Based on your current knowledge of Wagner artists, cher public, your task is to come up with a cast and conductor for the 2017 Met Ring cycle. For any choices that might be deemed controversial or downright peculiar, La Cieca asks you to provide your rationale. YouTube clips are, as always, welcome.

It delivers a thoughtful examination of the themes and symbols of this complex work, a detailed exploration of how the plot and dramatic arc of the opera prefigure the history of modern Germany and Bayreuth itself, and, most of all, a deeply moving, cathartic theatrical experience that serves as a testament to the continued possibility of redemption.

In this production, time really does become space. Location, chronology, and identity all move with a seamlessness that even a film director might struggle to replicate. The action begins almost immediately after the prelude starts when the curtains part to reveal the interior of Wahnfried, Wagner’s home in Bayreuth. Herzeleide, Parsifal’s mother, lies dying in bed. She begs her fearful son to approach her. He does so reluctantly and then goes off to play with his bow and arrow. While he is away she dies; a doctor and maid prepare the body. A curtain is drawn over the windows; it is identical to the stage curtain in the Festspielhaus.

Parsifal returns. The figure in the bed begins to writhe. His mother has changed into Kundry and she grabs the boy, smothering him in her embrace. He runs away towards the front of the stage and begins to surround himself with stone blocks. His fortress comes to resemble Klingsor’s tower. The curtains towards the rear of the stage part and the front of the set stretches and expands so that we are now in Wahnfried’s garden with the all-important bed center stage by the fountain and Wagner’s grave over the prompter’s box. Gurnemanz and the other knights of the Grail have wings like eagles, symbolic of both their divine mission and the fledgling German empire.

And this is just the first few minutes of the show. From there, Herheim manages to tell the story of Parsifal’s quest and to recapitulate the next 100 or so years of German history.. I would be hard-pressed to summarize the details of the staging in a reasonable space. Instead, let me choose a couple of highlights that give a flavor of the production. During the Transformation scene in Act I, Parsifal’s life plays out before him; his mother gives birth (in that bed, of course) and then Kundry steals away the baby. A platform rises out of the central fountain and the baby is brought there to be circumcised. At the moment of circumcision, Amfortas cries out in agony.

With these few deft strokes (as it were), we are confronted with both Kundry’s Jewishness and the symbolic nature of Amfortas’ wound. While this is happening, elaborate arches descend from the flies and the central portion of the set has become a replica of the set for the Grail Temple from the very first Bayreuth production of Parsifal.

Act II manages encompass the time period from World War I to the end of World War II. Klingsor, in fishnet stockings, holds sway over an army field hospital, his army a monstrous assemblage of dead and dying soldiers. The flower maidens begin as field nurses before they achieve efflorescence as Weimar Republic showgirls. Kundry becomes Lola Lala in The Blue Angel and delivers “Ich sah das Kind” with a seductiveness and conversational intimacy worthy of Marlene Dietrich herself.

For Kundry’s final attempt at seduction, she makes a quick unseen change to a white shift and flowing red wig thus becoming Amfortas himself in her efforts to make Parsifal see her as a victim. Such is the quality of the direction (or should I say audience misdirection) that her disappearance isn’t noticed until her surprisingly reappearance

The inevitable Nazis appear in the final few minutes until Parsifal destroys both them and Klingsor’s empire by plunging his spear into Wagner’s grave. Act III begins in the ruins of post-war Germany and with a little stage magic involving a few lights and a mirror shows the reopening of Bayreuth during the Good Friday Spell. The promised redemption does indeed come and we even get a dove at the very end in a beautiful image of hope for Germany.

Despite the visual and intellectual density of the production, the satisfaction of experiencing it does not its satisfactions are still primarily dramatic. The storytelling is always clear and wedded to both the music and the text. The different narratives embedded in the production bring additional insights, but unlike so many regie productions, a viewer doesn’t have to decrypt the production to enjoy it.

I do hope that the rumored plans to film this production come to fruition, as every Wagnerian should be able to see this production. It serves a welcome reminder that machines are not a substitute for stagecraft. The production itself is unlikely to ever travel given its extreme technical complexity. The stagehands got a well-deserved group bow during the curtain calls; they managed all the complex changes and precisely timed cues with remarkable precision and only a few thuds. In fact, they even managed the near impossible Klingsor starts to throw Spear/blackout/Parsifal holds spear aloft lighting cues perfectly.

Daniele Gatti led a supple performance that failed to have the expected impact, emotionally or sonically. He made little of the special Bayreuth acoustic for which this work was designed. The last time I heard Parsifal in Bayreuth, it felt as if the auditorium was the Grail Hall—the building vibrated and the unseen choir seemed to emanate from somewhere surrounding us rather than on stage. That did not happen and the orchestra had a dullish, gray sound.

Simon O’Neill was a very fine Parsifal, making much of his character’s initial innocence and naiveté and transition to full heroic maturity. His tone is somewhat nasal and wiry, but it had the requisite heft and impact. Detlef Roth as Amfortas , struggled vocally, nearly losing his voice in Act I. No indisposition was announced and he made it through Act III with fewer difficulties. While I would not want to pass judgment on his voice based on this performance, he certainly projected his character’s agonies with minimal reliance on the stock flailing.

Kwangchul Youn was a vocally imposing Gurnemanz. He was very enthusiastically received by the Bayreuth audience, but I found him somewhat bland in his characterization, particularly since this production presents him as Klingsor’s alter ego.

Reticence was not a problem for the Klingsor of Thomas Jesatko, who gave (you’ll forgive the expression) a ballsy performance. Not only did he work the fishnets and eyeliner; he dug deep into Klingsor’s dark nature without going over the top, even when the staging provided more than ample temptation. However, his acting was more imposing than his voice; I wasn’t sure how he would do in a different venue.

And finally, there was the protean Kundry of Susan Maclean. The character gets quite a workout in this staging; in fact, I lost track of her costume changes and sudden materializations. It required an extraordinary singing actress to pull this all off, which she did without a hint of showiness. Her attention to the text and musical line was most impressive. Other Kundries have had more voluptuous voices and sheer aural oomph, but I did not find her performance lacking. Of the many singers that were new to me at the festival, she was the one I was most eager to hear again.

