Bayreuth Festival (2) – Das Rheingold, 27 July 2026

Festspielhaus

Wotan – Michael Volle
Donner – Alexander Grassauer
Froh – Siyabonga Maqungo
Loge – Klaus Florian Vogt
Fricka – Anna Kissjudit
Freia – Evelyn Novak
Erda – Christa Mayer
Alberich – Jochen Schmeckenbecher
Mime – Gerhard Siegel
Fasolt – Mika Kares
Fafner – Peter Rose
Woglinde – Katharina Konradi
Wellgunde – Natalia Skrycka
Flosshilde – Marie Henriette Reinhold

Curator – Marcus Lobbes
Artistic and technical conception – Marcus Lobbes, Nils Corte
Dramaturgy – Andri Hardmeier
Digital- and AI-storytelling – Roman Senkl
Creative code, visual art – Nils Corte, Phil Hagen Jungschlaeger
Set design – Wolf Gutjahr

Costumes – Pia Maria Mackert  

Bayreuth Festival Orchestra

Christian Thielemann (conductor)

Images (c): Bayreuther Festspiele / Enrico Nawrath

The Bayreuth Festival has had a chequered history over its (almost) 150 years to date. It nonetheless remains, or has until now remained, in many ways an object lesson to the rest of the operatic world in how to take art seriously, how to create conditions in which it might be produced and experienced, and much else—not least with respect to the Festspielhaus amphitheatre and covered pit. That the rest of the world has failed almost entirely to heed its example may sadden us, but reflects on that world and us, not on Bayreuth, nor indeed on Wagner. As Pierre Boulez observed, whilst at work here half a century ago on the now legendary ‘Centenary Ring’ with Patrice Chéreau, perhaps with a little exaggeration, if understandably so, Wagner’s ‘diatribes’, written in turn:

… more than a century ago, are still completely relevant, for nothing has changed—the laziness of the repertory theatre, its failings, its precarious functioning, the blind choice of works, the fortuitous casting of singers and players, the lack of rehearsal, the sauve-qui-peut routine. Architecturally speaking, the Bayreuth model has remained a dead letter and we still have Italian-style theatres. … Both visually and acoustically, we continue to witness this permanent defeat of what is truly theatrical, Bayreuth having effected not the slightest improvement.

To strike a slightly less pessimistic note than Boulez, I think Bayreuth has played a notable role in effecting certain theatrical improvements, if more related to staging than stages. That 1976-80 production and numerous others – Ring stagings from Harry Kupfer and Frank Castorf, Tristan from Heiner Müller, Parsifal from Stefan Herheim, Hans Neuenfels’s Lohengrin, Tobias Kratzer’s Tannhäuser, and so on – set standards for and posed challenges to the rest of the world, just as Wagner did, and occasionally, sometimes more than that, they have been taken up, run with, even surpassed. Bayreuth as ‘workshop’ (Werkstatt), the greatest legacy of Wieland and Wolfgang Wagner, created the conditions for such innovation, building on the vision and achievements of Richard himself, as well as (whisper it) the best of the Winifred era, brought such artists of vision, Boulez included, to the Green Hill, showing not only the necessary courage to fail but the equally necessary courage to rethink, to revise, to rejuvenate: Wagner’s own celebrated ‘Kinder, macht Neues!’ following that very first festival in 1876.

If,  gentle reader, you sensed a less-than-gentle ‘but’ approaching, I fear you would be anything other than mistaken. Perhaps nothing, especially in the theatre of Tannhäuser and Parsifal, is truly irredeemable; perhaps something can be salvaged from this. Imagining how lies quite beyond my little mind, though perhaps some machine will tell us. For what the Festival, incomprehensibly, has come up with to celebrate the 150^th anniversary of the first Ring must be the greatest travesty ever to have been visited on it anywhere at any time, an experience so unbearable five (out of five) people I spoke to afterwards described it independently as the worst thing they had ever seen, one (Stefan Mauß, whom I have permission to quote) adding the unforgettable and entirely accurate phrase ‘visual waterboarding’, and a rebuke not only to Wagner, not only to Bayreuth, but to any conception of art that tiny, human mind of mine will ever be able to entertain. Enter the ‘AI’-Ring, mysteriously and with insufferable pretention subtitled ‘‘Ring 10010110 – vom Mythos zum Code’, seemingly undirected, and yet ‘curated’ by one Marcus Lobbes.

What we saw can be dealt with briefly. (If only one might say the same of experiencing it.) Following a mercifully image-free Prelude, beautifully and imaginatively led by Christian Thielemann, near-peerlessly performed by the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra, any sense of drama, opera, or basic humanity deserts us for a parade of banal screensaver images shown upon a curtain in front of the singers, thus largely obscured and left to fend for themselves, wearing identical, indistinguishable, weirdly yet unrevealingly hideous costumes. (Final applause, for those who could bring themselves to engage, proved something of a game in trying to identify who was presenting him-/herself at any point At least it offered the first and only prospect of entertainment in the entire sorry evening.) Sometimes there was a clear reference to the Ring at Bayreuth, the first image being the celebrated representation of the Rhinemaidens in 1876, amidst genuine theatrical wizardry that enabled them to appear as if  swimming in the Rhine. (Yes, as Anna Russell told us, in the Rhine: now on the curtain.) I almost wept upon a brief appearance, in bizarrely low resolution such as would be refused by the least assiduous reviews editor, of Castorf’s Golden Motel, not out of the nostalgia I feel for that production, but because it was vaguely discernible. We did, to be fair, see a few large rings, on apparently female fingers, when the ring should first have been seen on stage with Alberich. Otherwise, endlessly, pointlessly transforming shapes came and went, sometimes returning, few with any relation to what we heard, culminating in an anonymous man and woman who turned into street (or perhaps theatre?) lights, quickly to turn back again. Some more recognisable, if irrelevant images were suggestive of  Ludwig II put in a very brief guest appearance during the descent to Nibelheim, as did very occasional glimpses of other Rheingold productions, but that was it.

The ultimately unforgivable thing was the way this abject, wasteful nonsense distracted from whatever might have remained of the drama. With that going on before our eyes, our ears (at least my ears) struggled for more than a minute or so to keep track of what was probably a very good musical performance. Not only was this entirely at odds with any idea of a Gesamtkunstwerk – in many ways, a problematical idea that will benefit from deconstruction – but with art and even humanity themselves. I managed to hear flashes of an intriguingly mobile, flowing orchestral conception shaped by Thielemann—rather along the analytical lines suggested by Wagner in an 1871 report to German Wagner societies, tracing an entire corpus of interrelated themes from the individualisation of ‘a few malleable Nature motifs’. If I sensed that most vividly in the Prelude, its low E-flat foundational in every sense and exquisitely decorated by some of the fruitiest, bubbliest woodwind I can recall hearing here, that is a comment related in no sense to the performance itself.

