By James Karas
The second production offered by the Canadian Opera Company for its
winter season is a revival of Tim Albery’s 2006 staging of Die Gotterdammerung.
The final scene of the opera as Wagner described it, can hardly be
imagined let alone staged but the current production brings it home with outstanding
splendour. In the closing moments, we hear (and imagine) Brünnhilde’s ecstatic
leap into the fire, we see the immolation reflected in the faces of the chorus.
The surging and spectacular music slowly recedes as does the fire and we see
the Rhine flowing calmly, the Rhinemaidens regain the ring as the music becomes
extraordinarily beautiful and sweet. When Conductor Johannes Debus lowered his
baron for the final chord, the audience burst out into applause and a standing
ovation.
(l-r) Ain Anger as Hagen, Ileana Montalbetti as Gutrune,
Andreas Schager as Siegfried and
Martin Gantner as Gunther. Photo: Michael
Cooper
In other words the star of the evening was the Canadian Opera Company
Orchestra and Debus. They played Wagner’s incomparable score with all its
grandeur, ecstatic beauty and serene splendor magnificently.
The singing was generally outstanding. Austrian tenor Andreas Schager
sang a heroic and vocally and physically impressive Siegfried. American soprano
Christine Goerke sang a powerful Brünnhilde. She is a relatively recent arrival
to Wagnerian roles but she dominated the performance with her Nilssonesque
stamina and dramatic expression. She soared over the orchestra in a singularly
impressive performance.
On the baddy side (the characters not the performers), Estonian bass Ain
Anger carried the laurel wreath for his portrayal of the nasty Hagen. Anger
brought out the manipulative, power-hungry character of the villain with superb
panache. German baritone Martin Gantner provided comparison and contrast as
Hagen’s half-brother Gunther in a well-delineated characterization of the Gibichung.
Gunther is inadequate, envious, devious but incapable of going for the jugular
and under the thumb of Hagen.
Tim Albery’s production falls squarely into the modern-dress, unheroic
trend of Wagnerian productions. Otto Schenk’s production for the Metropolitan
Opera, with its grandiose sets and traditional costumes held sway for over
twenty years at the Metropolitan Opera to be replaced by the quirky Robert
Lepage version. Many productions at Bayreuth have attracted very loud boos and
I know people who refuse to go to the Festival because they consider the
productions “Eurotrash.” Last year, one production of the Ring was set in a
motel on Route 66 and it was all about oil around the world.
Christine Goerke as
Brünnhilde. Photo: Michael Cooper
Albery is somewhere in the middle. When the curtain opens we see cables
running across the stage symbolizing The Ropes of Destiny spun by the none-too-exciting
Norns. The next scene is the morning after the honeymoon night of Siegfried and
Brünnhilde where our hero reveals that he had some performance anxiety during
the night. The only prop is a bed and we will see it several times before the
end of the opera. It is carried on stage even when Siegfried is assassinated. There are some lighting effects and hanging neon lights.
The hall of the Gibichungs is furnished with Ikea furniture and in the
later scene there is a huge boardroom table. Hagen and Gunter have a lot of
staff (the whole Chorus, in fact) and they are all dressed in gray suits. When
they are summoned to war-like behavior, they toss their jackets on the floor
and jump on the large table.
Except for the scenes in the hall of the Gibichungs the back of the set
is dark and the props are minimal. Siegfried wears a leather jacket over a
T-shirt but he does dress up for his wedding. The women wear mostly gowns that
do not draw attention to their attire.
The point here is that the costumes made very little difference after
one noticed them. The music and the singing are so overwhelming that you are
drawn into the drama completely and cease noticing or caring about the set or what
anyone is wearing.
A great night at the opera.
________________
Die Gotterdammerung by Richard Wagner being performed seven times
between February 2 and 25, 2017 at the Four Seasons Centre,
145 Queen St. West Toronto. www.coc.ca
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