Honestly, I thought I’d have my stomach in knots about any tenor singing Siegfried surviving the night. Never mind believing in this, the most unbelievable character of all. All I had hoped for was to like the music. But guess what? I really liked Siegfried in the end and there is nothing else but Bravo one can say to Stefan Vinke for handling the role as well as he did..

And then there is this image of Bryn Terfel spinning on top of the platform/world, singing as a god and in total command of stage and audience, all the while showing Wotan's increasing vulnerability. 

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To be continued as it's Gotterdammerung tonight ..... (sorry i needed some sleep before tackling 7h of work at day-job and 6h+ of Wagner's end of the world as we know it.

1st Ring @ROH - Walkure

Sarah Connolly as Fricka© Clive Barda/ROH 2012
Siegfried - just to let you all know i'll only see this in Ring 2, so sorry you'll have to wait a bit for the other two, but not too long ;-) Have a nice weekend!
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I’m officially immersed in this Ring! But really if the Walkure doesn’t grab and grip you, nothing will. 

Where to begin? Both mind and heart feel scattered and shattered at the same time. So I guess I’ll just throw things out there as they cross my mind. 



  *

I realised by the time I was crawling into bed last night that I had forgotten to mention the orchestra! Shame on me! The head magician (Sir Tony P) didn’t have his luminescent magic wand with him, but instead elegantly kept things flowing with his hands alone. Yes it’s all so overpowering that one might tend to think Pappano has almost disappeared in the backdrop. But one would be totally deluded in thinking this was the case. I know there are many who like Wagner to be driven mainly by conductors, many Rings are known only by their conductor’s name. But that would in a way imply the beauty of this lies almost solely in the music, in the score and the orchestra playing it. And it’s certainly not the case and Wagner placed too much importance on the theatre, on the drama for this to be the case. Like any other opera it has to be theatre and all elements need to meld harmoniously, without a single one of the dominating all others. From where I sit I’ve rarely seen Pappano so restrained in his gestures and I’ve read all kinds of opinions about his Wagner. Unsurprisingly I disagree with most of them. I don’t see why the orchestra should be dominant when Wagner himself had a theatre built where he basically put a lid on it, ensuring the power of the music would not roll over the stage :-) I like what the orchestra sounds like in this Ring, it’s more lyrical, more emotional, sadder and all together more gentle. It flows more naturally, without the huge crashes into the line that many have come to expect I guess.

This doesn’t mean things like the Walkure ride, the individual motives have less impact and when Wotan was gripped in his fury yesterday, you certainly felt the tornado coming at you from the pit too! It just means the music reflects the moments of intimacy too, it melds in mood with the stage and adapts to this particular production and it’s story line. And less domineering does not mean in this case less intense, less effective, quite the contrary. And it means more sensitivity, more work, more listening to each other and more connection between pit and stage. And there was no doubt in the end that for many of us it did work very well ( tiny blubbers in the brass aside ;-) It was an oddly touching moment to see Pappano holding hands with John Tomlinson and Bryn Terfel at the end :-) beaming towards us and us beaming back at them :-))))).

By the way I was talking to my neighbours about the orchestra and we were wondering how many of them actually had to play on all nights? I suspect quite a number will have to go through 4 Rings in a row… wow! They have been amazing throughout the Troyens and Otellos and they continue to sound amazing! Thanks to every one of you for your hard work and dedication and the beauty you make us hear :-)*