Vocal contributions seemed to be of a very high standard too. Not having had chance to remind myself of the cast beforehand, I had a very pleasant surprise in hearing Klaus Florian Vogt, no less, as Loge, the ringing clarity and sincerity of his tone both in consonance with the demi-god’s revelation of uncomfortable truths and in productive contrast with his wheedling strategizing. Michael Volle’s performance, lighter than one often hears from him and in keeping with the specific demands of the Rheingold Wotan, would doubtless have graced any stage, had I been able to follow it adequately; likewise Jochen Schmeckenbecher’s darker hued Alberich, Mika Kares’s evidently lovelorn Fasolt, Christa Mayer’s chalumeau-like Erda, and much else besides, Evelyn Novak's golden Freia and a fine trio of Rhinemaidens included. To claim that I properly heard any of these performance, though, would be entirely misleading, so I shall leave it there. 

According to Tina Lorenz, writing in the programme, ‘Ring 10010110 tells a radically contemporary story about how we are currently witnessing the beginnings of a transformation in the global order’. It may be a ‘contemporary’ story, but its only ‘radicalism’ lies in turning Das Rheingold and presumably the rest into an immersive Fidelio in which we as prisoners finally experience light and fresh air upon its close. The stampede for the doors was unlike any I have seen—or participated in. Some brave souls managed to agitate for opening of the theatre doors during its course and escaped, to the intense envy and admiration of the rest of us. A period of lengthy reflection, absention, and apology would be in order from all involved. Wagner deserves better, as do the musicians and audience. So too does a world, like that of the Ring, on fire thanks to wasteful, ‘technological’ domination.

Das Rheingold, Opéra de Marseille, 10 May 2026

Opéra Municipal de Marseille

Images: Camille Rovera

Fricka – Marion Lebègue
Freia – Élodie Hache
Erda – Amandine Ammirati
Wellgunde – Marie Kalinine
Flosshilde – Lucie Roche
Wotan – Alexandre Duhamel
Alberich – Zoltán Nagy
Mime – Marius Brenciu
Donner – Yoann Dubruque
Froh – Éric Huchet
Loge – Samy Camps
Fasolt – Patrick Bolleire
Fafner – Louis Morvan

Director – Charles Roubaud
Assistant director – Jean-Christophe Mast
Costumes – Katia Duflot
Set designs – Emmanuelle Favre
Lighting – Jacques Rouveyrollis
Video – Julien Soulier

Orchestra de l’Opéra de Marseille

Michele Spotti (conductor)

Thirty years since Das Rheingold – or L’Or du Rhin, as it was dually advertised – was last staged in Marseille, it returns as part of what I assume to be a new Ring, directed by Charles Roubaud and conducted by the Marseille Opera’s music director (also incoming Principal Guest Conductor of Berlin’s Deutsche Oper), the energetic and highly talented Michele Spotti. Marseille’s handsome art deco opera house is celebrating the occasion in some style, including an outing on the staircase for Erda’s stylish costume of thirty years ago (director also Charles Roubaud, designer Katia Duflot). 

This too is stylishly conceived, evoking a time when the house was new: round about 1930, I should guess. The opening scene takes place, as in a sense it should, beneath the bank of the Rhine, albeit in the guise of a ‘Rheinbank’ vault. As the Prelude progresses and the curtain rises, a cleaner goes about his business, dreams of ‘higher’ things on his mind as his theatrical sweeping, in time with the music’s close, suggests. This is Alberich, soon to be teased by glamorous employees indeed, Rhinemaidens with keys to the safe and its gold bars. So, if Wagner dramatises primal conversion of value-free gold into capital, here we see a redramatisation such as happens every day, indeed every second, in our accursed age of capital. There never was a golden age: on that Wagner is clear. As we did with Patrice Chéreau at Bayreuth and have done many times since, we witness a specific case of Alberich’s ‘theft’ – in essence, he simply offers the asking price, though that is already to argue in the language of private property and capital – in a world created by the gods and yet already shaped by his forerunners.   

The second scene introduces us, as one might expect, to older ‘money’ and power. Here, is a gilded age, redolent in particular of the United States, the age of Gatsby – they were careless people, Wotan and Fricka – with art deco to boot. It does not portray the house or its origins directly, but one might be led, as one is with the North American trappings, to reflect in kind. A nice touch is an ornamental, visibly protected tree in the corner, the light of Freia’s apples extinguished following her abduction. Another is that an Empire-State-Building like Valhalla can be partially seen, through the mists: yes, as Wagner intended, albeit for the age of King Kong. Video projection enables us to witness Alberich’s transformations in Nibelheim, whilst we hear him when invisible via totalitarian tannoy. Such points of detail are welcome, not because everything necessarily has to be done in this way, but because they anchor the drama with stage action that has been thought through. The beginning of the final scene I found a little disappointing: empty, without much to look at or have one think, but perhaps that was the point, prior to entry into the new tower via gilded lift (ring any bells, Donner(ld)?) 

Spotti’s musical direction was resourceful, given the relatively small orchestra at his disposal. Wind naturally came more to the fore than they might usually do, but that opportunity was seized to have us hear a good deal of that detail. Not that the Marseille strings were underwhelming, far from it; at their best, they played with an appropriately golden sheen. Some musicians were heard from beyond the pit, a pair of harpists in a box above included. The latter certainly worked hard for their gold. If there were a few awkward corners – this is far from an easy score for any orchestra – Spotti marshalled his forces with flair and assurance. It was a relatively broad reading - just over two-and-a-half hours, I think – but only occasionally, above all during the beginning of the final scene, did tension sag. I have heard many performances considerably more lacking in starrier houses. 

Zoltán Nagy’s Alberich would have graced any house, conceived and brought to life with a theatricality that did not preclude but rather gave birth to musical excellence. His way with Wagner’s words was similarly captivating. Much the same could – and should – be said of Samy Camps’s Loge, a definite star turn. Alexandre Duhamel’s Wotan was more mixed: initially sounding somewhat parted and unusually vibrato-laden, though it improved. Marion Lebègue made the most of Fricka, bringing words and music vividly off-page on-stage. Gangster giants – dead ringers, as it were, for Babylon Berlin’s Ringverein – were presented by Patrick Bolleire and Louis Morvan, the dark brutality of the latter’s Fafner properly chilling. A fine trio of Rhinemaidens and, in general, a cast with excellent ensemble contributed to the important lesson, familiar to many of us in London from Regents Opera’s ringside events, that Wagner should not, should not be left solely to our metropolitan theatres. Emphasis, in both cases, on story-telling and character definition, not eschewing conceptual apparatus yet also not being overwhelmed by it, forms a crucial part both of our operatic ecology and of a continuing tradition of Wagner as nineteenth-century theatrical drama that can yet speak to us today.

