|
OPERA REVIEW
August 7, 2005
|
By Robert Commanday
SEATTLE — Seattle Opera, torch-bearer of Wagner's Ring cycle on the West Coast, opened its 19th running of the epic in 30 years Sunday, Das Rheingold, with a different take on the principal characters. It was another way of looking into, rather than at, the work, advantaged by the strong singers that general director Speight Jenkins has gathered here. Notably missing, with no regret, was the modern or updating dress approach. This was a revival of the company's third Ring production, from 2001, a romantic, realistic view that Wagner would have recognized 130 years ago, no problem.
While the singing, setting and interpretation worked well in the opening night's Das Rheingold, in other performance aspects, the Kunstwerk was not so gesamt. The completeness that Wagner's conception presumed — the equally integrated experiencing of word, voice, orchestra and visual play — was just not there, anything but paramount. Significantly, the orchestra was distanced, its impact subdued, the dramatic defining, expressive commentary and subtext, the wondrous colors and detail, all were mollified, set into background.
The conductor, Robert Spano, Atlanta Symphony music director, whatever his Wagner experience, had not the fire, intensity and inspiration for the score. Even the detail was not polished. Monday night's Die Walküre will be his acid test.
Acoustics played a role in this. The handsome McCaw Hall of the still-new Seattle Opera House has a fine acoustical response but the space is still large, and far too much is contained, not reflected from the exceptionally spacious and deep orchestral pit. The orchestra was not a commanding presence, did not provide support and an independent voice along with the singing. For example, Richard Paul Fink, an imperishable Alberich, not backed by enough orchestral emphasis, color, weight, accent could not realize a performance that should have been powerful. Physically, with his tumbling, twisting and athletic strength, he was the demonic dwarf. Orchestral passages that should be dominating, shattering — Wotan's and Loge's descent into and ascent from Nibelheim, for example — were simply interludes. The gods' entrance into Valhalla was less than a radiant climax. There just wasn't the long line and drive in this performance. Also, the verbal text did not carry, and Wagner's poetic libretto was not projected, neither in its musical import nor directly as meaning. Reading the Supertitles and hearing the vocal line in blurred German hardly completes that crucial element in the Kunstwerk.
 Thomas Harper (Mime) Peter Kazaras (Loge) Greer Grimsley (Wotan) Stephen Wadsworth's direction took advantage of Stephanie Blythe's powerful mezzo-soprano (almost Brünnhilde-scaled) and large presence to make Fricka a more dominant force than I have seen before in Rheingold. This began at the outset with her loving, most affectionate relationship to Wotan and emphasis of wifely passion, and was confirmed at the opera's end. There, after the other gods had already processed across the rainbow bridge, she lingered, clearly mournng over the body of the slain Fasolt, and exchanging a very extended understanding look at Loge, both clearly foreseeing the outcome ahead. Whenever before was the murdered giant ever mourned? The Wotan of Greer Grimsley was not the authoritative, immovably proud godhead but an emotional human, vulnerable, susceptible to influence, needful of Fricka's loving ministrations, and as leader, a kind of wiry, hair-trigger commander. Grimsley's voice is deep, fairly rich, his singing potent.
The other principals were fine. Peter Kazaras was Loge, initially foppish and growing into a cosseting and manipulating lawyer to Wotan. He was given fire tricks, fire balls shot from a device in his hand, flame spurting up from vents in the “forest” floor. Stephen Milling, the Danish bass with a grand, voluminous voice, was a commanding Fasolt, Gidon Saks a strong Fafner. Marie Plette was Freia, her soprano distinctive, vibrant, intense. Thomas Harper was an effectve, sinuous Mime. Thomas Rolf Truihitte sang Froh in a clear, firm tenor, Gordon Hawkins was the heavier brother, Donner. The silly Rhine Maidens, Wendy Hotl, Mary Phillips, Jennifer Hines, in mermaid outfits with fins, and in continuous arm and leg motion, did their routine on trapeze-like flying rigs, somersaulting and air-swimming all over the place, meanwhile, singing as well as could be wanted, excepting that their vocal balance was wanting Thomas Lynch designed the forest nature setting, a colorful rendering of the woods that might have been here in Washington and Peter Kaczorowski created effective lighting. Martin Pakledinaz' costumes, however, while individually suitable, made the gods fairly indistinguishable one from another, all bulky, with long hair and blue robes so one had to keep a sharp lookout to identify them. The visual aspect was not the principal issue. Speight Jenkins, in introductory words, dedicated this Ring to the recently-deceased Glynn Ross, who initiated the Seattle Opera's summer Ring festivals in 1975. At the conclusion of Rheingold, the opening-night audience sent up a roar; well, why not? It's still a surprise that so many people have such short memories of previous performance that were truly gripping, in all ways.
(Robert P. Commanday, senior editor of San Francisco Classical Voice, was the music critic of The San Francisco Chronicle, 1965-93, and before that a conductor and lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley.)
|
Jennifer Hines (Flosshilde)
Stephen Milling (Fasolt)
