Sounds & Fury

Featured Past Post #83 (Administrative Note)

In his latest review of the 2009 Seattle Opera Ring, the ever-sharp and rarely in error classical music critic, Martin Bernheimer, had this to say:

Stephen Wadsworth’s production continues to tread a precarious line between prosaic realism and poetic illusion. The flying mermaids look like acrobatic women hung on wires, no more, no less. The dragon resembles a silly old puppet. The real horse, underemployed, seems shy. The man in the bear-suit enjoys programme credit (also applause). The magic fire ignites on cue like a series of burners on a kitchen stove. Gods, giants, dwarfs and mortals all appear virtually the same size, physical as well as metaphysical, though their interactions are tellingly motivated. Thomas Lynch’s picturesque sets, recycled in a vain attempt to suggest changing locales, force the action to the front of stage. In the process they enhance acoustic immediacy but cramp movement.

The proper staging of the Ring has been a perennial problem and circle-squaring exercise since Wagner's time, his own 1876 staging of the tetralogy, by his own admission, largely a failure, and today, even with our highly sophisticated stage machinery and techniques, it seems no closer to a truly satisfactory solution than it was back then.

Even though by no stretch of the terms are we either a stage designer or stage director, we attempted to suggest in general terms a satisfactory solution to the seemingly intractable problem in an S&F post of April 2005 ("Staging Wagner's Music-Dramas") the link to which post is now up on our right sidebar as our new Featured Past Post.

A Petty Singling Out?

[Note: This post has been updated (1) as of 3:24 AM Eastern on 16 Aug. See below.]

Is it petty or pedantic to call attention to a single, grossly ill-conceived staging of an episode lasting but some six minutes or so in an opera that goes on for some two-and-a-half hours?

Perhaps.

But what if that opera is the indispensable prelude to a trilogy of operas to follow that collectively span some thirteen hours of performance time, and that single, six-minutes-long episode is responsible for setting up the dramatic urframe, so to speak, for and for posing the central problem or argument of that following trilogy?

We're here talking about Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, of course, and specifically the Erda episode of its prelude, Das Rheingold, as mounted this past Sunday in the famous Stephen Wadsworth production for the Seattle Opera.

We held off commenting on this matter before as it was our hope that the six-minutes-long episode above referred to — part of which episode we witnessed in the video "trailer" (or "preview", as the SO calls it) for Das Rheingold put up by the SO on a page on its website along with trailers for the other three music-dramas of the Ring which page we've linked to previously — was merely a dress rehearsal aberration that would be altered substantially for the actual performance. Turns out, we're now reliably informed, it wasn't, and was staged in actual performance just as seen in the video trailer.

But let us be more specific.

In his uncompleted, occasionally flawed but brilliant traversal of the Ring (I Saw The World End, for commentary on which see this S&F post), musicologist Deryck Cooke writes of this six-minute episode:

Erda's sudden appearance is the most unexpected of all the unexpected events in the Ring: it comes as a tremendous, breathtaking surprise, and has the effect of a visionary revelation.

Indeed it is and does. Further, it's in a very real sense the launching pad for all that will follow over the next three music-dramas of the Ring, providing them their dramatic urframe, and posing their central problem or argument as we've above noted. Director Stephen Wadsworth's staging of this crucial episode is so grossly and jarringly ill-conceived that it makes one wonder what the man could have been thinking, or, worse, was he thinking at all. Not only is the staging completely at odds with Wagner's text and most especially with Wagner's music, but it makes Erda's sudden, mystic "visionary revelation" with its dire warning come across as little more than a quietly touching, even domestic, caution by a concerned parent to an erring child.

On the evidence of the score (music, text, and stage directions), this is not at all what Wagner had in mind. According to the score, as Erda rises slowly from the earth in a mystic halo of blue light as all around turns dark and foreboding, we're given to understand from the music that this is an extraordinary personage, and her appearance an extraordinary event even in this mythic world filled with extraordinary personages and events. And from the text, we're given to understand that the gods, Wotan included, have no idea who or what she is, but all are awestruck by her sudden and unexpected appearance. Quietly but sternly, Erda, pointing a finger ominously at Wotan, issues her dire warning to him to give up the ring he's just stolen from Alberich, for if he does not, she says, he (and by implication, all the gods) will be doomed irredeemably to dark (i.e., shameful) destruction. Wotan, his fear getting the better of his awe, commands her to stay and tell him more, but Erda tells him she's told him enough, and then slowly disappears back into the earth as Wotan, frightened by her warning, and desperate to learn more, makes an attempt to physically prevent her leaving, but is held back by the other gods who warn him not to so much as touch her, for though ignorant of who or what she is, they know enough to know she's not to even be approached, much less manhandled.

Arresting, makes-the-hair-on-the-back-of-one's-neck-stand-up stuff this episode, as Wagner intended it to be.

