San Francisco Classical Voice

The Rhine Maidens' scene (imploring Siegfried to give up the Ring and prophesying his death) was the first real slippage of the director Stephen Wadswsorth in this Götterdämmerung production. The setting is the same as that of the Siegmund-Sieglinde flight (Die Walküre) and of the Siegfried-Dragon battle (Siegfried). So where was the Rhine? The mermaids popped out of a pool no bigger than a hot tub (the source of the Rhine?), bopping up and back under like jumping jacks, splashing Siegfried with water. It wasn't comic relief, it just seemed silly.

Next, Hagen and his hunting party enter into this same setting for the scene that concludes with Hagen's slaying of Siegfried, the place where, in the previous opera, Siegfried killed the dragon, heard the forest bird, and so on. The repetitiousness, perhaps intending a literal referencing of earlier events, diluted the dramatic impact.

The more serious flaw in another otherwise well-conceived production was the Immolation scene. There is not a proper transfer out of the Gibichung hall to the shores of the Rhine. The flames ignited at Brünnhilde's command are seen through the wooden walls, become semi-transparent. She walks into this "fire" burning in the adjoining room, as it were. The lighting and some shift dissolve the scenery and the Rhine Maidens appear on their "flying" rigs to take the Ring. The stage illusion of suddenly being in the Rhine doesn't work.

Then, with a scene transformation, the gods are seen on a great pedestal, clustered around Wotan and Fricka, and the flames consume them. It is too realistic and pictorial, personalized and particular. It loses the great symbolism as depicted by the usual image of flames consuming a distant Valhalla. The literalism simply diminishes Wagner's concept and the singular transport of the Immolation scene, Brünnhilde's redemption of the world. It draws attention from Jane Eaglen's Brünnhilde, from her matchless performance and the great orchestral close.

This ending was all the more a let-down in view of the build-up to it. The opening scene broke with precedent. Typically a static recapitulation of the story, this time it was arresting. The three Norns, mythic figures with the supernatural powers of reading history and divining destiny, were sung by major singers, principals in the earlier operas, Eva Podles (Erda), Stephanie Blythe (Fricka) and Margaret Jane Wray (Sieglinde). The Norns and their dramatic function launching the final opera were then enlarged by these big voices and the intensity and fervor in their reading the rope of fate.

The Gibichung conspiracy to ensnare Siegfried with a memory-loss potion, so that he would fetch Brünnhilde to be Gunther's bride, was played out with an insistent thrust. Stephen Milling's Hagen was a most sinister force. Though his dominating bass voice lost power during the opera's course (before Act III, it was announced that he was singing over a cold), the energy and coloring of his depiction of the evil factor drove the drama. The rousing scene when he calls all the clansmen to receive and celebrate Brünnhilde as Gunther's bride-to-be produced a thrilling male chorus response, the big virile sound.

Gordon Hawkins as Gunther, Gibichung lord, exploited by his half-brother Hagen, balanced the strengths of Woodrow's Siegfried and Milling with a fiery spirit. He sang in a contrasting, dark potent baritone and making the character's vain defense of his honor and remorse believable. Marie Plette, a fine lyric soprano, was Gunther's sister Gutrune, used to trap Siegfried. She was convincing in her infatuation and eventual despair. This production has Gutrune commit suicide. Gunther is killed when he attacks Hagen, who in turn is drowned when he attempts to retrieve the Ring before the Rhine Maidens receive it from Brünnhilde.

Earlier, before Brünnhilde is captured and taken off by the enchanted and disguised Siegfried, the Valkyrie Waltraute, in the person of Nancy Maultsby, arrived at the rocky ledge to attempt, but vainly, to persuade Brünnhilde to return the Ring to the Rhine to save the gods. Maultsby's singing projected vibrantly; the mezzo soprano was stirring. The dark and splendid Alberich in this Ring, Richard Paul Fink, appeared as the spirit of that dwarf, singing in the ear of his sleeping son, Hagen, urging him to regain the Ring for the Nibelungs.

Thomas Lynch's design for the Gibichung hall, the only major setting that had not been utilized in the previous three operas, was a severe structure with handsome walls of wood, covered with carvings of medieval figures. The director Stephen Wadsworth continued to apply added touches. One surprise was the appearance of a beautiful black horse as Brünnhilde's steed Grane, led out of Brünnhilde's cave by Siegfried to accompany him on his journey. Much later, at the final Immolation, as announced in her words but rarely — not in my experience — shown in the flesh, Grane goes with her into the flames. It didn't help that finale.