Salzburg Easter Festival (3): Das Rheingold, 6 April 2026

Felsenreitschule

Images: Frol Podlesyni
Performers: Olade Roland Rodolpho Sagbo, Delavallet Bidiefono, Roméo Bron Bi

Director – Kirill Serebrennikov
Set designs – Kirill Serebrennikov, Olga Pavluk
Costumes – Kirill Srebrennikov, Slavna Martinovic, Shaiva Nikvashvili
Lighting – Sergey Kucher
Choreography – Ivan Estegneev, Delavallet Bidiefono
Dramaturgy – Daniil Orlov

Wotan – Christian Gerhaher
Donner – Gihoon Kim
Froh – Thomas Atkins
Loge – Brenton Ryan
Alberich – Leigh Melrose
Mime – Thomas Cilluffo
Fasolt – Le Bu
Fafner – Patrick Guetti
Fricka – Catriona Morison
Freia – Sarah Brady
Erda – Jasmin White
Woglinde – Louise Foor
Wellgunde – Yajie Zhange
Flosshilde – Jess Dandy

Performer Compagnie Baninga

Actors, Performers

Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra

Kirill Petrenko (conductor)

Determined to bring Wagner and Berlin Philharmonic opera to his native Salzburg, Herbert von Karajan inaugurated the city’s Easter (for the greater part, Holy Week) Festival in 1967. It began with a Ring (Die Walküre first), partly co-produced with New York’s Metropolitan Opera and directed by Karajan himself, which formed the foundation for Karajan’s Deutsche Grammophon audio recording. The Ring returned to Salzburg under Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic from 2007-10, in Stéphane Braunschewig’s production, given also in Aix. Now in 2026, with the triumphant return of the orchestra to Salzburg, the Easter Festival’s third Ring begins, in a co-production with Copenhagen’s Royal Danish Opera, conducted by Kirill Petrenko and directed by Kirill Serebrennikov. 

Fafner (Patrick Guetti)

I say triumphant, since there can be no doubting that the orchestra proved the brightest stars of all in this Rheingold’s firmament. I doubt the score can ever have been better played at the level of execution—and at this stage of my Wagnerian life, I have heard it a good few times. Depth of tone, balance, and pinpoint accuracy were second to none; and, as I have noted a few times with the BPO under Kirill Petrenko, they (or their conductor) show a greater willing to draw on the wisdom and experience of their long history, a dark, more Furtwänglerian sound, closer to that of the Staatskapelle Berlin, than tended to be heard from Rattle, Claudio Abbado, or indeed Karajan proving the baseline – sometimes even the bass line – in core Austro-German repertoire. Petrenko’s Wagner conducting has also progressed in leaps and bounds not only since he conducted the Ring at Bayreuth, but also from his Wagner in Munich. Not that the former was poor, far from it, but the theatre brings its own, notorious challenges for a director and, more to the point, the conception often lacked metaphysical and, in many ways, physical depth. There is no doubting Petrenko’s grasp of the work’s vast architecture, heard and communicated as if (almost) in a single breath – not quite Daniel Barenboim, though no one else has been this century, arguably since Furtwängler himself. With this orchestra as his collaborators, though, he can draw on a greater, multi-dimensional canvas, gaining harmonic depth, timbral variegation, and a more varied, yet always firmly directed narrative thrust. If the strings sounded as of old (or so one could fancy), the woodwind arguably sounded more variegated and characterful than ever, the brass both more tender and more malevolent as necessary (and much more). Underwhelming anvils, poorly integrated were a pity, but they often are; the technical difficulties here lie far beyond a merely ‘musical’ issue. 

Froh (Thomas Atkins), Wotan (Christian Gerhaher), Loge (Brenton Ryan)

On, then, to Serebrennikov’s vision and its realisation. A post-apocalyptic setting in the/a potential future, presumably following a cataclysm such as we shall encounter at the close, may not be ‘groundbreaking’. We have been there before in the Ring, perhaps most celebratedly with Harry Kupfer, let alone in other works. It is difficult to imagine, at least until it happens, what could, at least on that broad, outline scale could be by now, although arguably Frank Castorf achieved something of that kind in his 2013-17 Ring (conducted initially by Petrenko). It is surely, by the same token, especially apposite right now, at a time when monsters such as Trump and Netanyahu are threatening to unleash still worse than they have already. The devil and, just perhaps, the angels will of course lie in the detail, and here Serebrennikov’s conception offers much promise—as well as certain caveats. It is always difficult, indeed impossible, to tell from a single instalment, although one can always tell if all has gone horribly wrong. In so bleak a landscape, visited both on stage and above on Serebrennikov’s own film, should one start entirely from scratch or recall the before times? It may not be either/or; indeed, there will be choices to be made from which or, better, whose before times. The question nonetheless retains some validity. The gods seem bound to a past that may lie beyond recovery; arguably they do by at least the final scene of Rheingold anyway, perhaps earlier still. In light, uncoloured, perhaps even ragged robes, they affect poses, probably attempt solutions as if an Attic (more than Teutonic?) past were present. All they seem positively, promisingly to possess is the technology of a greenhouse to cultivate Freia’s apples of immortality. We do not so much as glimpse Valhalla; perhaps it does not exist. 

Rhinemaidens (Yajie Zhang, Jess Dandy, Louise Foor)

For this is clearly Alberich’s story more than theirs. Whether that will be the case throughout the Ring, we do not know, but it seems unarguable at least for this Rheingold. The film begins and continues with his quest across a barren, Icelandic landscape, both harking back to the Eddas and representing the problem, even the terror of the present. Where he is heading remains unclear, but when he appears onstage we recognise him and this doubling (like others between singers and actors, purely onstage) proves dramatically enabling and productive, without provoking confusion. This is a world in which religion, like all else, must or at least may be recreated, the gods and their heroes – viewed as ceramic memories at the close, hardly promising for the future – facing just the replacement Alberich threatens will come from him and his horde. And so, he builds a cult of his own, enthroned under a canopy, learning from those who have oppressed him, including an able trio of Rhinemaidens replete with actor-provided tentacles of the erotic urge (liebesgelüste) Wagner divined in Alberich. Film turns to fire and even  disintegrates, though recovers, possibly presaging the future's future.

