Metropolitan Opera House, Lincoln Center, N.Y.; July 17th, 2007
The Kirov “Traveling ‘Ring,’” after stops in Wales, Baden-Baden, Tokyo, Seoul and Costa Mesa, California has, thanks to the Lincoln Center Festival, finally landed at New York’s Metropolitan Opera house. I caught the “Walküre” on July 17th. The audience, filled with the usual local passionate Wagnerians, was supplemented with “Ring-Heads” who follow the Cycles around the world; some had seen this Ring elsewhere and were checking up to see if they had missed anything the first time, so puzzled were they by the concept. Others, newcomers, bickered about what it meant, if anything new, and compared it, mostly unfavorably, with other Rings. Less was said about the singing and playing than at any other Cycle I’ve been to.
Maestro Valery Gergiev and Designer George Tsypin have based this Ring upon Ossetian folk tales (called Nart Sagas, of which there are many versions, all of them growing from tribes bordering the Caucasus Mountains) and most acknowledged that since their acquaintance with Narts was limited at best, the lack of concrete information in the program or elsewhere was a shame. In an interview, Tsypin explained a bit: “At the beginning of the world, an enormous giant sleeps under the ice. Then, slowly, he starts waking up and breaks through the ice, and the world begins. That image stuck in my mind, and that’s the atmosphere I was trying to capture — primordial, archaic, prehistoric…. Not a great deal of help, but one must admit to never having seen anything like it.
The first act of “Die Walküre” featured three headless giant figures and a fourth acting as roof to make up the outline of Hunding’s hut and the tree that holds the sword. Wires (branches?) came out of their arms and necks. Small gnome-like figures lined the stage. The giants occasionally glowed from within and the background sky changed color frequently; it was purple for “Winterstürme.” The enormous figures allowed for little action, and it soon became clear that this was to be an under-directed Ring: the characters mostly stood and delivered and did what “Ring” characters do – lurch, look angry and/or regretful and/or frightened. Later in the opera, the Valkyries, in midnight-blue gowns and huge silver head-dresses that would look fine on the Queen of the Night, merely walked in circles and sang, sometimes stopping stage front to sing directly at the audience. By the second act, the figures had grown heads and were gazing down upon the action. Every so often a light from within the giants’ chest would light up, like a beating heart. Are these figures in sympathy with the characters? Just onlookers? None of the singing cast ever acknowledges them as anything other than something upon which to lean or avoid, so who is to say? The final act’s giants had heads that were like those of pre-historic beasts, dinosaurs and the like, with one of them, a corpse figure, elongated head resting on chest, twirling above the action. Aforementioned corpse eventually floated down, assisted by no-longer-singing Valkyries acting as stagehands, and was rested at a tilt to become the rock upon which the punished Brünnhlide would sleep. In the final moments, a dozen small people in blackface entered from stage rear. The turbans they were wearing turned out to be tiny, fire-like bulbs; they lit up, sat down, and the curtain fell.
Musically, the show was mixed. After a rapturously lovely and perfectly paced first act, the second act, coming in at 93 minutes, lagged, with the Wotan-Brünnhilde scene paced for maximum depression. The final act, at 72 minutes, also slowed to a halt during the father-daughter interview. Since Wotan is seen as a ruminative, depressed type from the moment we meet him, this is not a surprise, but Gergiev’s leadership lacked the tightness needed for this Knappertsbuschian approach and frankly, the Mariinsky Orchestra, with its crude bass and percussion and bass-light strings, does not invite one to linger. The Magic Fire Music was spellbinding – clearly one of the best-rehearsed parts of the opera (ditto the “Ride,” splendidly held together and urgent) – and, as mentioned, the softer moments were lovely, but the cumulative effect was lacking. The success of the tender moments were due in great part to the superb Siegmund and Sieglinde of Avgust Amonov and Mlada Khudoley, respectively, who along with Gergiev, opted for a lush, Italianate reading of their roles, filled with beautiful legato singing and scrupulous attention to dynamics. Without much stage direction, their attraction was still obvious. Gennady Bezzubenkov sang and loomed menacingly as Hunding. Mikhail Kit’s Wotan, given the interpretation, was dull and seemed held back vocally as well as emotionally. He was properly heartbroken at Siegmund’s death and Brünnhlide’s banishment, however, but the sluggish tempi and soft-edged approach to his character left little room for depth and his flashes of power and anger were brief. Svetlana Volkova’s Fricka almost livened him up and Lord knows she tried: she spat out the text shrewishly but the voice has majesty only in its upper reaches; she growled the bottom notes and the middle had little focus. A pre-curtain announcement asked our indulgence for Olga Savova’s Brünnhilde but none was necessary. She sang with power, rock-solid security (save for one big top note and a bit of under-pitch soft singing in Act III) and great feeling. Her “Announcement of Death” to Siegmund was heartfelt and her final plea to Wotan touchingly colored. The Valkyries, perhaps even louder than usual due to their front-and-center placement, were superb. A puzzling, new look at “Die Walküre,” certainly one difficult to disregard.
Robert Levine
