Ring Cycle Double Header: Siegfried and Gotterdammerung
There is a ring-shaped hole in my heart.
Now that it’s over, what is there to look forward to? I saw all the great scenes, all the effects, the singing, Margaret Atwood - and now it’s over.
But the fact that I am sad to see it end is, of course, a good sign. I feel like now I really get The Ring, understand how it fits together and why it’s so important. The man who gave the pre-opera talk mentioned that Wagner began writing the Ring Cycle the same year La Traviata came out. I love La Traviata, but in terms of insight and musical sophistication there’s absolutely no comparison.
As before, I wasn’t really paying much attention to whether the singers were any good, but simply letting myself get caught up in the immensity of it. And in terms of epic sweep, it didn’t disappoint - one thing I loved was how each opera made it apparent that it was but one part of a whole, carrying certain visual concepts and costumes forward from one installment to the next while also, through moving the action from the 19th century to the present day (Hagen and Alberich had iMacs!), invoking the passage of time.
A few posts ago I mentioned that I would like to see a Ring set in the corporate world. Gotterdammerung provided just that, with the Gibichungs in suits and ties, hashing out their plans in a massive boardroom with computer screens that glowed red. I think it’s marvellously effective - what surer symbols of sinister power do we have today than the trappings of executive offices? The Rhinemaidens were brilliantly sexed-up (again, I was wondering if I was about to see a Rhinemaiden makeout) and the Norns had very stylish black outfits.
The Siegfried production took place in a psychological world seemingly removed from time, where Siegfried’s white garb made him look a little like a mental patient (”He’s not supposed to be a depressive”, commented an annoyed patron behind me). It seems as though Wagner had a glimmering of just how astonishingly unsympathetic a character he’d created for his “great hero”, and he makes much more sense in the removed, lonely world created by that production. The dragon was created out of suspended, white-garbed bodies, and was truly unsettling (unlike, I imagine, a more “realistic” dragon would have been).
As I predicted, my rowmates began to get chatty at the Siegfried production. The man sitting next to me had come all the way from England, and we commiserated over people with the audacity to crinkle plastic bags during the performance.
Also, this was the first time I’ve ever heard booing in an opera house, although the audience was generally extremely enthusiastic. It was mostly the directors receiving the brunt of the booing, I imagine because non-traditional Wagner productions are upsetting to a few purists. If anything else, it was an indication that the COC is now playing in the big leagues.
My tickets were worth every penny, and I was seldom bored, even during Siegfried, which is a slog even by Ring Cycle standards.. I don’t know how many chances I’ll get in my life to see a full production of the Ring, and this one was even more exciting than I thought it would be.
One Comment
- Maddy Stuart - How To Blog replied:
[…] For some reason, writing on the internet is much more intimidating to me than writing for print publications. I’m not sure why this is. Perhaps it’s because the potential response is so much more immediate and unfettered - someone can write a vicious comment or email within minutes of any posting, and things said about your writing can be dug up so easily, even years after the fact. Perhaps it’s just that I have been obsessed with the internet for far too much of my young life, and have assigned it some sort of mythic importance. Regardless of the reason, it would be a good thing to tame my anxieties surrounding having my words on the internet. So, maddystuart.com is what it is, technical issues and sporadic posts and all. I don’t imagine there’s a lot of interest in what I thought about the COC Ring Cycle, although my reference to photoshopped pictures of muscled baritones still gets hits. We’ll see what this blog becomes. […]
August 22nd, 2007 at 5:21 pm. Permalink.