Whether ‘borrowing’ from African cultures onstage is the best way to go about some of this may be questioned. Questions of appropriation or downright (neo-)colonialism – primitive or primitivism? – are complicated by the engagement of African dancers under the responsive choreography (and dance) of Delavallet Bidiefono. These artists have clearly contributed, to my eyes highly productively. So too have Recycle Group (Andrey Blokhin and Georgy Kuznetsov) in provision of materials. Matters are not so clearcut here as they might initially seem, though the suspicion of ethnographic tourism lingers even when one learns of the creditable research that has gone into the production from reclaimed materials and office rubbish of a reenvisaged Egungun masquerade dress for Loge. His colourful world, what appears to be a reinvention of magic – what else is there in such an environment – makes quite an impression. What lies within the portable hut his double guards remains a mystery, as doubtless it must. The questions it provokes may prove key to the whole enterprise. What seems to mark a remythologising of the Ring bucks recent practice. The politics remain; how could they not? They do not, bar the overall post-catastrophic setting, laudable environmentalism in production values, and the coming of the Global South, seem to be paramount conceptually. Perhaps that will change, or perhaps it is the intention: something approaching a new direction in itself in the twenty-first century. But will this be Wieland Wagner with a world tour and integrated recycling, or rather more than that? All eyes, or at least mine, lie on Alberich and Loge—rather than on Wotan. 

Alberich (Leigh Melrose)

That shift of emphasis was paralleled, less fortunately, in terms of singing. That Loge might steal the show in Das Rheingold is far from unprecedented; it is almost to be expected. Brenton Ryan’s quicksilver portrayal was nonetheless far more than a reflection of the work, vocal and stage presence combining (in collaboration with his redder ‘double’) to represent something both primal and advanced, whether instrumental reason or sham magic dramatically ambiguous. Leigh Melrose’s Alberich was again a true animating as well as animating presence, his use of words and music in Wagner’s radical alchemy not only tracing but helping form the narrative. Christian Gerhaher, by contrast, was, like many of the full gods, oddly static. This, again, was partly a matter of the production, but there were times when he seemed parted, resorting to barking reminiscent of aspects of Karajan’s Fischer-Dieskau but without his commanding presence. Gerhaher is a superlative artist as a singer, but not so much of an actor, and it is difficult to consider Wotan, even in this ‘preliminary evening’, his ideal role. Whether he will continue in Walküre and Siegfried – Fischer-Dieskau did not – we shall see. Le Bu’s Fasolt and Patrick Guetti’s Fafner were formidable giants, offering portrayals with considerable psychological depth as well as necessary force. Erdas rarely disappoint and Jasmin White was no exception; theirs was a moment that cast its shadow over all that was to come—and presumably that is still to come. Thomas Cilluffo’s characterful Mime promised well for the greater stint to come (assuming he continues in the role). Even here, then, much judgement must necessarily be provisional, but the best onstage and all in the pit augur well indeed.

 

Das Rheingold, Regents Opera, 9 February 2025

York Hall, Bethnal Green

Images: Matthew Coughlan (unless stated otherwise)
Rhinemaidens (Jillian Finnamore, Justine Viani), Alberich (Oliver Gibbs)

Wotan – Ralf Lukas
Donner – Andrew Mayor
Froh – Calvin Lee
Loge – James Schouten
Fricka – Ingeborg Børch
Freia – Charlotte Richardson
Erda, Flosshilde – Mae Heydorn
Alberich – Oliver Gibbs
Mime – Holden Madagame
Fasolt – Henry Grant Kerswell
Fafner – Craig Lemont Walters
Woglinde – Jillian Finnamore
Wellgunde – Justine Viani

Director – Caroline Staunton
Assistant directors – Eleanor Strutt, Keiko Sumida
Designs – Isabella van Braeckel
Lighting – Patrick Malmström
Producer – CJ Heaver

Regents Opera Orchestra
Ben Woodward (conductor)

Fricka (Ingeborg Børch), Wotan (Ralf Lukas)

 
In some ways the most radical of all Wagner’s dramas and, far from coincidentally, both the most brazenly socialist in its content and the most aesthetically distant from traditional ‘opera’, Das Rheingold will never cease to astonish. Should it not, them something has gone seriously awry. Experience nonetheless teaches one to be prepared for anything. What a joy, then, to be quite unprepared for the extraordinary success of the first instalment of Regents Opera’s Ring at York Hall, Bethnal Green.

 The space itself is part of the magic. (Doubtless the venue for earlier Regents Opera performances, the contemporaneous yet very different Freemasons’ Hall in Holborn, will also have been.) The Wimbledon or Wembley of British boxing, yet speaking far more clearly of its East End working-class roots, York Hall will doubtless have been new to many in the audience; it was to me, though I lived for some years further east, in Poplar. This is a Ring in the round, encircling what would be the (boxing) ring itself. I have never experienced a Ring so close to the stage, however small the theatre, and that both allows an intimacy one would never otherwise experience and necessitates a form of detailed acting that might otherwise only intermittently be noticed. Fortunately, Caroline Staunton’s production, as theatrically alert as any I have seen, offers Personenregie fully equal to the task—and singers fully equal to it too. 

Production and performance tell the story, but also allow you to (re-)tell it. What characters do, who they are, what this might represent and mean: these are not only accomplished through words, music, gesture, and staging, but captivatingly so. Isabella van Braeckel’s set and costume designs may stand for themselves; they tell us important things about the world in which this is taking place. They are also amenable to interpretation, without imposition (not that I am opposed to this, far from it) of any one conceptual strand upon the performance. Plinth-like objects suggest the world of the gods, notably ruling over the first scene too, with resonances of the Attic tragedy Wagner so revered but also something more recent, Speer-like, as well as the vain sacrifices to a belief that in Götterdämmerung will already all but have died. They can also suggest workbenches for and display for the products of Nibelheim, and adapt readily to the transformation in circumstances of the final scene. Objects are indeed to the fore throughout: crucial in Wagner, as has been wearily established in recent stagings (Dmitri Tcherniakov in Berlin and, far worse, Valentin Schwarz in Bayreuth) that have blithely disregarded the near-necessity of having something that on some level might represent the spear, the gold, Freia’s apples, and so on. How this is accomplished is entirely open. Here, a variety of resourceful solutions is found. Lighting, costume, gold paint, physical (in one case, highly phallic) objects, a disturbing, power-based contagion leaping from victim to victim, blocking, dance, and of course the text of the work in performance. All has been thoroughly thought through; yet equally important, all comes up fresh as new. This is, in short, a splendid theatre-piece: one that is in some sense about theatre and music, and what happens when they come together, without wearing metatheatricality on its sleeve (as in, say, Stefan Herheim’s wonderful Deutsche Oper Rheingold). 