What an incredible pack of Walkures we were treated to! They sounded just wonderful, scary and harmonious at the same time and those Hojotoho have never rang out quite so excitingly. Bravo to all of them, Gerhilde (Alwyn Mellor), Ortlinde (Katherine Broderick), Waltraute (Karen Cargill), Schwertleite (Anna Burford), Helmwige (Elisabeth Meister), Siegrune (Sarah Castle), Grimgerde (Clare Shearer), Rossweisse (Madeleine Shaw). Their appearance is either scary and ear shattering or , as in this case, thrilling and exciting. Individually they were vibrant and together inspiring and touching. They sounded like a boisterous and exotic sisterhood. It was definitely more exciting than I expected , particularly in the singing. Happy to have heard all of you, ladies. I didn’t expect them to look quite so rough but when I saw them it did make sense. They are not dainty damsels, this sisterhood is one of war and fights, so it’s only right that they were made to look fierce and bloody. And since their business in many respects is death, it’s not actually so strange that their horses should be skeletons as well. What I didn’t quite get was why they were dragging the heroes on a rotten mattress, poor dead Siegmund included, you’d think Walhall would provide slightly better furnishings ;-) But never mind, I am sure many people will feel that this Walkure ride was slightly underwhelming visually, but what it lacked in visual pizzazz it certainly made up for on the musical front, so it did deliver in the end.

Although I am familiar with both music and text in this one, I approached it with excitement but without planning it out in my mind beforehand or evening thinking what comes next. I just let people sing and act and the story unfold :-) It’s amazing how much warmer today’s public reaction was compared to the Rheingold. I feel in a way unfairly disproportionate. Not that this wasn’t great, because it was. But it’s natural for people to react stronger to the Walkure as it’s such a tornado of emotions. What I mean to say is that Rheingold’s politics and drier storyline is no less demanding on the singers. It’s just much less of a tear-jerker, but I feel the singers deserved equally as much applause and praise for Monday’s performance as they got today :-) And in odd ways I feel that from a production point of view Rheingold is almost quirkier, maybe even works better? 

But at the same time I couldn’t blame a director for de-cluttering  part 2 of the Ring even further and letting the characters take centre stage in barer and simple surroundings. But then again my impression of the production is probably influenced by some frustration about what I didn’t see. I so chose the wrong seat for the way the production is built :-( I like it and this is why it’s all the more frustrating to miss quite some bits today. But Walkure, especially in act 1 and even in act 2 is set around the back of the stage-right, which from my side, and I wasn’t even all the way to the side, was pretty much obscured. So much so that I couldn’t see a thing of the Wintersturme interaction, I figured out more than I actually saw the petals flying, and most importantly I couldn’t see either sword or any of the sword pulling. In fact I had a moment of considerable confusion there. Before they settle in for the night in Hunding’s hut, Hunding performs a pagan kind of ritual, smearing some of his own blood on his axe and praying and at the same time we see in an arch in the background a sword stuck in intertwined tree branches. Unless I didn’t see the sword well. So I think, oh great I can see it so I’ll be able to fully enjoy the Notung! Notung! scene. But when it came down to it, Siegmund disappeared out of my view to the right, the arch I had seen to the left and there I go wondering: what? Where is he off to, the sword is there!!! Turns out the one he came back with was on the other side… as I was saying, totally confusing and pretty frustrating and distracting. 

Other elements worked really well, like Siegmund being almost in a trance in the darkness of the house, reliving the moment when his father had promised him a sword in time of need, which is when I was almost surprised by Simon O’Neill’s powerfully desperate and heart wrenching Walse, Walse! You heard in his cries the desperation and loneliness he felt, wonderfully sung. Actually the whole interaction of the twins was spot on. Their attraction was so powerful they could hardly keep their eyes off each other, even in Hunding’s presence. You could feel suffering being drawn to suffering. Both Simon O’Neill’s Siegmund and Eva Maria Westbroek’s Sieglinde are scarred and tormented souls. Siegmund wears his wounds openly and you can feel how haunted he is by loneliness and feeling like an outcast. In the tale about his upbringing there was terrible sadness when he remembers being lost from his father and never finding him again. With Eva Maria Westbroek you get a powerful imagine of a survivor, it’s hope that gets her through the abuse, it’s hope that makes her bow her head in front of Hunding and it’s the fulfilled hope about her promised saviour that transforms her into a strong and energetic women. In both their singing and acting you feel how they are almost reborn through their love and discovery of each other. By the way, this is a very physical production, but it gels well and comes across as an expression of powerful emotions. There is crawling and dragging in suffering and weakness and there is a lot of effusive hugging and most impressively some intense kissing all around ;-) The two twins unite in a kiss as you would expect. But less predictably, Wotan and Brunnhilde kiss passionately and desperately in the last scene. And I don’t mean the kiss with which Wotan takes away her godliness, but a rather shockingly forceful kiss before Wotan says his last goodbye.  In which he almost prevents her from hugging him back, almost in fear that were she to cling to him, he wouldn’t be able to let her go. It’s an outburst of the violence and intensity of his feelings and a glimpse of how hard it is for him to control himself, it’s frightening on many levels actually. Oh and Hunding also kisses Sieglinde when he gets home, forcefully too, but will all know what that is about. But just pointing out, once more how engaged this cast are, it couldn’t be farther away from the park and bark some people expect in Wagner :-) This is the real deal!

