Sunday, March 7, 2021

The Wagner Journey: First Opera

I decided I would stick with yesterday’s “title epithet” as a means to mark the progress through the video streams of the four operas in Richard Wagner’s  cycle, Der Ring des Nibelungen (the ring of the Nibelung). The experience of viewing four operas, all of which are epic in duration, over the course of this month’s four weekends is likely to be as tempting to some as it is daunting to others. For my part, in addition to having attended a generous share of week-long performances of the cycle, I have enjoyed opportunities to view video accounts from both the Metropolitan Opera and the Bayreuth Festival; and, if my counting has been correct, I have audio recordings of three different performances of the entire cycle, two led by the same conductor, Wilhelm Furtwängler.

In spite of all that background material, I have to say that the production conceived by Francesca Zambello for performance by both the San Francisco Opera and the Washington National Opera has been more satisfying than I might initially have anticipated. Zambello set Wagner’s libretto in an American context and managed to do so without ever compromising a coherent delivery of the narrative itself. Here in San Francisco the performances of her settings of the Ring operas have consistently been conducted by Donald Runnicles, whose understanding of the many details lurking in the music is as comprehensive as Zambello’s thorough account of the overall narrative. This is one of the best venues for those getting to know the Ring for the very first time.

Nevertheless, I fear that there is one aspect of Zambello’s efforts that may not translate into the domain of video as smoothly as (for example) some of the Metropolitan Opera accounts have done. Zambello’s approach to the first of the four operas, Das Rheingold (the gold of the Rhine), is very much a “total theater” strategy that tends to fit in well with Wagner’s ambitions. The opera begins with a prologue that is roughly five minutes in duration, during which the composer rewrites the first chapter of the Book of Genesis, reconceiving creation as the unfolding of the first five overtones of the harmonic series, which are then set into motion to depict the flowing of the Rhine river. We then encounter the three Rhine maidens, river-nymphs charged by their father (presumably the spirit of the Rhine itself) with the task of guarding a magic lump of gold. Unfortunately, they are more interested in playing among themselves and tempting the attentions of men only to end up taunting them.

The man they tempt in the Nibelung dwarf Alberich. They are foolish enough to tell him that the gold can only be possessed by someone who renounces love. Such a man can then shape the gold into an all-powerful ring; and so the premise for the entire epic is established. All this is established in roughly half and hour. What makes Zambello’s approach interesting, however, is not just her “American spin” (Alberich can be viewed as a prospector) but also the way in which she draws on a variety of staging effects, including some imaginative approaches to projection, to visualize the prologue and establish the setting in the Rhine itself.

All of this leads to an intense level of engagement for anyone sitting in the opera house. Even when a character is engaged in a somewhat extended explanation (such as the “back-story” of the gold), Zambello keeps the eye occupied with both staging and projections as richly as Wagner engages the ear with his music. For that matter, the streamed account can be problematic when it comes to accounting for all of this content within the confines of a single video stream.

Now, to be fair, even in an opera house, two and one-half hours of content-rich staging and music is quite a burden. I suspect that even the most faithful Wagnerians have trouble keeping the attention firing on all cylinders for the entire duration of the opera. Indeed, it would not surprise me to learn that those who know the opera best probably know when they can “tune out” for a bit without losing track of the narrative!

Nevertheless, even if a video has limitations, it also has advantages when it comes to maintaining attention. After all, there is always a pause button! The thought of it may make many (most?) of the “Wagner faithful” cringe. Nevertheless, each opera has its own content-rich narrative; and, for those that have not yet internalized all the details, taking a break is not such a bad idea, whatever the “great experts” (thank you, Anna Russell, for that epithet) may think.

The Gods enter Valhalla at the end of Das Rheingold: Wotan (Greer Grimsley), Fricka (Jamie Barton), Freia (Julie Adams), Donner (Brian Mulligan), and Froh (Brandon Jovanovich) (photograph by Cory Weaver, courtesy of SFO)

I should also “come clean” and note that, as one interested in the music just as much as in the singing and staging, I tend to like those moments when the camera ventures into the orchestra pit. This never happens in the video account of Das Rheingold, since Zambello has provided visuals for the entire narrative from beginning to end. (Mind you, it never happens at Bayreuth either, since Wagner designed the place in such a way that the orchestra is concealed from the audience.) Nevertheless, I have to confess that I have always wanted to see the playing of the anvils that depict all the Nibelungs at work or to count just how many harps are playing during when the gods ascend to their new home in Valhalla at the conclusion of the opera!

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