But Slovenly Is Slovenly, Ragged Is Ragged, And Wobbly Is Wobbly

Some may have noticed we've been uncharacteristically silent concerning the Los Angeles Opera's Regieoper production of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, staged, costumed, and directed by Achim Freyer. We've been silent largely because, unlike most Regieoper productions which can easily — and safely — be dismissed as Eurotrash on just a glance at the production photos, this staging is not only fascinating and visually-arresting, but impossible to judge from production photos alone, even with an accompanying video trailer, as one perceives almost instantly that its sense, if sense it makes (and we're not at all certain it does), can't be grasped by viewing it in bits and pieces as it's too conceptually complex, and therefore can be judged fairly only within the context of the whole, and that only in the theater.

That perception of ours could, of course, be entirely false, and the staging, fascinating and visually-arresting as in itself it well may be, could effectively work to make of the Ring a travesty, and prove to be yet one more case of a self-indulgent, self-involved, self-important Regie vandalizing Wagner's magnum opus in order to imagine himself making the work of poor, old-fashioned Wagner more resonant for and more relevant to 21st century sensibilities. We've read enough commentary about this production, however, to suspect that's not the case here, and so we've remained cautiously (and prudently) silent on the matter.

But something else about this production caught our attention, courtesy of Pasadena blogger George M. Wallace of A Fool In The Forest who, in this post, has some glowing comments to make about the Freyer production generally. In his post, Mr. Wallace has, along with several included LAO production photos, embedded an LAO video trailer of the Siegfried, and what struck us immediately was just how ineffectual, even shabby, the music-making is — all of it, from the orchestra on down (if you imagine our sense of direction has abandoned us here and gone the wrong way round, remember, please, this is a Wagner music-drama we're speaking of, not a Verdi opera).

We readily concede the unfairness of making such a judgment based only on what amounts to nothing more than a disconnected, three-minute collection of sound bites, but slovenly is slovenly, ragged is ragged, and wobbly is wobbly, and one dreads being exposed to anything more prolonged from these performers.

So, have we now reached the point in opera where the music is simply a do as best one can do with what one has to hand excuse for presenting mind-bending and eye-boggling staging? On the evidence of this video, it would seem so, and if so, O tempora! O mores!