Back to the Walsungs, it’s sad how short-lived their happiness is and in this production and in both their singing the depression and sadness is underlying. SO’N is a very depressed Siegmund and the way he renounces life, honour, Walhall to be with Sieglinde is incredibly touching. I loved how Simon put his heart into the Todesverkunding, but he always does that. You feel he connects with his characters and lets them touch his heart and it reflects in his singing, which was ringing in all those high notes, but for me particularly touching in the scene in act2. Same goes for Eva Maria Westbroek. I never get enough of hearing and seeing her in London, she really brings the House alive and the way she sings and portrays her characters never fail to touch me. I was incredibly saddened by how brief her glowing happiness was in act 1 and how deeply lost she was again in act2. It was almost as if she has already lost Siegmund, having just found him. All the more exuberant in the final act when she is told about the baby. In that last scene in tone and strength you felt the roles were almost reversed between her and Brunnhilde, she definitely sounded like the protector, the strong one :-) Lovely to hear her sing such a feminine and touching Sieglinde. I have to confess the exchange between her and Brunnhilde in the last act made me wish the roles were reversed. I’d love to see and hear what EMW would do with Brunnhilde one day, she sounds so interesting. 

To the one in the ROH who had the idea to bring in Sarah Connolly as Fricka, we thank you! And to the lady herself!! What a treat! I hope she is proud of what she has achieved in the role and there it is for all those who doubted, she was fantastic! Again there was so much meaning in her dispute with Wotan, so much thought in every word. There was the bitter disappointment of a relationship that never was what she had dreamt off, of a partner that doesn’t believe in the rules or the kind of world she believes in. She seems hurt not only by his deceit, but also by the fact that he doesn’t share her values, he basically never was the god/man she wanted him to be. And in the end, as she has nothing else to hold on to and love is forever lost to her, she hangs on to the only thing left, “Stolz”, her pride, her honour and forces him to respect her for it. It’s where she and Wotan forcefully meet in the end and agreement, on abiding by the rules. But she believes in them and their purpose, whereas he bows to them , even though he no longer believes in them, because he has learned the hard way that trying to break them only brings disaster. It was wonderful the way SC sang her way through this emotional journey in that dialogue. And beautifully and melodically sung it was, in spite of the harshness of the conflict. A dream of Fricka! And I loooooved that red burnished dress! 

Susan Bullock’s Brunnhilde has a long and hard journey ahead, but she came into her own in the last act of tonight’s Walkure. It’s where her singing became more fluent and musical and she spun some truly warm and lovely lines in that dialogue with Wotan. I loved her boyish charm and enthusiasm and she dealt admirably with being stuck to the ladder when she appeared on stage. Many would have been flustered by such a mishap ;-) I like the women in this production :-) SC’s dress also got caught up under a chair and EMW’s cape was also not easy to handle, but they all untangled, unstuck themselves or had it done with a simple gesture and got down with it. Some wonderful ladies :-) Back to Brunnhilde. What I liked most was the way she sort of matured and grew up under our eyes when speaking to Wotan at the end, explaining to him how she had to support Siegmund and how she learned about love and how she coaxes him into giving her a more interesting future by protecting her from useless men and granting her a hero :-). She managed to make her character really resemble Wotan in it’s volcanic emotions but also in his strength and pride. Which of course made the farewell all the more touching. And we will have to see how the singing progresses through the rest of the journey. 

