Das Rheingold - Wagner

Most helpful review Das Rheingold - Wagner

• Great performance; inconsistent staging

   

  By jrippon (31 reviews) from Stafford , 31 Jan 2010

  [Highly rated reviewer]

  I have very mixed feelings about this production. The performances are very good indeed, especially that of Graham Clarke who is excellent as Loge . My reservations are with the staging. The director Harry Kupfer is obviously very clever indeed. Some of the scenery, effects and scene-changes are brilliant and really enhance the opera as presented in Wagner’ stated and implied intentions. Unfortunately, like most directors, he just cannot resist imposing his own modernist and anachronistic features. His scenery for Act 1 representing the Rhein is a quite brilliant structure which convincingly looks like wet rocks over which the Rheinmaidens frolic to great effect. However, we also have to see the supporting scaffolding, presumably so we don’t forget that this is a modern production. In Scene 2, the Gods admire the wonderful structure of Valhalla built by the giants Fafna and Fasolt which is central to the whole opera. However, we don’t actually see Valhalla as the cast are staring out over the audience. This leads to some difficulties at the conclusion of the Opera when the Gods are supposed to process over a rainbow bridge to the castle. Since they have nowhere physical to which to go, the Gods are reduced to doing very undignified dances back and forth across the stage. Costumes are also all over the place. The Gods first appear garlanded and dressed in “mythical” drapes (but carrying modern suitcases-geddit?). However, they later appear in modern dress-coats. In Scene 1, Albericht is wonderfully dressed to resemble a slimy toad, but later appears in a modern jacket. As for the giants, they are just risible. They are presented as clumsy metal robots with crab-like claws; more early Dr Who than Wagner. The dragon into which Albericht changes himself is presented as just two metal claws peeping over a rock. Whilst most of this modernism is just rather silly, a much more serious criticism is that Kupfer actually departs very significantly from Wagner’s clearly stated intentions at certain points. Perhaps the most egregious case is where the ransom is being negotiated for the return of Freia. According to the libretto, the giants plant their spears in the ground and Freia stands between them. The gold is then stacked up to the point where Freia can no longer be seen. This is a crucial scene because the Ring is required to fill the last chink. Fricka laments the humiliation when she sings “There she stands”. However, Freia is NOT standing in this production. She is lying down! This conceit makes a mockery of the libretto as you hear one thing but see something quite different and contradictory, and for no obvious reason. I think this is a fine example of what some of our American friends refer to as “Eurotrash”- the tendency of (mainly Old World) directors to trample over a composer’s intentions in the interest of indulging their own egos. However, if you can ignore the anachronistic and rather ludicrous features of the production, then I’m sure you will enjoy the performance which is overall very competent and entertaining.

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