Froh (Calvin Lee), Alberich, Loge (James Schouten), Wotan

It is not only that, of course. Wagner’s musicodramatic dialectic is such, like that of any opera composer worth his/her/their salt, that intensification of one element necessitates elements of the other. (As we see painted on Alberich’s back: GESAMT KUNST WERK). Any orchestral reduction will have consequences, yet this scaling down to twenty-two-piece orchestra (on the stage above) does a splendid job in situ of conveying more than one would ever have thought possible, very much of a piece with the intense, intimate theatricality of the staging. Ben Woodward’s conducting does likewise, as does the instrumentalists’ playing. If I say that I rarely noticed them in themselves, that is not to say they were somehow neutral or featureless, but rather that the finely judged ebb and flow seemed to spring from the same source as staging and vocal performances, so that one could hardly be distinguished from the others. Use of a synthesiser was, wisely, sparing, yet assisted, for instance, with deeds of staging rendered audible (to invert Wagner’s own formulation) such as the Tarnhelm’s mysterious magic, itself splendidly acted out by Oliver Gibbs as Alberich. 

If I say that portrayal was an excellent instance of the singer-actor’s art – I could of most I saw and heard – that is not, as I know we sometimes do, to use the term as a euphemism for vocal shortcomings, but again to point to a fine alchemy in which all was considerably more than the sum of its parts. Indeed, Gibbs’s growth – negative growth, if you will – as a character was achieved precisely through that alchemy. His great antagonist, Wotan, received a thoughtful, dignified, yet ruthless performance from Ralf Lukas, finely matched by Ingeborg Børch’s human yet steely Fricka as consort. A fine Loge will always steal the show; James Schouten accomplished that and more in as complete a performance as I can recall on any stage, from Bayreuth to Bethnal Green. His palpable commitment was truly infectious—and surely a first-class invitation to consider words, music, and their meaning in a production that was text-driven in the fullest sense. (So many fall into the trap of thinking ‘text’ refers only to words—and in Wagner of all composers.)

Mime (Holden Madagame)

Yet there was more than one showstealer, Holden Madagame’s quicksilver, traumatised Mime another case in point, stage and vocal energy combined in a veritable whirlwind. Henry Grant Kerswell’s faltering, latterly lovelorn Fafner stood in dark contrast with the cynical thuggery of his brother Fafner from Craig Lemont Walters. Estimable contributions also came from an uncommonly fine trio of Rhinemaidens, distinct characters who blended with similar finesse, Mae Heydorn doubling as Erda, and well-sung Donner, Freia, and Froh (Andrew Mayor, Charlotte Richardson, and Calvin Lee).

Image: Steve Gregson
Erda (Mae Heydorn)

I now regret more deeply than before my inability to attend Die Walküre and Siegfried. However, I shall be back next Sunday for Götterdämmerung and shall hope this Ring will receive another outing. It certainly comes with my highest recommendation, whether for dyed-in-the-wool Wagnerites, neophytes, or anyone in between. New to the work, my guest loved it, apparently now as eager as I for the end of the world to come. As for the Arts Council – sorry, the article-less ‘Arts Council England’ – and its determination to destroy what remains of English operatic life, the resounding success of this project offers a stinging rebuke to its threefold rejection of Regents Opera’s applications for funding. If you can, please consider giving, lest such opportunities wither, like the World-ash, forever. Any purchase or donation will be generously repaid in terms that Nadine Dorries and Nicholas Serota could never understand, but which will long outlive their ephemeral notoriety.

Das Rheingold, Deutsche Oper, 11 May 2024

Images: Bernd Uhlig (from 2021 premiere)

Wotan – Iain Paterson
Donner – Thomas Lehman
Froh – Attilio Glaser
Loge – Thomas Blondelle
Fricka – Annika Schlicht
Freia – Flurina Stucki
Erda – Lindsay Ammann
Alberich – Jordan Shanahan
Mime – Ya-Chung Huang
Fasolt – Albert Pesendorfer
Fafner – Tobias Kehrer
Woglinde – Lee-ann Dunbar
Wellgunde – Arianna Manganello
Floßhilde – Karis Tucker

Director – Stefan Herheim
Revival director – Constanze Wediknecht
Set designs – Stefan Herheim, Silke Bauer
Costumes – Uta Heiseke
Lighting – Ulrich Niepel
Video – Torge Møller
Dramaturgy – Alexander Meier-Dörzenbach, Jörg Königsdorf

Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper
Nicholas Carter (conductor)

We begin in the rehearsal room, piano onstage, vast grey slab wall and fire exit behind, lights above. Below, the orchestra tunes, actually tunes. The magic of theatre, of music theatre, of opera, and of all concerned to bring it to our eyes and ears brings the two together: not necessarily so we cannot tell the difference between ‘drama’ and ‘reality’, but so that we are made aware of the ever-shifting boundaries between them, how one brings the other into being, as is also the case for Wagner’s related yet different trinity of drama, music, and gesture in Opera and Drama. That ‘book of all books on music’ (Richard Strauss) is, in a sense, the fount of all we see and hear; onstage, it is represented by the piano: the instrument around which so many rehearsals have taken place and at which Wagner sat to compose; from which for many, though not all composers, the miracles of the modern orchestra first come into being. A suitcase-laden procession of refugees, the perennial image of our times – from the vicious, racist ‘swarm’ of Cameron and Farage’s ‘breaking point’, to Merkel’s inspirational ‘Wir schaffen das’ and the welcoming crowds I saw at Munich Hauptbahnhof – crosses the stage and initiates the action, one of them, Wotan or better the human being who will play that role, plays the celebrated E-flat with which the Ring begins. This is no ‘crisis’; it is a reality and, in that reality, an opportunity. These people are the very stuff of the drama, of our drama, and of theirs. Decisions made and roles played will be matters of life and death. How differently this plays now that Merkel’s Willkommenskultur has itself been assigned to history, how all the more necessary then it is to find a new path. 

Herheim and his revival successors do this, moreover, not through dwelling on origins, but through the brazenly theatrical (and musical) magic of opera. Reality never quite disappears, but the insight of Schiller, Marx, and many others, Wagner included, that, left to his own devices, given the freedom and the education to do so, man will create is not only the starting point, but a point, if you will, of (Nietzschean, even Schopenhauerian) eternal recurrence that yet, through (Hegelian) history, is never merely that. The animating philosophical conflict of the Ring has begun. Likewise, animating joy in and through theatre, of the rehearsal piano rather than the piano composer, of Wagner’s creative life has been reignited, through Rhinemaidens’ magic tricks, Loge’s devilish flashes of fire, ever-resourceful use and reuse of stage staples such as billowing sheets, and the whole Wagnerian phantasmagoria of sight, sound, and sensation. Froh’s final rainbow is surely, at some level, a successor to Götz Friedrich’s rainbow tunnel in the previous Deutsche Oper production. History and, more specifically, reception both form and liberate us in our response. 