What a treat to have Sir John Tomlinson as Hunding :-) I have to say with the warmth of his voice and his warm personality I was wondering how he would pull of evil. Well he did and very convincingly so! It almost made me smile to hear and see how much of a bully Hunding was. The voice, with all it’s smooth lows had a very forceful and menacing tone to it and he certainly ordered people around effectively in his home. I shall look forward to his Hagen very much and it is with great regret that I think of all the years I have missed out on hearing him. But I feel lucky I still get the chance to hear him live on stage, nothing quite like the way he fills the ROH so effortlessly :-) He must have been an incredible Wotan! 

  Unforgettable images ... Bryn Terfel as Wotan in Die Walküre, at the Royal Opera House, London. Photograph: Clive Barda (From the Guardian)

And there we are, back to MY Wotan and to Bryn :-) Last, but by no means least :-D Just thinking about tonight makes me smile, because although everyone else was good and many great and so on, it basically all comes back to Bryn. They say that the narrations are the toughest for people not used to the Ring. My experience was quite the contrary. The first time I ever heard the Walkure there was 1 particular moment that got me hooked… it was Bryn’s narration as Wotan in act2. It’s when I listened up and never looked back :-) There is no denying that tonight too the scenes which were the most powerful were the ones which had him in them. From the intense exchange with Fricka, where they literally took every phrase, every word to another level, to the narration and finally the last act. There is no way to describe the interactions and reactions. He sings and acts with his voice but actually with his whole body, with even the tips of his fingers. Every tiniest hand gesture carries meaning, and today the hands really spoke volumes. Fascinating what Mr Terfel can do with just one finger ;-) Oh yes, and he can create fire in the palm of his hand!! :-) Sorry for giving away the trick about the fire in the last scene, but it is very well done. It’s not some ghastly overdone huge fire, but a rather clever spiral of sorts surrounding the scene warmly burning away. And it all starts in his hand and them moves through some very elegant spear swings onto the spiral. I like it because it’s rather intimate in a way and although it is started by Loge , in this case it’s picked up in Wotan’s hand and it’s as if he transfers a part of him into the fire surrounding his daughter, as a last protection and connection at the same time. 

You know what was really amazing tonight? How the entire hall fell into utter silence and listened how Bryn began his narration to Brunnhilde in act 2 in a mere whisper in her ear, literally in her ear!… and that that whisper was perfectly audible to every single one of us in every corner of the ROH. He spoke to her as if speaking to himself and at the same time to each and everyone of us, in to our ears, into our souls. I can never praise his diction enough! And now that I have seen Rhinegold the narration not only didn’t get boring, but quite the contrary, was more interesting because although we know what happened it is only now that we get to hear things from Wotan’s point of view. He was equally riveting in his fury as he was in his whispering and when he threatened the Walkures all together that was an imagine to make you smile, Bryn literally scaring the bunch of them to flight. Incredibly effective and dramatic. And I am sure more people will rave about his final word to Fricka: nimm den Eid! Never has a word sounded more final and more equivalent to the end. 

In case any of you had any doubts, of course I was sobbing my way through the last part of act two, he activated my waterworks with just hunching broken over his spear having been left alone with Brunnhilde by the rest of the Walkures and it was all downhill from there ;-) When he sings very lyrically and sadly about all the things they will no longer be able to do together your heart just breaks because you realise once again he’s lost and has to give up what he loves most and this time he really is left alone. Symbolically he puts his cape back on, this time reversed and it is scattered with vein-like imagines, starting from the hand where he wore the ring, where the curse curls around like poison. He is engulfed in it, fully under it’s power and cruelly tormented and tortured by it. 

