Well ... we loved Das Rheingold last night, but were not so keen, tonight, on Die Walküre, the 2nd opera in Wagners Ring Cycle, as performed at the Wiener Staatsoper. First the good things (and there were some): the orchestra was predictably excellent - even better than last night - and we must infer that Jeffrey Tates conducting gave it a lot of what we heard. It seemed to us that SurroundSound might have been invented to replicate the acoustics of the Wiener Staatsoper: Ive never heard an orchestra sound so rich and clear and ... um ... surrounding. On the downside ... in contrast to what we saw last night, the mis-en-scène was clumsy and opaque. The climactic scene at the end of act 2 when Siegmund is killed was incomprehensible; I feel sorry for anyone who did not know the opera well, and who would have been totally confused about what had happened. Similarly, the sets were awkward and stolid. There was nothing special about them (so why bother?), and they were so inflexible that the second scenes in the 2nd and 3rd acts had to be incongruously shoe-horned into what was in place from the first scene in each case. Was this a result of financial considerations? Partly, perhaps, but not only: what we saw was mostly a result of a conscious design choice. The third act was set in some sort of grand Viennese palace reception room (why? I asked myself) which was a silly setting for the first scene (the ride of the Valkyries) and ludicrous for the finale. Turning to performances, all the cast sang quite well, but not as comprehensively well as they did in Das Rheingold last night. Tomasz Konieczny was again splendid as Wotan, his deep rich baritone soaring, when required, over the powerful orchestra. German soprano Gun-Brit Barkmin was a pretty much perfect Sieglinde (definitely one to watch) who acted as well as she sang. German tenor Peter Seiffert (who Id seen in 2011 as Tristan in Berlin) was an adequate Siegmund, but a bit too big and ungainly, I thought, to be a convincing romantic lead in an opera where so much turns on the chemistry between him and Sieglinde, and also (surprisingly given his singing backgrond) a bit too fruity for this role. Elisabeth Kulman was again fabulous as the implacable Fricka, singing beautifully and bringing just the right level of controlled outrage to her not very big but narratively crucial part. The biggest disappointment of the evening was that Swedish soprano Nina Stemme, probably the most highly regarded active interpreter of the role of Brünnhilde, cancelled within the last few days, and was replaced by American soprano Linda Watson. Shes good (I liked her as Brünnhilde in the 2010 Ring Cycle in Los Angeles) but I think getting past her prime. They obviously didnt have a costume in her size (shes getting to be a bigger girl all the time) and so she appeared in what was perhaps her favorite burgundy recital gown, which didnt exactly scream warrior maiden at you. Despite her best efforts, it was only a so-so performance, and in the final scene, when Wotan was putting her to sleep on the rock surrounded by fire, it looked rather as if (as Robert put it!) he was kissing good night to his mother. There was absolutely no chemistry between them, and it left us, at the end of what can be a totally shattering show, feeling somewhat confused and empty. We live in hope that Siegfried, in a few days, will redeem this Ring Cycle from an apparent failure to fulfil the expectations that were created in Das Rheingold.
Posted on: Sat, 31 May 2014 23:04:49 +0000
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