This Parsifal served as a benchmark for what a “festival performance” should be—a presentation requiring the special combination of venue and performers as well as the rehearsal time and focus that are only possible in festival settings. It may have lacked in star power, but it dazzled with both heat and light.

Photos: Enrico Nawrath / Bayreuther Festspiele.

If salvation exists, it’s in the form of evolution; the possibility that we might create a life form that has a less a punishing existence than ours. Or so director Sebastian Baumgarten incoherently argued in his not-so-hot mess of a new production of Tannhäuser for Bayreuth.

The set is a new version of a massive installation by artist Joep van Lieshout entitled “The Technocrat.”  Spread out over three levels, it shows a fully self-contained factory/community where the excrement of the workers is harvested to make biogas, which is then used to make their food and all-important alcohol. This huge factory is run by Wartburg industries. The program notes point out that this setting “parallels the traditional setting of Tannhäuser” as it is a place of power, society, systems and conventions…[that] stands quite opposite the Venus mountain where individual hedonistic freedom rules.“ In the front are two areas for spectators, whose purpose, I suppose, is to let the audience know that we, too are plugged into the Matrix, part of the Technocrat system.

The Venusberg is a round cage that rises from the floor with a few tall rocky structures inside to suggest a cave. Garish lights constantly change color while cavemen do aerobics and creatures that are either tadpoles or sperms recreate the choreography for “The Madison” number in Hairspray. Venus, who is pregnant, is done up as a low-budget evil sci-fi queen while Tannhäuser dances in his grungy underwear and T-shirt. All in all, it looks like a really sad theme night at Area.

When Tannhäuser returns to earth, he is greeted by the shepherd, here a perpetually sozzled, tiresome functionary in the Technocrat hierarchy. The upper echelons of the Wartburg hierarchy are clad in similarly ugly jodhpur-sleeveless vest combos, while the pilgrims have to make do with sack-like ponchos. The pilgrims are the lowest caste of workers in the factory, lured from location to location by the promise of salvation. Rome was just the latrine where their waste was harvested to make Soylent Wartburg.

In Act II, Elisabeth, clad in a garish red dress and high heels embraced the alcohol production tank and ran frantically up and down the set until she was sufficiently winded to begin “Dich, teure Halle”. The aria itself was inexplicably staged as the “Jewel Song” from Faust, complete with casket. The singing contest might have been mistaken for a singing contest but Tannhäuser poured water on the other contestants to keep things lively. The purpose of the singing contest in this vision of the work was not clear.

In Act III, the pilgrims returned in the form of newly promoted factory workers, their sacks upgraded to pants and athletic shirts. They showed their gratitude by frenetically dusting and cleaning the machinery. In another nod to the actual plot of the work, Elisabeth scanned the pilgrims for Tannhäuser. Wolfram then sang his ode and forced Elizabeth into the Biogas tank, killing her. Tannhäuser returned without a staff and sang an anguished Rome narration and then rejected Venus before collapsing.

Then, with no motivation at all, the Venusberg rose from the floor with the sirens from the first act rejoicing. The Pope showed up, the sperm-poles did a happy dance, Elisabeth emerged unharmed from her time in the swamp gas isolation tank and Venus joined the fun holding her newborn baby, indicating the possibility of a better world, or that, at least, the cycle would get the fresh meat it would need to continue.

There was, an interesting idea at the heart of the production as it tried to explore the nature of salvation. However, the actual execution was incoherent and self-indulgent as the primary interest of the director was the Technocrat installation rather than presenting the opera. I also believe that an audience should be able to appreciate the milieu and intent of the staging without having either thoroughly read the program notes or a chemical engineering degree.

As an indication of the director’s attitude towards the work, he wrote in the program notes that he wanted to present the work without intermission so the audience would not leave the realm of the installation. He then claimed that the caterer wouldn’t allow. I had always assumed that, given the powerful Bratwurst lobby in Franconia, key artistic decisions at Bayreuth were made by the caterers.

Thomas Hengelbrock opted for the so-called Dresden version of the opera, which is the opera as it was first published. He wanted to do an earlier version that would more closely resemble work as it was first performed in Dresden in 1845, but the Festival didn’t allow it, probably because this would not be one of The Master’s sanctioned versions of this oft tinkered with work. His conducting showed a propensity for perversely slow tempos at strategic moments. Even so, we were spared what would have been an insufferable ballet and more music for Venus, which was sung quite hideously by Stephanie Friede, who has a car alarm of a voice and no compensating distinction in stage deportment.

Otherwise the cast was reasonably strong. Lars Cleveman was a compelling Tannhäuser, capable of projecting his character’s anguish. Neither the vicissitudes of the Rome Narrative nor the staging posed him any obvious difficulties. Michael Nagy gave us a warm lyrical Wolfram van Eschenbach and his Ode to the BioReactor was one of the evening’s highlights. Camilla Nylund’s Elisabeth sounded rather generic vocally lacking the heft and sheen that more compelling singers have brought to the part. Gunther Groissbock was indisposed, so he acted the part of the Landgrave while Kwangchul Youn sang the part from a music stand at the side of the stage with reasonable degree of authoritativeness.

Do they really not have covers in Bayreuth, even for new productions? I assume not because we had a last minute substitution for Walther von Stolzing in Meistersinger the night before. Stefan Vinke had apparently arrived quite late on the evening before the performance and had managed to learn the staging and do a quick refresher on the music in a matter of hours. He did quite well, barely looking at the prompter and only needing an occasional gentle push from Eva. Someone should have told him after the first act that he didn’t need to scream as much as he did. Even so, he had sufficient reserves to muscle his way through the evening, only lightly damaging the music in the process.

The performance I saw of Die Meistersinger is supposedly the last for Katharina Wagner’s production. She took a bow at the end with designer Tilo Steffens and was vociferously booed. There was also extended booing after Act II. The production remains largely as seen on the DVD of the production I reviewed (and for which La Cieca provided a detailed exegesis in the comments). She did add some business for the Meistersingers where they took the Eucharist by consuming pages of a specially chosen book.

