Götterdämmerung
Aug. 1st, 2006 10:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakAnd thus it ends. Yesterday we actually had some rain during the performance - but not during the one-hour breaks - which mean the air outside was cool and pleasant, and not quite so hot inside. But who cares about Franconian weather? The twilight of the gods is the relavant thing.*g*
The opening scene with the Norns was my favourite bit of staging this time, stunning imagery with the three covered in their dark robes made of ropes, on a mountain of skulls, and the night sky behind them. In fact, Götterdämmerung was where I all of the stage design, whereas in the other three I had parts I approved of and parts I disliked, but this opening shot, much like the one from Rheingold with the Rhinedaughters or the one with Wotan and Erda in Siegfried, was where the set went from okay or good or hmmm to great, and made me wish for either pure fantasy or absolute minimalism, just light and shadows and nothing else.
The once or twice per opera present day walkers on, alas, were as random as ever, and unfortunately they were so in the very last scene at the end of the cycle, which marred the whole thing a bit. But it was still a great evening. Linda Watson went from a bit strained at first to great for the rest, and really carried Brünnhilde's final declarations. Stephen Gould continued to be excellent as Siegfried, though it's interesting that the chilling scene where Siegried is masked as Gunther and essentially breaks Brünnhilde was arguably the best between the two in terms of acting, not just singing - the love scenes between them looked far less convincing compared to this.
The singing heroine of the evening who got the most applause of all was Mihoko Fujimura who had already sung a wonderful Erda in Rheingold and Siegfried and now was the Valkyrie Waltraute. A tiny fragile looking woman, but what a voice! Awesome.
Götterdämmerung was the only opera where you had, shall we say, allusions to a specific period. Gunther's court at Worms was present as D'Annunio decadence, with everyone dressed in the fashion of the late 20s and early 40s - everyone, that is, except for Hagen and a couple of the Gibichmannen who were in brown. With jackboots. Which made the scene where Hagen summons them frightening in the way fascism should be, though given that, well, the murder of the opera is a single-handed one, I'm not sure how well the fascism allusion works in terms of plot. Still, it was effective.
Truly eerie as well: the scene between Hagen and Alberich. They played it with Hagen sitting with open eyes in that somnabulistic way Wagner described yet which I have not seen performed, and Alberich using nearly identical gestures to Mime in Siegfried when Mime was plotting Siegfried's death, in a parody/perversion of paternal affection.
For the final round of applause, Tankred Dorst finally showed up, together with the set design team, and was promptly booed and hissed at, though he got some applause as well, but he took it bravely. The contrast to the frenetic applause Christian Thielemann and most of the singers received was pointed, though.
In summation: I actually think Dorst was better than Jürgen Flimm who directed the last Bayreuth Ring, though yes, there was a lot to critisize as well. Musically, though, it was one of the best renditions I've heard, and at no point during this long, long epic cycle did I wish myself elsewhere than in the hot, crowded Festspielhaus. Which I think says it all.
The opening scene with the Norns was my favourite bit of staging this time, stunning imagery with the three covered in their dark robes made of ropes, on a mountain of skulls, and the night sky behind them. In fact, Götterdämmerung was where I all of the stage design, whereas in the other three I had parts I approved of and parts I disliked, but this opening shot, much like the one from Rheingold with the Rhinedaughters or the one with Wotan and Erda in Siegfried, was where the set went from okay or good or hmmm to great, and made me wish for either pure fantasy or absolute minimalism, just light and shadows and nothing else.
The once or twice per opera present day walkers on, alas, were as random as ever, and unfortunately they were so in the very last scene at the end of the cycle, which marred the whole thing a bit. But it was still a great evening. Linda Watson went from a bit strained at first to great for the rest, and really carried Brünnhilde's final declarations. Stephen Gould continued to be excellent as Siegfried, though it's interesting that the chilling scene where Siegried is masked as Gunther and essentially breaks Brünnhilde was arguably the best between the two in terms of acting, not just singing - the love scenes between them looked far less convincing compared to this.
The singing heroine of the evening who got the most applause of all was Mihoko Fujimura who had already sung a wonderful Erda in Rheingold and Siegfried and now was the Valkyrie Waltraute. A tiny fragile looking woman, but what a voice! Awesome.
Götterdämmerung was the only opera where you had, shall we say, allusions to a specific period. Gunther's court at Worms was present as D'Annunio decadence, with everyone dressed in the fashion of the late 20s and early 40s - everyone, that is, except for Hagen and a couple of the Gibichmannen who were in brown. With jackboots. Which made the scene where Hagen summons them frightening in the way fascism should be, though given that, well, the murder of the opera is a single-handed one, I'm not sure how well the fascism allusion works in terms of plot. Still, it was effective.
Truly eerie as well: the scene between Hagen and Alberich. They played it with Hagen sitting with open eyes in that somnabulistic way Wagner described yet which I have not seen performed, and Alberich using nearly identical gestures to Mime in Siegfried when Mime was plotting Siegfried's death, in a parody/perversion of paternal affection.
For the final round of applause, Tankred Dorst finally showed up, together with the set design team, and was promptly booed and hissed at, though he got some applause as well, but he took it bravely. The contrast to the frenetic applause Christian Thielemann and most of the singers received was pointed, though.
In summation: I actually think Dorst was better than Jürgen Flimm who directed the last Bayreuth Ring, though yes, there was a lot to critisize as well. Musically, though, it was one of the best renditions I've heard, and at no point during this long, long epic cycle did I wish myself elsewhere than in the hot, crowded Festspielhaus. Which I think says it all.
