Festspielhaus
Siegmund – Christopher Ventris
Hunding – Georg Zeppenfeld
Wotan – John Lundgren
Sieglinde – Camilla Nylund
Brünnhilde – Catherine Foster
Fricka – Tanja Ariane
Baumgartner
Gerhilde – Caroline Wenborne
Ortlinde – Dara Hobbs
Waltraute – Stephanie Houtzeel
Schwetleite – Nadine Weissmann
Helmwige – Christiane Kohl
Siegrune – Mareike Morr
Grimgerde – Weibe Lehmkuhl
Rossweiße – Alexandra
Petersamer
Frank Castorf (director)
Patric Seibert (assistant
director and dramaturgical collaboration)
Aleksandar Denić (set designs)
Adriana Braga Peretski
(costumes)
Rainer Kasper (lighting)
Andreas Deinert, Jens Crull
(video)
Bayreuth Festival Orchestra
Marek Janowski (conductor)
Opera is such a difficult thing
to get right: so many variables, so many contradictions. They are, however, part
of its attraction and, when everything or most things in some sense come
together, its greatness too. Not for nothing did Wagner designate the orchestra
as his Greek Chorus: framer of, participant in, commentator and critic on the
drama. During the first two acts of this Walküre,
I found myself wishing that someone had told Marek Janowski. His reputation –
largely amongst those who disapprove of treating Wagner as drama, with a fair
sprinkling of pseudo-‘authenticists’ – is a mystery to those who know great
Wagner conducting either of the present or the past. The best that could be
said of the way he led these two acts – splendidly played, it must be said, by
the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra – was that it was efficient. There were no catastrophes;
we were not, thank God, on London’s Planet Pappano. But nor was there any great
insight. What had come across as possible, even plausible objectivity in Das Rheingold, a very different drama, here
merely sounded non-committal: a bit like those churned out Beethoven cycles
certain fashion-victims excite themselves about. ‘Modern instruments and period
style’ or some such nonsense: anything to avoid commitment, let alone a
critical standpoint. Perhaps we should call it ‘Macron-meets-Vänskä’, or ‘music
for the high street’; a few years hence no one will have heard of it, let alone
listen to it.
I have never heard a less storm-like
prelude to the first act; it proceeded smoothly, as if mowing a sufficiently,
yet not excessively, watered lawn. As for the inconsequentiality of the
orchestra during Wotan’s second act monologue, it sounded like recitative as
understood by people who do not understand recitative. There is so much going
on there: past, present, and future. It is one of the great turning-points of
the entire Ring. John Lundgren’s estimable efforts as Wotan
notwithstanding, the tendency was more towards preparing a list for the weekly
shopping. There is domesticating Wagner and there is that. Even the great
climaxes were undersold – on the terms of the performance, let alone on other
terms. I do not know what had been secreted in Janowski’s second-interval
oranges, but it proved most welcome. If hardly Wagner on the level of a
Barenboim, a Haitink, a Karajan, or a Furtwängler, we heard a much stronger
sense of generative drama in the orchestra, more – if still not enough – of a
dynamic range, and a greater willingness, occasionally at least, to let the Bayreuth
strings have their head at climaxes. Woodwind solos also proved beguiling and,
in a few cases, intriguingly curdling, Tristan
not so very far away – as indeed the harmony tells us anyway.
I am not sure Frank Castorf’s
production helped in that respect either. Although I found more to admire in it
last
year than I had in 2014
– I think! Again I shall re-read later – there was, at least in actual
performance, a little too much generalised standing around and singing. I think
I understand the reasoning behind it, or at least a possible reasoning behind
it, and shall attempt to explain, but it seemed to me to need to be more
forcefully projected. A post-Brechtian critique of Wagner’s (post-)Romanticism
is apparent, but might have been much more so. And if we are going to
deconstruct, even mock, ‘Du bist der Lenz’ and so on, we really need the orchestra
– as well as the splendid singers – to be offering the case for the defence, or
at least the material to be deconstructed. Alone, there is only so much even
singers such as Christopher Ventris and Camilla Nylund can offer – although I
loved the camera close-ups on Sieglinde’s knowingly exaggerated expressions as
she prepares Hunding’s potions. (One need not agree that such plot devices are
hokum to appreciate the accomplishment of both direction and interpretation – especially
when allied to such singing.)
