The PBS Telecast Of The Lepage Staging Of Siegfried

We're going to make brief, bullet-point work of this as writing our music-drama-by-music-drama commentary on the Robert Lepage staging of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen has become a most tiresome and unrewarding exercise. So, in brief and bullet-pointed:

⚫ In Acts I and II of Siegfried, Le Machine showed that it could be something more and better than it's been so far and actually create some genuinely evocative settings while at the same time accommodating the singer-actors by functioning as a stage for all their actions (not just a few tricks) instead of as a mere 21st-century high-tech version of a 19th-century scenery flat in front of which the singer-actors can do their thing. Most impressive. On the other hand, the very same genuinely evocative settings are achievable without having to construct a special piece of machinery costing $16M to achieve them.

⚫ In Act I, and for the first time in this tetralogy so far, it appeared the singer-actors were not left to their own devices but had their every movement shaped by a director who, for the most part, seemed to know his business. Also for the first time in this tetralogy so far, the singer-actors actually faced the person with whom they were exchanging sung dialogue instead of singing their lines facing the audience bel canto opera style (and it's about bloody time, too!). Perhaps the director was responsible for that as well.

⚫ The Siegfried (Jay Hunter Morris) actually looked (and acted) every inch a Siegfried, and although his fine voice is not terribly big it was big enough and used with intelligence.

⚫ The dragon looked a bit silly but we've seen worse.

⚫ Conductor Fabio Luisi, treating this music-drama as the Ring's scherzo as it is, made a fine if just a tad too-fleet job of it, and Jay Hunter Morris (Siegfried), Gerhard Siegel (Mime), Bryn Terfel (The Wanderer), Eric Owens (Alberich), Deborah Voigt (Brünnhilde), Hans-Peter König (Dragon/Fafner), and Patricia Bardon (Erda) all did themselves proud.

⚫ Memo To The Powers That Be: Fire the idiot who suggested Mime should wear spectacles (complete with a jeweler's loupe, no less). Fire as well the idiot who suggested that Erda be blond and blue-eyed and leave her subterranean abode to stroll about with The Wanderer.)