Ich lausch dem Gesang: Siegfried at the Met

Despite some very fine singing, and some very fine orchestral playing, the Met's new Siegfried was less than fully satisfying. Robert Lepage promised hyperrealism, and this he delivered; the Machine has come into its own as a representational set. But that is all it is (and it nearly ground to a halt, with ominous clanking, between the second and third scenes of Act III; that Siegfried did not fear the fiery cliffs was indeed impressive.) The visual influence of Fritz Lang was apparent, and I was reminded of a cherished childhood possession, The Story of Siegfried. This is more than a failure to provide a clear and consistent interpretation; this is a problem. Siegfried is the only one clad completely in "medieval" costume; the rest are more directly inspired by the nineteenth century. I find it hard to believe that anyone charged with directing the Ring could be unaware of, or insensitive to, the problems in depicting Mime and Alberich in working-class clothes of the nineteenth-century, and then making them unrepentant and unsubtle schemers against our nature-child hero. Worse: Mime is made into a child-stealing hunchback. This allows Lepage to visually echo, in the dying Sieglinde's futile reach for her child, the dying Siegmund's reach for his wife. But: that is not how you deal with the question of whether or not Mime is an antisemitic caricature, Robert Lepage. [Update: Likely Impossibilities has a post about this.] After this, Brünnhilde as Pre-Raphaelite fantasy--Waterhouse would have been proud of that radiant, autumn-haired woman, shift-clad in a meadow--seemed positively innocuous. The few non-literal touches in the staging--Wotan causes the sun to turn blood-red in Act I, and unrolls the bark from around his staff in Act III--I found more confusing than illuminating.

Stuttgart Ring: Siegfried

The Jossi Wieler and Sergio Morabito production of Siegfried is, so far, the installment of the Stuttgart Ring I've liked best. It has a wildly different atmosphere for each act, but its sets become progressively less realistic, with Mime's shabby, cluttered 1960s house (complete with hideous couch) giving way to a nuclear-dystopian abandoned factory where Siegfried's lack of fear is truly impressive under the circumstances. Later on, we see Erda-as-Sylvia-Plath (I think) in a shabby, dim apartment.  The cleanliness and spaciousness of Brünnhilde's bedroom, after all this, is a palpable relief, though the room is starkly, blindingly white (with the exception of the bed's rich green covers. No, it's not subtle. But neither is the breathless finale of Wagner's music.)  From the opening of the opera, which finds Mime in an apron, peeling potatoes, to its conclusion, with Siegfried and his bride botching their attempts to put a new sheet on the bed, the production is preoccupied with gender and gendered roles. An easy target, perhaps, but I thought the production treated it thoughtfully. Occasionally it felt as though an idea was stuffed in and left under-developed, but on the whole I found it effective and interesting. The orchestra, under Lothar Zagrosek, was richly atmospheric and richly nuanced.  And I was very impressed by Jon Fredric West's well sung, unusually sympathetic Siegfried.