On second viewing, I admired the fierce relentlessness with which she pursued her argument, and the cogency with which she argues her thesis. However, her view of the work allows no room for any humanity for any of the characters. Watching it anew was akin to reading an autopsy report. Even so, the second half of the last act is such great theater that one forgives the very big chill that precedes it.

Musically, this was not at a festival level. Sebastian Weigle conducted like a bored guide on a bus tour, desultorily pointed out the landmarks. Adrian Eröd as Beckmesser gave the only truly memorable performance, fully realizing the director’s multi-faceted vision of his character. The chorus did perform at an exalted level and executed the complex staging flawlessly.

Photos: Bayreuther Festspiele / Enrico Nawrath.

The production—which Alex Ross in The New Yorker called “an austere, elegant, darkly enchanting piece of theatre”—kicks off at 16:00 at Bayreuth, which translates to 10:00 AM here in New York.  La Cieca will open the chatroom for discussion during the customary lengthy Green Hill intermissions.

Götterdämmerung was more of a mixed bag than the other operas, but still left a powerful impression. This was where Zambello’s choice to steer clear of heavy spectacle was most evident to me. The cost in grandeur was offset by an absence of dumb bombast and a gain in intimacy and character definition. I don’t know how well that last factor would hold up in a revival director’s hands, but on the whole she made the approach pay off handsomely.  

Runnicles is not my idea of a great Wagner conductor, but I have to give him credit for clocking the performance out in a mere 5 1/4 hours, including intermissions, without seeming to rush. The only section I thought dragged this time was Act I after Hagen’s Watch – a difficult stretch to hold together in any case, and not helped by a weak Waltraute (more on her below). There were moments of miscoordination within the band, and the brass bobbled frequently, as they are wont to do in this house. Rather thin sonorities at various times during the cycle, especially in Rheingold and Walküre, initially made me assume Runnicles was working with reduced forces, but the roster shows a full complement of more than 100 musicians. Despite the occasional shortcomings, though, there was still a lot of noble sound to be heard – the conducting didn’t seriously get in Wagner’s way.

Ian Storey has a curious voice, a bit dry and not overly trenchant in the lower registers, but also not leathery or unattractive, and with a solid, penetrating top that carries well even over a Wagnerian orchestra. As I already mentioned elsewhere, he brought off a ringing high C in Act III. He’s also a good actor – not as instinctive and spontaneous as the excellent Jay Hunter Morris, but much better than run of the mill. He reproduced some of the physical mannerisms Morris had built into Siegfried, which also allowed him and Zambello to play up Siegfried’s amusing encounters with the unfamiliar blandishments of civilization chez les Gibichungs. Rather than trivializing him, his delighted reactions to cushy upholstery and swiveling bar stools humanized him and injected a welcome dash of humor into the Gibichung scene, which never dragged as it so often does. They also kept us aware that Siggy is naïve, not stupid.

On top of that, the reserves of goodwill Morris had built up made Storey’s death scene – with its recall of music from Siegfried, of course – all the more moving. I was grateful that rather than staging the Funeral March, Zambello left it entirely to the orchestra to tell the story under a sickly, mournful moon. They did it well. (For an example of just how cheesy and exploitative this moment can get, have a look at the Fura dels Baus version on Youtube. I refuse to link to it here.)

Stemme was a force of nature. The voice might not be as big as Birgit’s, but the middle and lower range are much richer. The pitch is much more secure than Gwyneth’s, and there are no worries about vocal health as there often were with Behrens. She topped off the Prologue duet with a gutsy though ever-so-slightly unsteady C, and even after giving 100% all the rest of the afternoon, she showed no sign of tiring for the Immolation. Hers is certainly the best-acted Brünnhilde I’ve ever seen, and yes, I’ve seen the Chéreau. Every moment is illuminated from the inside – one that especially sticks in the memory is her baffled, heartbroken attempt to get some kind of recognition out of Siegfried in Act II. Her rage makes far more sense if she’s tried to get through to him first: now, rather than just being oblivious, he’s brutally snubbed her. That was shocking, especially after the unusually affectionate, lingering farewell Zambello had staged for the two of them. (Meantime Siegfried’s occasional bouts of wooziness kept reminding us that he was still very much under the potion’s influence.)

But as good as Stemme was, her costumer failed her. Somebody needs to send Catherine Zuber back to costuming school. If Brunni’s leather bodice in Siegfried was merely unappealing, her bridal gown was an atrocity, making the attractive, athletic Stemme look like a stumpy Margaret Dumont (see photo above). Fine, I get the idea: fancy gowns and Brunni do not go together. Being dolled up can be a kind of imprisonment. That’s legit, and Stemme economically made the point by wearing what looked like combat boots underneath and stumbling over the hem at her first entrance. (I don’t doubt that she was also taking Birgit’s advice about being sure you have comfortable footwear for a long Wagnerian role.) But the fancy gown should at least be a good one, even if she wears it uncomfortably – the Gibichungs are nothing if not rich.

Gutrune’s dress was ill-fitted as well, and as the expert Bluecabochon pointed out, the lady was badly in need of a support garment under the clingy fabric. Melissa Citro’s is not a voice I would go out of my way to hear again, but she did a nice job of portraying Gutrune’s slightly airheaded turpitude and her transition to sisterly insight. Gerd Grochowski’s chinless nerdiness was OK for Gunther.

Andrea Silvestrelli’s huge, rock-solid, black bass and strong acting made him a wonderful Hagen, better in fact than my memories of Gottlob Frick. The Summoning of the Vassals was electrifying. And he was especially impressive in the Act II interchange with Alberich – sprawled face down in bed with his head buried upstage, yet projecting solidly all the while, helped a bit of course by the headboard.

The Rhine Maidens sang very well as they dispiritedly labored to clean up the Rhine, now nothing but a dry, trash-choked channel. The banter with Siggy was charming, but marred by a bad surtitle in which Siggy seemingly offered to trade the Ring for sex. There’s no sign of that in the original text, it’s completely out of character (especially for this sweet-natured Siegfried), and it provoked gasps in the audience. True, the scene was also making a point about how Siggy is gradually being corrupted by life with the Gibichungs – now he’s sunk to hunting deer with a semiautomatic – but this particular addition was uncalled for.