The first scene emerges, in typical, theatrical twin bind and opportunity, both seamlessly and with seams openly to show from what has gone before. The Deutsche Oper’s actors – ‘extras’ if you prefer, but the term seems more than unduly limiting – form the Rhine from themselves: what else do refugees have? They have their packed belongings, of course; still more will come from them in due course, the gods’ costumes included. Inciting, reflecting, and been incited by the Rhinemaidens’ play, their beautifully, sexily choreographed movement suggests a Venusberg-am-Rhein, with all the occasional awkwardness of an orgy’s need for perpetual reignition. Alberich, or the person who becomes him, models himself on that saddest of theatrical figures, the clown. That is how the others see him, of course; most poignantly of all, it is how he sees himself when they hand him back his mirror. He has, as Wagner shows us, been so sorely provoked, with so little prospect of reward in a cruel non-golden age of aesthetic hedonism, that renunciation of ‘love’ – as someone once said, ‘whatever that means’ – is an obvious next step. The ring he creates seems immediately to do his bidding—until, and ay, there’s the Ring’s rub, it does not. And we see it, as well as its consequences, throughout. 

From those sheets come the Rhine, the mountains of the gods’ realm, even the tree at the end from which, I assume, the next instalment will spring. A premonition of Volsung twins strongly suggests so: a sparing use of video and thereby all the more powerful. The whole Bayreuth project was built on technology, as was the world from which it sprang. So too were they built on choices of what to use and when, not on idiotic euphoria and fear about film supplanting theatre or ‘artificial intelligence’ supplanting actual, human intelligence. The hoard, perhaps the best I have seen, comes from those suitcases: a true bric-a-brac show, including musical instruments (echoing, almost literally, Alberich’s possession and instrumental use of a trumpet in the first scene) and religious artefacts, cross and menorah included. 

They cover Freia clumsily, brutally, yet also completely inside the piano from which she and Fricka, in posed nineteenth-century tableau vivant-style have risen, and through which portal she and the giants (her love for Fasolt is movingly real, as it should be) have passed to and from Riesenheim. Donner and Froh are splendidly caught too, stars of rock (Freddie Mercury) and disco (wig carefully prepared with hairspray, soon lost) respectively. Loge is a true Mephisto to two Fausts, Wotan and Alberich, with a little – in this he is not alone – though never too much of previous Herheim creations, the Parsifal Klingsor and the Lohengrin Herald reincarnated in something dazzlingly new. Alberich’s Nibelungs are, for once, a true host of night, terrifying to behold, images of death and the undead, marching to his lead. (Again, I recalled, a brief yet telling image from the second act of that Bayreuth Parsifal.) Indeed, throughout, the ways in which movement proceeds both in time to the music and not, yet never heedless to it, are not the least indication that we are in the hands of a musical stage director. Attempts at musical direction, both from the piano and conducting from the score, of the would-be leaders of our stage world, tell – and play – their own stories too. 

Art and its tricks, then and now, are not reality; they spring from it, yet we see, far more clearly how they are put together, whilst wondering all the more at them. They are more than reality; again, they form and react to it, at least potentially liberating us from it. And they cross history, through an artwork’s reception, always a joy for and from Herheim. Wotan’s winged helmet for once says much, not least in the boredom with which he discards it. So does Mime as Wagner in trademark velvet beret, a cunning tribute-cum-insult, in which the inventor of the Tarnhelm who cannot ever quite become an artist embodies the brilliance and insecurity of his creator. Yet ultimately, that craftsman also brings the drama, brings us, the score from which first he, then others reads, sings, learns, and is bound by. In a duly ambiguous representation of Werktreue, it becomes Valhalla, the sacerdotal fortress and resting place of heroes. Meanwhile, the sword, emblem of Wotan’s ‘great idea’, is placed through the piano lid, ready for a truer, more courageous hero to extract it. 

If Herheim surpassed my expectations, so too did the performances. Nicholas Carter’s musical direction proved, quite simply, a revelation. Carter has recently led performances of the Ring in Bern; returning to the Deutsche Oper, he offered an ideal balance between thorough musical grounding and theatrical spontaneity. This was a performance in which everything both fell near-miraculously into place and yet also involved itself in the dramatic here and now, as much, as it must, contributing to the drama as reflecting it. Balances were, without exception, well judged, as were tempi. What particularly struck me was the keenness of ear – and ability to project it – in recognition of Wagner’s different kinds of writing. Rarely, if ever, have I heard so clearly the roots in Gluckian accompagnato of Fricka’s contributions to her first exchange with Wotan, also of course tribute to the astute, rich-toned artistry of Annika Schlicht. My sole, extremely minor musical disappointment lay with the anvils. All else fairly sprung off the page as if in a musical Kammerspiel, mediated in the mind’s eye by the magical mechanics of the piano. 

A Kammerspiel would be nothing without its actors, and here both individual performances and ensemble as a whole were second to none. There may be (some) starrier assumptions elsewhere, but none more alert to the joy, as well as to the necessity, of musicotheatrical creation. As Schlicht’s consort, Iain Paterson offered a thoughtful performance, typical of the cast as a whole in its alertness to verbal and musical texts alike, as well as to their alchemic reaction as part of a new-yet-rooted performance text. Any Loge worth his salt will steal the show, 'durch Raub', yet Blondelle’s owned it too: tricksy, fiery, manipulative, and corrosive, in words and line as in gesture. Albert Pesendorfer and Tobias Kehrer shone as the giants, their performances as finely differentiated as those of Ya-Chung Huang’s intelligent Mime and Jordan Shanahan’s masterclass in the role of Alberich: sympathetic up to a point, yet as brutal in his forming by events as he had initially been hapless. This clown had grown up to lead troops, not a troupe, his curse echoing in the ears until the close. An excellent trio of Rhinemaidens underlined that too, their cries piercing any attempts there might have been to rejoice. So too did the coup de théâtre of Erda’s appearance and finely sung warning (Lindsay Ammann), emerging from the prompter’s box so as, well, to prompt, ‘sensibly’ clad like a stock librarian of yore. To whom, after all, should one turn for wisdom regarding texts?