There is a glimpse of destiny unfolding when Brunnhilde tells him about Siegfried , but having learnt his lesson he prevents any further discussion on the subject. But at the end of Walkure it’s a sad imagine we face, he is still the god of gods, but he has lost all he loved, either through ambition or through the consequences of his actions and the curse. 

I’ll soon run out of superlatives and adjectives if I try to capture Bryn’s performance in more words. It’s just something to be heard and seen, it’s powerful and it leaves you touched and tormented. It makes me wonder how anyone can put so much into a role and how much it may cost? It makes me feel very lucky to be able to experience it and hopeful that we can give some of this incredible energy back to the artist. It’s a small thing and it’s nowhere near thanks enough, but I would like to say how much it matters and how strongly it impacts. It’s left me with incredible images and sounds, impressions in both heart and mind, which are unforgettable and which I am glad to have experienced. Bryn’s Wotan has enriched me in wonderful ways and it has made my first experience of the Ring a treasure to cherish. 

1st Ring @ROH - Rheingold

Bryn Terfel as Wotan© Clive Barda/ROH 2012

 

This a newbie's tale of the Ring, so you have been warned! If you plan to snigger at probably obvious Ring-beginner mistakes and throw piles of reference-recordings at me, shoo! This is MY RING :-)

Spoiler alert, don’t read if you don’t want to know how it looks like :-)

My bench-seats are not great, in fact not at all, I chose the wrong side, the right hand side has all the harps in it and more instruments, so the view is even more obscured than normally and this production unfortunately has quite a lot going on towards the back of the stage and towards the right, so I didn’t see all I would have liked to. Thankfully, I’ve got R2 as well and much higher up, so hopefully will be able to see a bit more. But it is a pity because the visuals are very good, it’s not over-cluttered, but the stuff that is there has meaning and it’s important and good to see it. The bits I didn’t see were mostly the Valhalla behind the Gods which is sort of upstage. Also didn’t see a rainbow staircase that apparently appeared at the end. I only saw one huge dragon hand, but there was I think more of its body to be seen backwards. And I wish I had seen a more facing view of the amazing translucent huge globe holding the Rheingold; did see most of it though.

 
It isn’t going to be my favourite of the cycle, (that will always be Walkure for the very human touch and story and the very flawed characters that live in it, it’s just more emotionally intense, I suspect probably most intense of all), this one is setting things up and you get to know the different worlds and their powers, their conflicts, the politics etc. And you get a first glimpse of the characters, mainly Wotan, Alberich of course too, some of Fricka and quite a bit of Loge, who turned out to be a much less appealing character than I thought, a kind of scheming, manipulating little worm. Not a nice character, I always felt he was a cunning little thing, but there is a streak of evil in him which was very apparent yesterday.

 
I really like the whole thing, this is definitely a Ring for me, yes the story is told and there are all the tricks you need and they speak about, but at no point is it risible or do they appear as funny props. I guess because it is represented fairly realistically, ie the dress is Victorian period - sort of- , not entirely modern but recognisably classical, women in long white dresses, elegant hairdos, Wotan and the other gods in elegant evening dress. It makes the magical props stand out and you get more of a sense that they mean something, and are not just there for decoration. Wotan has his big old stick, that he wields with power, they eat Freia’s golden apples of youth and Wotan bites one in pieces bit by bit when he goes to Nibelheim, obviously pacing its powers until he can come back up in Freia’s absence, she being with the giants. Nibelheim is a sick laboratory type thing of evil monsters, I guess maybe with reference to Nazi experiments in WW2, but not necessarily, just evil monsters, cutting up bodies to bits. Which is why the dragon becomes a kind of an overlarge monster as one of its huge hangs grips Loge. Did remind me of Gozilla, but would not have thought about it had Keith Warner not said that in his Japan Ring the dragon was Gozilla :-p The frog was a nasty big toad, well, big enough to be seen and held in a hand :-) And so on... the ring was shiny and could be very well seen and people were fascinated by it indeed.