Daveda Karanas made an agreeable Second Norn, but the voice, acting skills and presence are all much too lightweight for Waltraute. Instead of a desperate messenger from the doomed gods, Brünnhilde received a visit from a worried Cherubino. The other Norns were very fine, and the idea of making them creepy cable electricians was terrific, the first injection of real uncanniness in the whole cycle.

I thought Zambello’s staging had more wobbles this time than in the earlier three operas. The concepts were generally sound, but it often seemed as though the timing or some other aspect of the execution was slightly off. Given how much she seems to have refined her work between the Washington and SF runs of the other operas, I wouldn’t be surprised to see these adjusted if this production comes back for a revival in her hands.

The opening of Act II – some of the most atramentously evil music ever written, so terrifying you almost wonder how the orchestra can hold on to their instruments to play it – was undermined by a laugh. Hagen and Gutrune are in bed (yes, they have a thing going), channel-surfing on a super-sized TV: you could see the enormous rectangular outline of its picture reflected on the wall behind them. Yet in spite of this stumble in how it was handled at first, the idea isn’t without substance. Gutrune eventually leaves, and Hagen goes to sleep with the TV still playing, a nice comment on the horrible emptiness of these people’s lives. By the end of the scene, as a slightly mystified Alberich warily raised the remote to change the channel, almost like a weapon, you could see the idea’s potential for creepiness.

Later in the same act, the Gibichung Hall was visually impressive but contained a serious design mistake: a very large area dead center stage swallowed up voices. No matter who sang there – Stemme, Storey, even Silvestrelli – it was as though someone had suddenly turned down the volume on them. Only the men’s chorus sounded really good from that location (and by the way, they were magnificent). Yet once again, the overall idea was basically sound: looking at that stainless-steel-and-black environment with its rigid lines and the bleak landscape beyond, along with the regimented movements of the chorus, I wasn’t the only Parterrian who flashed on Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. I wish Michael Yeargan had found a less baldly utilitarian treatment for the sets throughout, and a more cohesive design vocabulary.

Another place where good ideas felt badly coordinated was, sadly, the Immolation Scene. There was real fire, but far too late – it began after Brunni jumped on the pyre. Walhalla came tumbling down impressively, in a projected rain of heroes’ portraits and broken masonry – but it happened during the Rhine music, not the Walhalla music. Poor Siegfried was unceremoniously dumped from a cart over the upstage edge of the rake, provoking a laugh (I doubt this will ever pan out as a good idea).

It was the Gibichung women and the Rhine Maidens who built the pyre out of bags of trash, and Brunni and Gutrune reconciled before the end – a nice way of reasserting women’s role after so much marginalization in this polluted world. But where at last were the men? Surely part of the whole dilemma of the Ring is the divorce between male and female energies. On its own, female energy is no more constructive than male (see Mr. and Mrs. Wotan). It’s the separation of Brunni and Siggy that leads to the ultimate catastrophe, and Brunni burns herself up to rejoin Siggy. A proper universal resolution demands the presence of both sexes.

But even here there were fine, imaginative strokes: Wotan’s ravens show up ominously at the end of the scene change into the Immolation set. The Rhine Maidens strangle Hagen, that human piece of refuse, with a plastic trash bag. And at the very end, after we’ve spent hours looking at grim, gray, industrial skies in a black-and-gray world, the sun breaks through with a brilliant blue sky, and a little kid comes forward and plants a tiny sapling: the first piece of three-dimensional greenery in this entire Ring.

Back in May, JJ and Oedipe mentioned quite rightly that the real problem with the Lepage Ring is that it seems to have no sense of the work’s larger issues. Zambello’s version does engage with a central theme, and rigorously carries it through to the very last note. There’s nothing earth-shaking in the insight that the Ring is partly about environmental degradation, but Zambello hammers it home so insistently and effectively that the final image of redemption and hope, trite as it may sound in the telling, brought tears. And even now, days later, and even though I live in a part of the country that still has great natural beauty, I find myself looking at our local patches of freeway devastation with new regret.

Do I think this Ring was a success? Absolutely. It’s not the version for all time, and will never satisfy those who insist on winged helmets and real horses. But if you accept it on its own terms, the strengths – most of all the beautiful attention to the interactions between characters – far outweigh the weaknesses. I’ve never seen a Ring that didn’t have serious drawbacks one way or another; I’m not sure such an animal even exists. But this version left me wrung out, thrilled, intellectually stimulated, and yearning for more. Götterdämmerung finished at 6:15 Sunday; I spent Monday in a state of dazed exhaustion; by Tuesday I would gladly have started the whole thing over again.

(Photo: Cory Weaver, San Francisco Opera)

While the maestro’s dramatic instincts may have been suspect (his outspoken Brünnhilde, Birgit Nilsson, famously showed up for a rehearsal wearing a miner’s helmet to mock the dimly lit stage setting), the singing by a starry roster including Jon Vickers, Leonie Rysanek, Christa Ludwig, Karl Ridderbusch and Nilsson was widely hailed as the best Wagner New York had experienced since the Met’s 1930s pairings of Lauritz Melchior and Kirsten Flagstad. Bing, whose aversion to the composer was well-known and who hated yielding power, showed if nothing else he was capable of making enlightened compromises.

Karajan took ill before the first installment of the cycle was broadcast. But the Feb. 28, 1968 performance of Die Walküre heard live on the radio reflects his scrupulous preparation and is one of the more noteworthy specimens in the Met’s  archives. It’s part of the second batch of historic Met performances just released by Sony (3 CDs, $19.97).

Anyone who recently experienced the Met’s amped-up new Walküre in movie theaters will be struck by the utterly natural sound of the CD. Though the orchestra seems a bit distant, the absence of enhancements allows a listener to better judge the quality and texture of the voices, especially near the top of the dynamic range. The American bass baritone Thomas Stewart comes across as a very flesh-and-blood Wotan who marshals his smallish voice to wrenching emotional effect in the Act 3 farewell to Brünnhilde and sounds helplessly out of his league in the Act 2 confrontation with Ludwig’s formidable Fricka, when he agrees to sacrifice Siegmund to avoid breaking the laws against incest and adultery.