The scene-setting is good,
indeed thought-provoking: both at the time and afterwards. An agrarian yet
industrialising society is in many ways ideal, not least on account of little –
or not so little – scenic complexities, contradictions, provocations. Hunding makes
excellent sense: a barbarous killer in Victorian clothing, ultimately very much
Wagner’s vision too. Sieglinde is his chattel; he plays with her, wishes to
destroy her (refusing her initial greeting), and then forces himself upon her.
Such is marriage. When a bookish Patric Seibert seemingly willingly – yet driven
by what compulsion? – takes the caged place of farmyard fowl, becomes
animalised, is rescued, and takes his place again as Azerbaijani oil is hit,
all manner of possibilities present themselves. Life – and the mind – is never
dull when he is on stage; perhaps it is no coincidence that we must wait until
the third act for that. For Castorf’s intelligent, illuminating contradictions
come into far greater relief then too – doubtless assisted by the greater
orchestral canvas. The gods having adopted traditional, patriarchal guise and
customs – Fricka with conjugally enforcing whip as much as Wotan, the lazy
patriarch drinking shots and reading Pravda
– inflict themselves and their continued oil project upon the world, but they
might have done more strongly, more clearly. The lack of clarity in who Wotan
here is to begin with does not seem to me an especially fruitful ambiguity, at
least on this occasion. But perhaps the fault lies with me. At any rate, the
shift to alternative historical and geographical paths – Baku, 1942, Hitler in
pursuit of oil, such pursuit to be denied, thereby enabling the world of Siegfried... – retains its force, if
more in retrospect than in the white heat, and/or Brechtian alienation, of the
theatre.
It speaks extraordinary well,
then, of Ventris and Nylund that they made such an impression – in almost ‘traditional’
terms – as they did. The Volsungs’ musical achievement was unquestionably theirs,
not Janowski’s. Ventris’s ardent singing, verbal clarity, and verbal meaning
were quite exceptional. I am not sure I have heard a better Siegmund. Nylund’s Sieglinde, if lacking the final ounce
or two of ecstasy in that third act
solo, was nevertheless beautifully, thrillingly sung – and, insofar as
permitted, acted. Following a surprisingly uncertain entrance – anyone can make
a slip – Georg Zeppenfeld’s Hunding proved very much the dark, heartless foil.
Again, he never forgets the importance of the words; nor will he let us do.
Lundgren’s stage presence, again insofar as permitted, was godlike, the
anger of his delivery palpable, indeed terrifying, especially during the third
act; Castorf’s touch of undermining, childish petulance – a silly act with a
bearskin, whilst Brünnhilde sings – proved a truer instance of what we surely should
have seen more of earlier on. This was, by any standards, a commanding
performance, sadly let down by Janowski during that crucial monologue. Tanja
Ariane Baumgartner’s Fricka was probably the most chilling of the three
assumptions I have seen and heard, as merciless in her instrumental reason as
with her whip. And Catherine Foster’s enthusiastic, even lovable Brünnhilde was
just the ticket for the character at this stage in her development. One felt
with her as well as for her; we wish her well in her transition to humanity,
such as it might be. The Valkyries were truly outstanding; one might have taken
dictation, such were the individuality and clarity, within bounds, of their
contribution. Almost all of them, I felt, might readily have been singing ‘larger’
roles; of course, Nadine Weissman is.
Perhaps, then, my expectations
were unfeasibly high after the previous night’s Vorabend. And in a way, necessary contrast was provided here, at
least on stage. Was it always quite the right sort of contrast, though? It may
yet be that, reading back Siegfried
and even Götterdämmerung into the
staging here, more will emerge. Let us hope, though, that Janowski will be on
final act form.