I was completely riveted for the entire time, had it not been for my back acting up in 3h of straight sitting on those benches. Urgh... but it will get better as intervals are long in the rest of the Ring.

I loved the Rhein, the maidens were really naked, which I did not expect, but they put some rags on when Alberich appeared. I sosososo loved the translucent big globe with the gold inside, shimmering in a very appealing manner. I also liked the way water was suggested by having sort of greenish lines slowly dance on all the black shiny marble walls of the stage box. It was very well done, simple, but very effective.

I tried to listen out for the music as much as I could, I did get distracted by stage business at one point or another, but it’s well constructed; you do get to enjoy stretches of music and take a good guess of what they mean. And thank God I had read the synopsis in wikepedia which gave me a good idea of what to listen out for ;-) , The ride to Nibelheim with the anvils must be one of the highlights, it’s brilliant! And some things from the Saturday Insight stayed with me too, the 3 chords John Deathridge mentioned during the insight - amazing, you can really hear them all throughout, I wish I could explain them in words, but I can’t; that sequence of three sounds is really present all throughout and comes back again and again, so glad he pointed that out. And the motives are so clear, the staging helps clue your ears in, they naturally show you the props you need and the timing is absolutely perfect so you can hear each motive. That is why I really think it is brilliant! I mean I have never heard this opera live before, and only read a synopsis, but I could follow it step by step, word by word and most importantly listen out for the music in a perfectly harmonised way, you really felt like aha.. this is it, that is this motive or the other :-)

Which means the orchestra did play marvellously indeed. At the very end before the path to Valhalla appears or so,( or was it one of Donner’s thunders?hm..) the brass was ever so slightly off I thought, but not sure, i’ll have to hear it again to know, but the rest, just perfect, very very beautiful, nothing too forceful, nothing too loud, just right. From my own expectations of loudness I would say quieter than I expected, but since this is mostly about dialogue, probably not supposed to be ear-bashingly loud. I loved the way it started, the house lights went down and it became all black and in the darkness the music emerged, which went perfectly with the dark bottom of the Rhein where we came onto. Oh and check this out… Pappano’s batton was luminescent!!! How cool is that!!! It had to be, so that they could see what he was showing them ie that droning music that becomes the Rhein, but it was cool :-)

On to the singers, which does tie into the production perfectly. The only one who vocally felt and sounded a bit harsh at times to me was Loge (Stig Andersen), but he still fits the character. I just couldn’t follow his German particularly well and I didn’t really want to read the surtitles to add another distraction from the proceedings. But it is hard to be basically skipping about the stage most of the time and not sound slightly out of breath at times ;-) In general terms they are amazing! Not perfect textbook singing, I am sure certain people will find better examples of more beautiful singing and so on, but in terms of what they achieve - they don’t play the characters, they are the characters. It must be one of the best acted operas I have ever seen, added to dedicated and above all versatile and colourful singing. I don’t even know if to call it acting, it’s simply complete engagement with the character and commitment to what they have to do to portray the character. I mean I am in awe of Wolfgang Koch’s Alberich, he gets kicked around rather cruelly by those Rheinmaidens, I mean vicious pinching, kicking and so on; those are not nice women, well neither is he a nice dwarf ;-) But I never understood the banter that goes on there before quite so clearly, it’s not as they usually tell it “oh these maidens so fair and he comes along and chases them”. That isn’t it, even in the text that definitely isn’t the way things happen. They play with him, mock him, pretend to like him only to then make fun of him. It is pretty cruel and you can see how he could hate them for it. Generally Alberich gives as good as he gets, but he has to sing rolling round, up and down, on his belly, on his back, in the most unlikely positions and he does it with conviction wow!!!! And just as he was as Sachs earlier in the year at the ROH, he takes about 5 min to warm up the voice and to build up its volume, but he is as he was in Meistersinger as master of pacing, of judging how to sing and when to push and when to hold. He doesn’t put a step wrong. He really really masters Alberich. And he is perfectly understandable, between Bryn and him I never had to look at surtitles, not only in understanding the words, but understanding the meaning of them from the tone of their voice. What a treat! And poor man, did they make him look ugly! You wouldn’t recognise bright, amiable, even young in WK’s case- Sachs in him, in anything, attitude etc. He is Alberich through and through.