Berlin Festtage (1) - Das Rheingold, Staatsoper Unter den Linden, 4 April 2023

Wotan – Michael Volle
Donner – Lauri Vasar
Froh – Siyabonga Maqungo
Loge – Rolando Villazón
Fricka – Claudia Mahnke
Freia – Anett Fritsch
Erda – Anna Kissjudit
Alberich – Jochen Schmeckenbecher
Mime – Stephan Rügamer
Fasolt – Mika Kares
Fafner – Peter Rose
Woglinde – Evelin Novak
Wellgunde – Natalia Skrycka
Flosshilde – Anna Lapkovskaja

Dmitri Tcherniakov (director, designs)
Elena Zaytseva (costumes)
Gleb Fitshinsky (lighting)
Alexey Poluboyarinov (video)
Tatina Werestchagina, Christoph Lang (dramaturgy)

Staatskapelle Berlin

Thomas Guggeis (conductor)

Images: Monika Rittershaus

‘Follow the science.’ So we have been exhorted throughout the pandemic (unfinished). Everyone has claimed to be ‘following the science’: singular, yet multiple. We have ‘followed the science’ before and shall doubtless do so again. Ask Hiroshima and Nagasaki—except one cannot. Development of new technologies is, apparently, both the doing of science and not. Few dare question our age’s ruling scientism or, to consider it more broadly, Adorno and Horkheimer’s rule of instrumental reason or dialectic of enlightenment. Nietzsche did; Wagner did. Hegel’s ontology likewise presented the necessity, usually ignored, to consider the natural as well as the human sciences dialectically. Certain Russian thinkers have followed him. With the arts and humanities under assault as perhaps never before, seeking futile accommodations through ‘big data’, the rule of the ‘digital’, and so on, scientism continues its crazed parade to victory, foretold, like so much else, in the Ring. The time is ripe, then, for a Ring from this standpoint. Will Dmitri Tcherniakov, a Russian director with a considerable record in Wagner, be the one to do so? This Rheingold suggests that it might; we shall see. 

Das Rheingold takes place in a world of scientific experimentation (shades, perhaps, of Hans Neuenfels’s Bayreuth Lohengrin) with, crucially, a governing corporate element. The safety curtain presents a plan of the ‘Forschungszentrum E.S.C.H.E.’, whose realm we shall soon survey for ourselves—guided, of course, by what we are permitted to see. Wotan’s original crime, from which we shall hear in the Götterdämmerung Norns’ narration, to hew his spear, inscribing on it runes of domination, from the World-ash Tree thus frames what we shall see and hear. Perhaps ‘Esche’ (ash) also nods to Escher; it is certainly a labyrinth from which no one appears able to escape. Such, at any rate, is the world of cruel experimental psychology in which lab-coated Rhinemaidens and observer-participants – scientific observers are rarely, if ever, only that, whatever their ideological claims – play with, prey upon, abuse Alberich, to see how he will react. Is that not precisely what the amoral children of Nature do to the unfortunate dwarf who seeks them in Wagner’s Rhine? Here, of course, it is clearer still, though Wagner shows those who care to listen, that there never was a golden age. Like other forms of power, indeed arguably underpinning them all, instrumental reason is rotten from the start. The ash tree may stand in the room revealed for the final scene, but we know it is dying already, however healthy it may still look. Trees are for forests, not research institutes. Or as William Blake put it, ‘Art is the Tree of Life … Science is the Tree of Death.’

 

When, pushed beyond measure – ‘enlightenment’ insists that all be measured – Alberich renounces whatever it is here that he renounces, smashing the machines to both the surprise and the experimental delight of those who have pushed him, he strikes a blow yet also joins ‘their’ ranks. Nibelheim offers an underground avenue for further ‘research’ of Alberich’s own. Though is there something illusory to it? That is where I struggled somewhat with Tcherniakov’s vision. A Ring without objects struggles to be a Ring at all. Or is this a deliberate, negative presentation of the gold: as nothing? It is unclear, as yet, but for me a cause for concern, amidst much of promise. One might well argue, of course, that the changes of shape and form effected by the Tarnhelm are illusions. If so, they are mightily powerful illusions or delusions, which on the face of it should affect others too. Again, we shall see. 

The gods, meanwhile, appear to rule over the institute, though it is not out of the question that someone or something may lie beyond them too. (That is often an issue with gods, with power more generally.) We follow them through scientific-business lectures, boardroom negotiations and decisions, brutal despatch of Alberich and his ‘case’ via his handlers, and the final conjuring tricks that delight all (or most) save, notably, a Wotan changed by Erda’s intervention. The ‘look’ is reminiscent of Tcherniakov’s Tristan: its wood both a nod to the old Eastern bloc and an expensive, post-Soviet step beyond it. Both ‘sides’, after all, had their scientism and their more general apparatuses of power. More united than divided them in retrospect, at least from Stalin onwards—which returns us to the need for a Leninist, Plekhanovite, or some other (Wagner, Nieztsche, Hegel…) reconsideration.

 

If all was not well (in a good sense) on stage, the Staatskapelle Berlin was in good hands with Thomas Guggeis. Das Rheingold is perhaps the most difficult of the four Ring dramas for a conductor truly to shine in, yet, bar one surprisingly awkward corner, Guggeis offered a fluent, dramatic reading, often brisk, yet occasionally flowering into something ‘beyond’ with metaphysical interpretative possibilities for those so inclined. There is no doubting his, nor the orchestra’s, command of the score. Keenness of ear revealed new balances, even new details, as any fine new performance will. It was perhaps above all a linear reading, with less emphasis on the harmonic than might have been the case with Daniel Barenboim, but that will always be a matter of balance; Guggeis, like Tcherniakov, had a story to tell, and told it well.

So too did Michael Volle as Wotan, whose performance here, both dominant and collegial, was second to none. Volle has clearly considered his role deeply, responding not only to its text but its possibilities. His shift towards a changed, even tortured god during the final scene was noteworthy—and will doubtless be picked up in the next instalment. If I missed some of the blackness of a more conventional Alberich, Jochen Schmeckenbecher presented a lively, sympathetic yet not too sympathetic portrayal, similarly alert to the needs of words and music. Every inch a kinsman yet, equally, every inch a distinct character, Stephan Rügamer proved a fine Mime. Mika Kares’s mournful, lovelorn Fasolt reminded us who the only truly sympathetic character here can be. Anna Kissjudit’s Erda made her intervention count, her deep mezzo, embodiment of primaeval wisdom, as close to a contralto as made no matter. Rolando Villazón’s Loge will doubtless have proved more controversial. Approaching vocal lines as if from a bel canto melodic tradition, without being bound by it, he sometimes sounded strained, yet gave Wagner’s words their due and proved a fine singing actor into the bargain. The ensemble, including a number of non-singing roles, interacted well throughout. Where will following this art and science lead? We shall see—and hear.

