Das Rheingold

by Richard Wagner

seen at the Royal Festival Hall on 28 June 2016

Opera North's semi-staged semi-concert production of Der Ring des Nibelungen is performed in one cycle in London this week. Richard Farnes conducts the Opera North Orchestra throughout the cycle, which is staged and lit by Peter Mumford. For the 'preliminary evening' of Das Rheingold the cast included Michael Druiett as Wotan, Jo Pohlheim as Alberich, Wolfgng Ablinger-Sperrhacke as Loge, and Yvonne Howard as Fricka. 

The orchestra has unusual prominence in this performance, since it dominates the Royal Festival Hall stage, rather than being submerged in the usual operatic pit. This gives the players every opportunity to shine in the evocative and at times overwhelming textures of Wagner's music, and under Richard Farnes's direction they did not disappoint during this opening opera.

The singers entered from either side as required, and sang from a long platform - almost like a transverse catwalk - in front of the orchestra, relying on strategically placed TV monitors in the auditorium to follow the conductor. There is minimal opportunity for acting on such a wide and shallow space, but the drama of the plot was still well served. The Rhinemaidens appeared in matching rich blue dresses with long evening gloves, stately rather than coquettish, but their flighty character and fateful self-absorption is all in the music, and it was a relief not to see singers encased in unsuitable costumes.

The other races were also cleverly but not garishly identified by their clothes - all black for the Nibelungs (open-necked shirt for Alberich, tee-shirt for Mime, each under black suits), smart red ties and pocket handkerchiefs for the giants (Fasolt's handkerchief serving remarkably well as a symbol of his murder as Fafnir plucked it from his jacket, squeezed it and dropped it to the floor), and sedate, not to say pompous, evening wear for the gods. Loge struck a sardonically naff note in an ordinary lounge suit, and further characterised his outsider status by a wonderful flickering of his hands in time to the fire motif in his music.

The disposition of the singers created an interesting view of the relevant power of the characters. Wotan seemed far less in control than his status warranted, somewhat baffled by having been caught out in his commitments to the giants, and thus over-reliant on Loge, then battered this way and that by his own desires as they conflicted with the advice and demands of those around him. In contrast Alberich wielded his power ruthlessly, and even in the moments of his downfall cursed his ring with authoritative vehemence. In the meantime, Loge, who can seem merely flighty and irritating, here revealed himself to be almost master of the situation, having set all the important actions into motion, and in finally washing his hands of the folly of the gods he seemed reasonable rather than inconsequentially flippant. 

All this was helped by the powerful singing of Jo Pohlheim as Alberich and Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke as Loge (who also brought great subtlety to the limited opportunities for characterisation imposed by the semi-staged format). And perhaps Wotan's lack of dominance was not entirely intentional - Michael Druiett's voice failed in the great final peroration to Valhalla and he looked washed out at the curtain call, so he may not have been on top form. In the meantime, Yvonne Howard provided a steely Fricka aware of the strains in her relations with Wotan but perhaps prepared at the end to give one more benefit of the doubt - but only one. The supporting cast was also excellent.

The major innovation of the production was the use of three large video screens behind the orchestra (here placed in front of the organ pipes). These allowed for atmospheric evocations of the scenes, or responses to the mood of the music, but they were not as involving as I expected them to be. There was of course a great deal of sunlight glistening on water for the opening (even though the sun does not actually shine through the water until quite late in the first scene), and it is clear that watching three screens of rippling water is not particularly interesting after three or four minutes. On the other hand, it is extremely difficult to know what else to do while the marvellous evocation of the Rhine builds slowly to its climax, especially as the projections were deliberately not meant to illustrate the action in any literal sense.

The non-literalness of the projections also reduced their effectiveness in other scenes. The mountaintop (or side) where the gods awake was always fuzzily defined in mist (often shaded in pale mauve), and never revealed anything of the great Valhalla fortress the completion of which has caused so much grief. Indeed, at the point when the brass blasts out the Valhalla motif in the final scene, it was not the outline of a hall that appeared, but rather that of a sword. The themes are closely related, of course, but there has been no mention of a sword at this point; it is a crucial feature of the next opera rather than this one. The descent to Nibelheim was very abstract, and of necessity had to be repeated in reverse at the end of the Nibelheim scene, again causing a somewhat flat sense of repetition; in fact the most evocative projection was the most insubstantial of all, the Rainbow Bridge.