So how does Mr. Wadsworth stage this? As Erda begins her warning, he has Wotan drop to his knees and, like a child clinging to its mother, familiarly wrap his arms about Erda's waist, his head tilted against her shoulder, as Erda, like a comforting mother, her face all sympathy, gently strokes him variously on shoulder, breast, arm, and hand as she issues her warning, as if to say, Don't be afraid.

So much for makes-the-hair-on-the-back-of-one's-neck-stand-up arresting, and so much for Erda as a "tremendous, breathtaking ... visionary revelation" setting up the dramatic urframe for and posing the central problem of the three music-dramas to follow.

What could Mr. Wadsworth have been thinking?

Or was he thinking at all?

Only The Shadow and Mr. Wadsworth know for sure.

---

Update (3:24 AM Eastern on 16 Aug): What's that we hear you saying? Wagner screwed up here and made nonsense of his own text? He did no such thing.

Seattle Opera Ring Video Trailers

For those of you (ourself included) who can't get to — and/or afford tickets for — the 2009 Seattle Opera Ring, be advised that the company's excellent website has up video "trailers" (called by the SO, "previews") for each of the company's 2009 productions of the Ring's four music-dramas all of which can be viewed here. Not the best way to get a real taste of the four productions or of the cycle, but a taste nevertheless.

Sidebar To Our Remarks On The Seattle Opera Ring

In conjunction with a series of video clips examining backstage views of the Seattle Opera's production of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen titled, "The Road To Valhalla", there's in addition a series of video clips titled, "Confessions of a First-Time Operagoer" wherein is chronicled the experiences and impressions of a young, first-time operagoer on her introduction to the backstage preparations that go into the making of the production. The series is of only minor interest in itself (but still worth a look-see), but we wish to call your attention to the clip titled, "Speight Interview" (the clip has no separate link that we can discover, and so you'll have to go to the page and click on clip itself to view it), in which the young first-time operagoer "interviews" Seattle Opera General Director Speight Jenkins. All Jenkins's remarks are of interest, of course, as they were bound to be, but there's something about those remarks given their immediate context that's quite remarkable for and conspicuous by its absence.

Can you suss out what that might be?

Comments are open for a week for your convenience.

More On The Seattle Opera Ring

Here are some illuminating comments by Stephen Wadsworth, the director of the Seattle Opera's production of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen (for our comments on which, see this S&F post) which opens 9 August this year.

A Seattle Opera fixture since 1975, the Ring is now in its third incarnation here — a hugely popular production, directed by Stephen Wadsworth and designed by Thomas Lynch. [...] It's creative, imaginative and audience-stretching, but it also has the storybook beauty and the attention to Wagner's own stage directions that satisfy the traditionalism dear to many Wagnerites.

[...]

In a world of "concept" opera — staging the Ring as, say, a parable of the Industrial Revolution — Wadsworth is something of an anomaly for focusing instead on the human interactions that make the operatic tetralogy speak to all times.

"I'm not a person who leads with ideas about the piece, or a concept, particularly," Wadsworth explained recently during a discussion on how his production will look in 2009. [...] "I'm more interested in what's happening in the moment. And for that reason, the only significant change in the production is in the people who are playing the roles, and their differentness from the people who have played those roles in the past." [...] "Theater at its core is the interaction, in the moment, between the characters/actors. That's what makes the thing really fly or not."

RTWT here.

The Seattle Ring

[Note: This post has been updated (1) as of 5:43 PM Eastern on 6 Aug. See below.]

As the Bayreuther Festspiele has long since abandoned and betrayed its very raison d'être which was to present model performances of Wagner's operas and music-dramas, electing instead to present the mostly imbecile and grotesque Konzept stagings of various and sundry postmodern directors who care not one whit for Wagner's original vision and spirit as made manifest in his scores (text and music), and as the Met this past season mounted its last performances of director Otto Schenk's "traditionally staged" Ring (which, truth be told, needed retiring), the Seattle Opera's so-called "Green Ring" — first mounted in 2001 under the direction of the estimable Stephen Wadsworth with sets by Thomas Lynch — is perhaps the only (and perhaps last) staging by a major opera house of this epic work where one can see the work staged true to the essential vision and spirit of its creator.

This month, the Seattle Opera, under the enlightened directorship of general director Speight Jenkins, will mount its third production of this staging of the Ring (the prior productions were given in 2001 and 2005), again directed by Stephen Wadsworth, in a series of three cycles running from 9 August through 30 August. In conjunction with this Ring, the Seattle Opera has prepared a series of five videos giving a backstage look at the production which is most informative (although not as informative as it could have been) under the general title, "The Road To Valhalla", which series of videos can be viewed here. Also in conjunction with this Ring are a series of pre- and post-performance lectures and symposia as well as other events the schedule for all of which can be viewed here.

We Wagnerians, both present and prospective, have much for which to thank and be grateful to the Seattle Opera and its venerable general director, Speight Jenkins. Long may they prevail.

---

Update (5:43 PM Eastern on 6 Aug): For more on this, see this S&F post.