But it’s true for the rest too, Sarah Connolly is Fricka in every gesture, from the demanding to the sweet and warm , she really acts in every movement. The 3 Rheinmaidens were harmoniously and flowingly sung by Nadine Livingston, Kai Ruutel and Harriet Williams. They sounded both alluring and mocking at the same time. I liked the fact that there was again this kind of egoistic, evil streak to their beauty. Fafner and Fasolt are a hoot! It’s always fun to see and hear Eric Halfvarson (Fafner), nobody does and makes evil sound scary quite like him ( he’ll always be my favourite and most frightening Inquisitor in Carlo :-) They look nothing alike the two giants, and Fasolt is really sweet, Ian Patterson, singing marvellously, what else?! :-D He really is in love with Freia and she kind of fancies him too, but the other giant is really evil. They each have their very distinct personality and you can totally recognise it. And in their acting and dialogue with Wotan you can understand all the envy and the resentment they have for being forced into peace by him and his contracts. There is this whole conflict underneath between them and Wotan and the Nibelungs, who they had been fighting before and Wotan made peace with his contracts and all of this underlying history cleary comes through in their attitudes, words etc. Mind you, Fricka’s family is also totally weird, dysfunctional, her sister is Freia and she kinda’ fancies Fasolt, but gets lead around by Fricka and actually then wants to be won back by Wotan, but she is sort of undecided and disappointed when Fasolt chooses the gold over her. Froh who is also Fricka’s brother is a kind of a useless fancy bum, fancy clothes and all that, because he is a god, but pretty vain and shallow otherwise. Donner has a bit more guts, but not more brain. And none of it is overacted, you get just enough of it so you understand the family-picture. Of course Wotan has his work cut out with such a family on his wife’s side, useless bunch as they are and not very bright. It’s in no way a superior world given its inhabitants which shows you how hard it will be for Wotan to keep them, ie the gods, at the top of the pile.

 
And it also explains why he has Loge as an ally, although the other gods despise him, with Loge being only a half god.. at least he has brains :-p But of course he is also resentful, given that the gods mock him and dislike him, so he is neither accepted as part of their world, nor has his place in any other. Which is where Wotan finds something in common with him, as he belongs to their society but doesn’t feel as part of that vein and silly bunch either, and his ambitions go far beyond theirs.

This is how well done their characters are in this production, that I could get all of this in just 3h and just from their singing and acting. I also like the fact that it’s not pretty or beautiful in a classical sense, the women look nice but the men? None of them would classify as beautiful on stage in their costumes :-) But it works, you don’t want them to look any other way, from Koch-Alberich in his dirty sort of longjohns and his ugly brown pants after his has the gold and has climbed his particular social ladder, to Loge’s flaming red long curls and slightly short sleeves on his tails ( he dresses like the gods but looks nothing like them as not even close to their slickness ;-), to Bryn’s slightly balding head of hair with no wig and terribly scarred one eyed face , which makes him no less of a god of gods :-) It’s quirky, very detailed and it so works.