Nilsson, who couldn’t stand Karajan and was cast at the insistence of Bing, is a force of nature, spot-on throughout the registers and almost overwhelming as she unleashes high B’s and C’s in her Hojotohos. Yet beyond the sheer power is a savvy actress who also captures the impulsive, reckless nature of her character.

Vickers more or less owned the role of Siegmund at the time of these performances and is both unforced and intense, oozing passion and power in the Act 1 Winterstürme after vividly recalling his mishap-filled life to Sieglinde and Hunding. The role of Sieglinde sat low for Rysanek, who wobbles a bit in the middle register. But the veteran soprano matches Vickers’ dramatic impact with breathtaking high notes and an appropriately enraptured scream when Siegmund removes the sword from the tree in the climactic moment of Act 1. Next to these two, Ridderbusch comes off a bit wooden, though his bass is suitably dark and threatening.

Karajan’s replacement in this run of performances was the veteran Croatian conductor Berislav Klobucar, who draws a brisk, sure-paced performance from the Met orchestra. While Karajan brought a transparent, chamber-music like quality to the Ring that once critic said “engag[ed] the listener’s imagination rather than overwhelming the ear,” Klobucar is more in the mold of a Clemens Krauss or Joseph Keilberth: exciting in right places, ever-conscious of the music’s flow and always supportive of the singers. The pre-James Levine Met orchestra, which rehearsed the work with Karajan the previous fall, acquits itself quite well, notwithstanding a few flubs in the brass.

For all its virtues, this performance doesn’t rank above the masterful Karajan Walküre on Deutsche Grammophon or Keilberth’s remarkable live version from the 1955 Bayreuth Festival on Testament. Still, the Sony Met entry is an important historical document at a bargain price that would be worth buying for Nilsson’s and Vickers’ performances alone.

There will be a meeting point inside the house before each Rheingold for those attending the cycle, and a no-host brunch on Sunday morning before each Götterdämmerung for all Parterrians who happen to be in town.

If you’re thinking of attending or if you’d like more details on the gathering, please contact Social Secretary Batty Masetto using the form below. Please be sure to contact Batty using the form if you’re planning to come for brunch, because reservations will be tricky. (Also, be forewarned that the second Götterdämmerung coincides with the SF Gay Parade – too much of a good thing, perhaps.)

[contact-form 1 "SF RSVP"]

EARLIER: La Cieca hears that the “fallen” Walküre from last night is mezzo-soprano Eve Gigliotti, who sings the role of Siegrune.

An eyewitness to the performance reports: “She was sliding down the plank and either tripped or fell when she hit bottom. One of the other Valkyries helped her up. She went offstage for a few minutes and then returned the audience applauded when she came back onstage. Scary few minutes. As for the rest of it, somewhat better than the opening night stream vocally but a lot of miscasting and appalling direction. The Machine is distracting. Money wasted.” (Walküre Photo: Ken Howard.)

And so, wishing you, the cher public, the best of luck with your Sitzfleisch, here are the details for tonight’s chat, which begins at 6:30 pm.  

• Sirius
• Met Listen Live
• Libretto
• Vocal Score

Hospitality to the chatting guest is sacred in La Cieca’s Hut.

The Machine worked very well; a few lighting problems, but nothing unsolvable. The set has many more possibilities than one would have assumed from Rheingold. Many striking images.

Westbroek and Kaufmann will bring the house down, not only for their superb singing, but for their total immersion into their respective roles. Example: when they first look into each others’ eyes early in Act 1 is a moment of true magic. Kaufmann is not the biggest voiced Siegmund we’ve ever heard, but he may be the most musical. Köing is also most impressive.

Terfel succeeds on some levels and not on others. He blusters his way through the full forte sections, sometimes impressively, sometimes pushing for all he’s worth. It’s the quiet moments he’s not equipped to deliver. The part is too low for him to have much projection in much of the big scene with Brünnhilde. His “Das Ende” moment went for nothing. He looks much better than he did in Rheingold. The hair covering half is face is gone, replaced by a traditional eye patch.

Voigt – what can I say! She should not have undertaken this role. She does not disgrace herself on the battle cry, but she doesn’t come close to covering herself in glory in the rest of the role. The unknowing public will accept her because she looks good and moves well. It’s just the singing that’s lacking.

Blythe was a force of nature as Fricka. Her entrance is spectacular. She never moves from the “throne” on which she enters (she’s harnessed into it so as not to fall forward).

I felt Levine was accommodating to both Voigt and Terfel in helping them get through passages they weren’t equipped to do full justice to. He seemed quite energetic from my vantage point (naturally sitting the entire time) and got his usual fine playing from the orchestra.

The Valkyries were a mixed lot, as usual. They certainly were loud!

I can already hear your chat room on Friday night. The usual shredding of everything will occur – some deserved, some not. One really needs to see this production to be able to accurately evaluate it.

La Cieca has also heard vague rumors about at least some portion of the rehearsal being recorded covertly and uploaded to the internet; she will try to track down this mysterious (possibly apocryphal) sound file.

The results of the utterly unscientific parterre poll:  Bieito 22.46%; Katharina Wagner 14.39% ; Stefan Herheim 12.98%.

Strong showings among write-in candidates (in order of popularity) include Franco Zeffirelli, Julie Taymor, David McVicar, Otto Schenk, Achim Freyer, Anthony Stivanello, Catherine Malfitano, Ira Siff, Peter Sellars, Robert Carsen and Woody Allen.

Those of you who want to discuss Das Rheingold from the Met, as conducted by Fabio Luisi (not pictured) may go to the usual location, La Casa della Cieca, starting at 1:00 pm.

Those with a more bel canto or diva-worshipping bent may prefer to listen to Anna Bolena live from the Vienna State Opera with Anna Netrebko (not pictured). Details on this performance and a new auxiliary chat room may be found (where else?) at L’altra Casa della Cieca.

The press release continues: “In Siegfried, Gary Lehman sings the title role on October 27, November 1, 5 matinee, April 21 matinee, and April 30; Stephen Gould sings it on May 9. In Götterdämmerung, Gary Lehman sings the role of Siegfried on January 27, February 7, 11, and May 3; Stephen Gould sings it on January 31, February 3, April 24, and May 12 matinee.”