Das Rheingold, English National Opera, 18 February 2023

Coliseum

Images: Marc Brenner
Rhinemaidens (Eleanor Dennis, Katie Stevenson, Idunnu Münch)

Woglinde – Eleanor Dennis
Wellgunde – Idunnu Münch
Flosshilde – Katie Stevenson
Alberich – Leigh Melrose
Mime – John Findon
Wotan – John Relyea
Fricka – Madeleine Shaw
Freia – Katie Lowe
Froh – Julian Hubbard
Donner – Blake Denson
Erda – Christine Rice

Loge - Frederick Ballentine  
Fasolt – Simon Bailey
Fafner – James Creswell

Richard Jones (director)
Stewart Laing (designs)
Adam Silverman (lighting)
Sarah Fahie (movement)
Akhila Krishnan (video)

Orchestra of the English National Opera
Martyn Brabbins (conductor)

 

Nibelheim

Like the Biblical cosmos, that of the Ring offers more than one creation myth, not necessarily entirely consistent with one another. Therein lies the dramatic rub. Richard Jones’s new production of Das Rheingold brings the second creation myth to the fore before the first, the generatio æquivoca of the Prelude, is heard—at least for those mature enough not simply to laugh uproariously at the mere sight of a naked man. (Disruptive audience members who seemed throughout, without evident justification, to believe they were watching Carry on Rhinegold may have been better advised to stick to Donizetti, but doubtless we should ‘respect their choices’.) What the primæval figure does is the thing: he carries wood hewn from a tree across the stage, the wood diminishing in size (and distancing itself from life) in proportion to the civilised clothes he acquires. The World-ash tree and Wotan’s act of ecopolitical violence against it are placed centre-stage—and then, E-flat… 

A hallmark of Jones’s staging throughout is indeed the clarity of its narration. Where Keith Warner’s late Royal Opera staging clearly had ideas, many extremely worthy on paper, the director struggled, so it seemed, to bring them to visual clarity (not to be confused, necessarily, with simplicity) and much seemed confused rather than complex. There may not be much in the way of conceptual complexity; this will not, it seems, be a Ring that changes our conception of the work. But it – the Rheingold, anyway – is as well shaped as Martyn Brabbins’s conducting of the score, both (greatly to my surprise) transformed out of all recognition from the miserable preceding excursion for Die Walküre. The Rhinemaidens’ amoral hedonism is evoked by their fitness wear and activities, a cruel contrast with a clearly unfit Alberich. The golden cyber-child they guard – not very well – is the Rhinegold, original state and potential for capitalisation imaginatively conveyed. And, as throughout, the deed of violence in its theft furnishes a due moment of dramatic horror. It is straightforward rather than reactionary, but in many ways none the worse than that; it certainly compares favourably with the listless soap-opera inconsequentiality of Valentin Schwarz at Bayreuth last summer.

Alberich (Leigh Melrose)

Objects, a crucial, far-too-often overlooked aspect of Wagner’s drama are well dealt with too. The spear, hewn in turn from the ash-wood, appears properly centre-stage. Those new to the drama will see that it is important and be aided in understanding why; more experienced Wagnerites will connect it with the rest of the action and ideas of their own. The Tarnhelm and ring, as well as the hoard more generally, are likewise clearly represented and, just as important, their role in the drama is clearly delineated. Nibelheim’s essential basis as a modern factory is immediately apparent – excellent sound design helps beforehand, in bringing the sound of its anvils immediately before our ears – and Alberich, transformed out of all recognition into a horrifying dictator of modern capital, wields his capitalist ‘whip of hunger’ (George Bernard Shaw) over Nibelung kinsmen with immediate and clear effect. His further transformations, courtesy of the Tarnhelm, again make their point starkly: first, he truly is, as he tells them, ‘everywhere’, his forms multiplying in surveillance and punishment (sorry, ‘incentivisation’); second and third, metamorphoses into dragon and toad are handled simply and without any of the attendant usual confusion. (Again, quite why some engaged in bellyaching laughter at the moment of Alberich’s capture, I cannot imagine. Strange, at best.)

Erda (Christine Rice), Erda (John Relyea)

The final scene makes for powerful dramatic cumulation, well supported by keen Personenregie. Erda’s appearance in pyjamas, keen to resume her sleep, sand of time spraying from her hands, makes a number of important points without fuss; so too does another point of violence, Wotan kissing her—and seemingly changing all. Schoolgirl Norns in attendance may (or may not) know. Freia’s deep affection for Fasolt, in the light of his for her, is  moving, not least on account of deeply sympathetic performances from Katie Lowe and Simon Bailey. That Freia, as well as Loge, wishes to dissociate herself from the entrance into Valhalla is also genuinely moving, as indeed is the mounting of the gold to hide her form in the giants’ removal lorry. Rainbow lighting evokes Froh’s bridge with a delightful sense of the aesthetic that is yet not spectacle for its own sake. When furious, desperate Rhinemaidens, heard offstage, return to the stage to demand return of their gold, Wotan battens down the fortress hatches. The die is cast—as Loge, his bag packed, knows only too well. 

Loge is always a character well-placed to steal the show. Frederick Ballantine’s quicksilver portrayal certainly did that, securely poised on what might otherwise be a tightrope between personability and tales of political alienation. Key to his success, and to that of many other cast members, was crystal-clear diction, enabling the truths of John Deathridge’s excellent new singing translation to hit home with force – the truth that Wagner requires us to think for ourselves, his text a springboard rather than our dramatic destination not the least of them. John Relyea’s Wotan captured, in another strikingly mature portrayal, so many of the nuances and contradictions in the god’s complex, world-winning (perhaps) personality.

Loge (Frederick Ballentine), Alberich

Leigh Melrose’s Alberich was, quite simply, spellbinding. The shift from repressed dwarf to would-be world-dictator owed much to costumes and make-up, but was ultimately his. We sympathised, though not too much; the erotic urge (liebesgelüste, Wagner’s lower case) Wagner noted in Alberich’s case in a letter of 1851 was already a menace. We cowed, with the Nibelungs. And we felt, through his work and the orchestra’s, the ominous power of the curse. Indeed, every member of the cast contributed to this overall success. Madeleine Shaw’s uncommonly sympathetic Fricka, Christine Rice’s surprisingly deep-toned Erda, James Creswell’s contemptuous Fafner, among them. This trio of Rhinemaidens, for instance, would aurally adorn any house. 

The innermost core of Wagner music drama lies, we all know, in the orchestra, his Greek chorus. ENO here likewise had little to fear from the most august of comparisons, not that one felt compelled to draw them. For a signal virtue of this Rheingold was that one sensed how all aspects had come together as so much more than the sum of their considerable parts; had the production been different, so would the singing, and so on. Brabbins’s collegial, structurally comprehending – and communicative – conducting presented itself above all as an enabler of dramatic action and was well experienced as such. I can only imagine orchestral and sung contributions will go from strength to strength over the course of this run.

Donner (Blake Denson), Froh (Julian Hubbard), Wotan, Fricka (Madeleine Shaw)

What a difference, then, fifteen months make, and how great a pleasure it is to report so. When ENO’s new Ring opened in November 2021, oddly with its second instalment rather than its first, neither staging nor performance induced much enthusiasm. Now, at a time of existential concern for the company’s future, its presentation of Das Rheingold proves in most respects a triumph: a vindication for those fighting the philistine atrocities perpetrated by the Arts Council – sorry ‘Arts Council England’ – and the ‘government’ it all too readily serves. Roll on England’s Götterdämmerung, in more than one sense.