Bryn Terfel is just… ohhhhh, I could wax lyrically about him for hours!!! The singing is very smooth, except for maybe 2,3 moments when the line is long and rather strenuous, but you actually never think his is singing, it really feels as if he opens his mouth to say things and do things. The way he builds the character and at the same time holds back, you really feel like you have glimpses of him and there is sooooo much more to understand and see underneath. The way he pacifies them, the way the smooth surface cracks every now and then and you get a sense of how much he wants power for himself. It’s especially evident whenever Loge suggest he should give the gold back to the Rheinmaidens, (but it is almost as if he taunts him knowing Wotan would never give it up if he could have it for himself). You also get a sense that his attention is no longer with Fricka, yes, as a companion, but he wants to be out there, on adventures. You also totally get the sense that he has an agenda, a plan of his own. It’s hard to explain, because it is complex and not at all transparent, but playing those insights and suggesting the layers underneath cannot be easy. And he is commanding in presence as well as vocally, he’s definitely the leader of the pack ;-) He seems to me now as comfortable in the role as he was when I saw him doing Hans Sachs and that is quite amazing considering how different these two are. I’ll always love his singing, the earthy beauty of his voice, and I’ll always cherish the fact that he can bring the intimacy of the liedsinger even to huge parts such as Wotan. It’s those moments when you catch Wotan almost unguarded, trapped in his thoughts, fears and feelings that are so powerful with Bryn. It’s true that once he is on stage he rules it and you can’t help but follow Wotan and be interested in him and want to know more about this conflicted god. ( I have to say I owe quite a bit of my discovery and subsequent love of Wagner to one Mr Bryn Terfel, he was part of my very first Wagner live as the Hollander, he was my very first Sachs, now he is my first Wotan, he’s a very convincing advocate for the music and the strength and depth of Wagner’s most complex and conflicted characters :-))

I really liked Gerhard Siegel who sang Mime, really good, too short a part for him almost, such a voice full of clarity and character. And OMG I just realised Donner was Peter Colman-Wright, our Beckmesser from January! I did think what a nice voice, but I would have never recognised him! Another one who gets brownie points for good acting.

All in all a very good beginning, it’s not one to make you heart weep, it’s more like a detective story - to figure out what everyone wants and so on and what they are like and enjoy the tricks in the music, but it was very well done in all aspects. Really wish I had seen more of it , ie stage-wise. I’m not a big fan of the stories themselves and the tangle of politics and power and greed, or the way Wagner chose to build it, there are other stories in opera I like more, which I guess is why I was always partial to the Walkure of the whole Ring. BUT, thanks to Keith Warner and his clever production, to Pappano and this cast I am hooked :-) They made me follow the story in all its details and above all they told me the story in an involving and at the same time challenging manner. It was never patronising, never ridiculous or over simplistic and always striving for the human complexity of the characters. I guess that was , besides the music and its clarity and strength in painting imagines in sound what won me over, the complexity and depth of characters. They never felt like puppets in Wagner's hand and placed to make the convoluted story work. It felt as if the story got tangled and knotted and complicated because of all the different directions each character tries to pull things to make their own desires, wishes, obsessions and greed come true. Maybe it is what Wagner intended, I don’t know, but this production made me believe it. I can’t help feeling so incredibly lucky to see this Ring now, no better one to keep me interested and focused and engaged. I mean they were so good I hardly remembered to watch or think about Pappano in the pit! 

I did buy the Ring program- brick! Must weigh a ton and costs 20 pounds! But since there will be no DVD I did want to have a memento of it. Problem is, can I make myself drag it with me so I can get some of them to sign it for me, I can’t imagine not having it signed by as many of these people as I can as they are all so brrriliant!

I’d say after this first night that my first experience of the Ring will be a successful one, on more levels than expected. I was hoping to be charmed by the music and I’ve found easier access to it than expected, thanks again to my favourite orchestra and conductor. I never expected to believe in the drama, in fact I could hardly have been more sceptical (I still think Siegfried is a royal bore and a fool and no sane women would want such a hero, but we’ll see about that in due time… ), but I was convinced and puzzled and entertained and I’m intrigued so see what is next :-) ( well, I know what is next, but you know what I mean :-)).

Went to bed last night with it in mind of course and woke up when my radio went off (BBC Radio3)… with Bryn!! Singing a song :-) But it was the weirdest thing being woken up by Wotan :-) In a nice way, and then they played the overture from Meistersinger and it did feel almost like another composer, boy is that miles away from the Ring!! MS has so far been my favourite of the Wagners… I wonder if in a week’s time I’ll still say the same :-)