In other news, the Met will perform Siegfried and Götterdämmerung during 2011-2012. Other details for the season will be revealed next week at the company’s annual season announcement press conference.

For the most part Maestro Welser-Most’s conducting is assured and revealing. The only misfire is a rather perfunctory reading of the “Lohengrin” Act 3 Prelude. Otherwise he shapes these well-known excerpts with a loving attention to detail that never gets in the way of their inherent lyricism and theatricality. I wish I could say the same for Measha Brueggergosman!

Ms. Brueggergosman has forged quite a career in concert and recital while also landing what appears to be an exclusive recording contract with Deutsche Grammophon. Based on this CD, I don’t see what all the fuss is about. Her voice is pretty enough, in an ordinary kind of way, but for most of this CD she sings at a rather tremulous sounding mezzo-piano that I can’t believe was audible past the third row.

It is only during the rare moments when she sings loud enough to be heard that the voice takes on a darker more interesting color and what sounds like a nice amount of heft and ring. I suspect she has aiming for intimate and meaningful but only got as far as fussy and under sung. Even here Maestro Welser-Most proves himself an excellent technician and supportive colleague, holding down the orchestra to a whisper while still giving shape, direction and support to Ms. Brueggergosman’s uninspired singing.

So here is a short list of the many superior recordings of the Wesendonck Lieder available: Crespin’s luminous account on EMI with Pretre conducting; a surprisingly warm reading on Decca by Marilyn Horne with the Royal Philharmonic and Henry Lewis; Christa Ludwig with Klemperer and the Philharmonia, also on EMI; Norman on Philips with Colin Davis and the London Symphony; Flagstad with Knappertsbusch and the Vienna Philharmonic on Decca; on DG, Varnay with Leopold Ludwig and the Bavarian Radio orchestra, Nilsson also with Colin Davis and the London Symphony on Philips; Farrell with Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic on Sony; and an unexpectedly beautiful recording on Philips with Agnes Baltsa and the London Symphony, Jeffrey Tate conducting.

To sum it all up, is the CD worth buying for just the orchestral excerpts? Probably not.

Almost the best part (aside from Stephen Milling‘s world-class König Marke): not a peep out of the Seattle audience until the very last note died away, all three acts. What a rare delight! I don’t know whether to credit the polish of Asher Fisch‘s elegant conducting or Duane Schuler‘s clever lighting design—or simply the good manners of the Seattle audience.

Peter Kazaras‘s production (seen August 12) was a bit of a puzzlement. There is no particular reason to insist on naturalism in this opera since, unlike nearly ever opera composed before it, it is not a stage action but, to a far greater extent, a meditation on the internal emotional states of its two principal characters. They spend much of the opera condemning the “Day,” the world where they must inhabit social roles and are subject to “honor,” “duty,” and their relationships to other people—the real world unreal to them from the moment (if not before it) they drink the “love drink” at the climax of Act I.

From that instant, they long for, live only in, the “Night”; no one else and nothing else really exists for them. Even sexual union does not seem to be on their minds—they yearn for a mingling of souls, a complete mingling of essence, for which sex (the suggestion is implicit if unspoken) would be a mediocre substitute. (In a pre-opera lecture, a member of the opera company staff pointed out the contrast of this symbolism to that of Mozart’s optimistic Magic Flute, which Seattle will present next spring.)

Only in the total abnegation of will that is death does Tristan attain anything like true understanding, whereupon Isolde reaches what Wagner paradoxically called “Enlightenment”—Verklärung—and that Wagnerians ever since have preferred to call the Liebestod, “love-death,” though Wagner nowhere insists that she die at the opera’s end. Some Isoldes collapse on Tristan’s body, some stand straight up. In Seattle, she fell across his breast and apparently kissed him. That was striking as the lovers had not, in fact, touched each other previously all night—a fascinating idea, that stressed the way their earthly existence—their very embodiment—prevented true encounter.

In avoiding literalism, the Seattle staging often set up other puzzles for an audience to strain to comprehend when they could have been focusing on the music. Acting movement was static and formal, not naturalistic—which suited the director’s conception and avoided several of the work’s pitfalls. The use of projections (waves in Acts I and III; woods in Act II) to show us inner (or is it outer?) states is cleverly and atmospherically brought off, and having a spotlight focused on the iconic Cup in Act I is clearly a proper step—it makes the drink more significant in case anyone had missed that point.

Robert Israel‘s costumes avoid clear links to any era or place, modern or ancient or of Wagner’s era—but then why have plush Biedermeier furniture on the deck of the ship and, later, in Cornwall’s garden? A Recamier chaise adds nothing to the story—it isn’t even used by the characters—so why is it here? To make us think of Freud’s couch? I like idea that Tristan and Isolde do not, cannot, touch each other until the final tableau, and stage embraces by people who are trying to sing at the same time can be embarrassing. But couldn’t they at least look at each other? At least after drinking the potion?

Clifton Forbis has put on weight, but this brings gravel rather than gravitas to a voice not remarkable for lyricism to begin with. He had cancelled an earlier performance due to ill health, and may not have been as well as he thought he was. Only at the end of Act II were we in the presence of a heldentenor; his agonies thereafter, in Act III, were very pleasingly sung.

Annalena Persson, the Isolde, a Swedish debutante, is lovely when she’s angry—her voice, that is, which becomes brilliant and clear under pressure, especially at the top of her range. Isolde, of course, is angry a great deal of the time, at least in Act I, and these moments were often thrilling—but whenever soft singing, brooding, yearning were called for, as they often are in this complicated role, she produced an irritating sound, tuneless, unattractive, beating about the notes rather than hitting them. What role is shrill throughout its length? Nothing in Wagner—perhaps Elektra would suit her. But she too may have been warming up—some of her soft singing in Act II, especially at its conclusion, was not ungracious. By the end of the opera, however, she had lost her footing again—it was a cautious, effective, but far from satisfying Liebestod. Persson is either an immature artist singing beyond her ability or has been poorly trained on the basis of her genuine gifts.

Margaret Jane Wray sang Brangaene, and she never opened her mouth without making me wish she’d been Isolde. The voice is lovely and easily produced—and (we know from her Sieglinde) can be sensuous when that is called for, as it is not in this role. Her acting was reserved—as the staging demanded. Happily, Mr. Kazaras did not demand—as Francesca Zambello did in Seattle’s last Tristan—that Brangaene run across the entire stage in Act I before launching her cry of distress after the potion-taking. A rational touch, Mr. Kazaras!

I’ve almost always been lucky in my King Markes, who have included Kurt Moll, Matti Salminen, René Pape and John Tomlinson, so that I’ve come over the years to regard Marke’s reproaches as something of a “standard,” a juicy plum in the opera, rather than the bore earlier generations thought it. Stephen Milling opens his mouth and steps immediately into that category, a cavernous, world-class sound. Milling did not disappoint in sheer sound, but rather scanted the emotional depths of Marke’s pain. This, I think, will come to him with more experience. In the meantime, we can wallow in sensuous note-spinning.

Greer Grimsley sang an effective Kurwenal, although his swagger sometimes seemed to come from some other, more naturalistic production than the painfully symbolic one at hand. In small roles, Jason Collins‘s Melot and Simeon Esper‘s Sailor/Shepherd both made me wish to hear them again, in longer parts.

Fisch falls on the swiftly paced side of Wagnerian conductors, but he infallibly lets the motifs—and the singers—breathe the rarefied atmosphere. His was a pleasing but not an overwhelming Tristan; it lacked the sensuous, hallucinogenic quality this music can possess in the hands of a major orchestra, an experienced and devoted Wagnerian conductor. Fisch produced a lighter, a less lush sound—due to the acoustic of McCaw Hall or to a slightly smaller orchestra?—than I am used to in this opera, but on its own terms was a persuasive, often exciting reading, full of pointed dramatic moments whether the staging picked them out or not. Too, the fact that the singers were directed not to look at each other meant that they could pay more attention to Fisch, which he seemed to reciprocate with intimate and encouraging gestures.

The Seattle Opera, as everyone knows, prints the best Wagnerian T-shirts. Their gray “Fafner and Fasolt Construction Company (rates negotiable)” is a classic, but they now have a blue “Valkyrie Air—the last flight you’ll ever take!” I, however, went for the burgundy “Life is short, Opera is long, Wagner is forever.” In Seattle, he can seem as eternal as Mount Rainier.

All photographs © Rozarii Lynch

Your doyenne has two problems with this kind of talk—Anthony Tommasini‘s, she means, not Katharina’s: the Bayreuth doyette, as pointed out before, doesn’t say much, but what she does say is pretty level-headed if hardly revelatory.

Now, first of La Cieca’s Tommasini-issues (you see, she’s already thinking in German) is the factual question of what exactly was “Hitler’s favorite Wagner opera.”  Was it indeed Meistersinger? Well, some think so, yes, mostly critics writing in English. But not everyone agrees. Some say it was Rienzi the Führer most favored, in fact, Katharina herself agrees with that idea. Other sources (you can look these up yourself) suggest Lohengrin, Parsifal or even Tristan und Isolde.

So I think the only thing that’s really safe to say is that Hitler was not a huge fanboy of Das Liebesverbot, though La Cieca as always stands ready to be contradicted on that point. But the “favorite” might be one of several, with the question further complicated by the “fact” that Hitler’s real Lieblingsopern were the non-Wagnerian works Tiefland and Die Lustige Witwe.

So anyway, just for the sake of the argument, let’s say we have some solid documentation that Hitler said at some point or another that Meistersinger was his favorite opera. And…? What’s the relevance here? We are talking about a complicated matter of personal (and certainly not entirely aesthetic) taste here, and then assigning that taste, what, a strong political and moral meaning? Or is there a suggestion that there is something inherently insidious in Meistersinger (Rienzi, Lohengrin, Die Lustige Witwe) that, what, appealed to Hitler’s depravity, enhanced it, inspired it?

Or is it just one of those non sequiturs that journalists occasionally throw in just to keep the reader interested? (“Among Michelle Obama‘s closest chums in that third grade class were Lady Gaga and Kim Jong-Il?”) Or is it the guilt-by-verbal-proximity Godwinning so favored by the likes of Manuela Hoelterhoff both in print and in conversation? (The answer to that question, La Cieca thinks, is probably the former: Tommasini is simply not the Evil Genius type.)

The top ten Met offerings will be Die Walküre, Das Rheingold, Le Comte Ory, Boris Godunov, Nixon in China, Don Carlo, Pelléas et Mélisande, Wozzeck, Capriccio and La Fanciulla del West.  La Cieca needs hardly point out, need she, that of next season’s seven new productions, six are in the top ten.

Very few of you want to return to La Bohème (which finished in 22nd place out of 28 presentations, and the family presentation of Die Zauberflöte is the only opera less popular than the revival of Armida.

Following are the complete and utterly unscientific results.

Which productions at the Met can’t be missed?

So anyway, a photo or two of choristers in rat suits do not the experience of a production make. Ten minutes of video highlights is not the ideal solution either, but until some enterprising impresario in the U.S. imports Calixto Bieito‘s take on Parsifal (or we all charter a package tour to Stuttgart), the following selection of video highlights will have to do as conversation fodder. (Anyone who finds extended video of the Neuenfels Lohengrin is asked to alert your doyenne!)

Note: there is a glimpse or two of nudity in the following video, so workers should be cautious.

You can listen to the live broadcast here.

Conductor: Andris Nelsons
Director: Hans Neuenfels
Stage design: Reinhard von der Thannen
Costumes: Reinhard von der Thannen
Lighting: Franck Evin
Video: Björn Verloh
Dramaturgy: Henry Arnold

Lohengrin: Jonas Kaufmann
Heinrich der Vogler : Georg Zeppenfeld
Elsa von Brabant: Annette Dasch
Friedrich von Telramund: Hans-Joachim Ketelsen
Ortrud: Evelyn Herlitzius
Der Heerrufer des Königs: Samuel Youn
1. Edler: Stefan Heibach
2. Edler: Willem Van der Heyden
3. Edler: Rainer Zaun
4. Edler: Christian Tschelebiew

It’s about this architect named Elsa, who lives in an Orwellian steampunk Germany that has videocamera technology but still dresses like it’s the Third Reich. Her brother has disappeared — “MISSING” posters are everywhere — and Friedrich of Telramund accuses her of killing him.  He is rescued at the last minute from being burnt at the stake when a nameless time-traveler arrives, carrying an animatronic swan. After a comical swordfight, he bests her accuser (by using magic powers making the hilt of his sword catch on fire), and introduces the local population to v-necks, trakkies and trainers.

The whole town pitches in to help Elsa build her dream house, and the two lovers get married, on the condition that she won’t ask him his name (SPOILER ALERT: He’s the title character). I mean, she can ask his name, she’s the only person who can, but he makes her promise not to, for reasons he won’t discuss. I have no problem with this, she says, and after a simple Masonic ceremony, for which the hero is dressed in traditional gaucho garb, they move into their new house.

Their happiness is shattered when Elsa  — corrupted by Telramund’s wife, the platinum blonde pagan Ortrud—panics and asks Lohengrin’s name. (WOMEN, am I right guys??) At that moment, Telramund breaks in and tries to murder him! Elsa doesn’t manage to fetch Lohengrin’s sword in time, so he has to take Telramund down using a Dim Mak strike. Crushed by his wife’s betrayal, he sends her away, then brings the empty cradle down from the empty nursery they’ve built together and uses it and a can of gasoline to set the house on fire.

The townsfolk gather to hear Lohengrin reveal his name (i.e., Lohengrin) and backstory — something about a Grail I guess? Apparently there’s more about this in the prequel? — and he then explains that, now that he has told his secret, he is condemned to leave them all behind. Lohengrin reveals that the swan he rode in on, now on its way back, was Elsa’s missing brother all along, and when Ortrud reveals how she changed him into a swan, Lohengrin handily switches him into a kid again. Ortrud despairs, Elsa rejoices, Elsa mourns, Lohengrin disappears, and the chorus retreats into a grim, institutional-looking outdoor scene upstage — I would have guessed “school cafeteria” or “concentration camp.”  However, contemporary reviews of the production identify the scene as a Jonestown-style cult compound, and upon closer inspection, I now realize that on the opera’s final chords, the chorus all sit down on cots and point automatic pistols into their mouths.

Wait WHAT??

Oh, Germany! Okay. So, well, other than that last touch, I have to say (dropping character now) that the production is not so radical, and really makes a good deal of sense. Elsa an architect? Well, it fits in with the 1930s setting of the production — this strong, chaste, braided beauty, carrying bricks to the construction site, could be a poster girl for the Heimat (or the USSR, or for that matter the WPA or an Ayn Rand novel)—and more interestingly, it literalizes Elsa’s duties as a “home-maker” in a way that might earn her more sympathy from a 21st-century viewer. She’s actually building a home for her family, not just sitting around waiting to be rescued by her knight in shining armor. Plus, of course, it gives the piece a visual arc, from act to act, as the marriage and the house comes together before falling apart—plus it makes for some handsome stage pictures and coherent business. (The camera work on this disc is good, not great — mostly the usual telephoto stuff, with some extremely wobbly handheld footage from the wings, an angle I dubbed the SWAN-CAM.)

The business with the swan, always tricky, is also well-handled, although I’m not sure why they decided it needed to be scratching itself when Lohengrin brings it out the first time (Imaginary Director’s Commentary: “In this scene, I wanted to make it clear that the swan is itchy…”). Lohengrin treats it with the same tenderness he shows the missing young Duke when he restores him to her sister, foreshadowing the transformation back.

Even the apparent disjuncture of the time periods — between the mustard-brown uniforms of the locals and swan-totin’ Lohengrin’s contemporary athletic gear — serves the story, to a certain extent. Maybe Lohengrin is a little more modern and civilized than the townsfolk of Brabant: he’s reluctant to kill his enemy until it becomes unavoidable, while their system of laws seems barbaric by comparison. You can work out your own justification for the general time and place Jones has chosen, something about war and crowds and Germany and corruption; me, I’m just relieved they’re dressed neither like the cast of Camelot nor in, say, cowboy hats. (Actually…) Most importantly, it emphasizes Lohengrin’s otherworldliness, as does the most important aspect of this recording: the sensational vocal performance of the leading man.

Now. The cast around him is uniformly strong, all singing actors, closely engaged with the language and the drama, and each one of them steals at least a scene. Michaela Schüster is compulsively watchable as the sorceress—her sneer in Elsa’s wedding procession is classic. Anja Harteros is a moving Elsa with moments of transcendent singing. At one point, I really found myself thinking, “Boy, who is that Herald? I like him!” (it’s Evgeny Nikitin), which I think is a pretty good sign, casting-wise. (And now that I’ve mentioned everybody else, Wolfgang Koch and Christof Fischesser will feel bad if I don’t mention their greasy Telramund and complex Heinrich, respectively, and so, there, I have. You guys were great!)

But all of their vocal performances are essentially earthbound, marked by the characteristic power, weight, and brilliance of Wagnerian singing. Kaufmann’s performance is something else entirely, deep and dark and effortless. His sound is too guarded—too introverted—for so many roles that it’s an immense thrill to hear him in a part he seems born to play. In the context of the cast and of the production, he seems, as Lohengrin ought to, heaven-sent.

Does his stage presence here at times seem blank, compared to his colleagues, and self-regarding? Maybe. It doesn’t matter. Lohengrin is supposed to be, after all, something of a cipher, and he certainly emotes persuasively enough when it really counts. Here’s his In fernem Land:

I could really rewatch this like twenty times in a row. I love things that are too slow! (For which I guess I should thank Kent Nagano, the conductor here. This aria lasts FOREVER. So great. I only tend to notice the conductor when things go horribly awry, and on this recording I counted maybe one raggedy choral moment.) But: look how Lohengrin’s reverence genuinely seems more intense than his passion. What’s devastating is not the forte but the subito piano that follows that it. I can’t watch this and not be swept up in it. I guess what I’m trying to say is, I hate to disappoint all of you, but JONAS KAUFMANN IS MY BOYFRIEND, HE LOVES ME, AND WE ARE GETTING MARRIED. That is all.