Welcoming the Gods Back to Their Majestic Gloaming
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Version 0 of 1. Perhaps it is time to stop talking about the machine. Sure, Robert Lepage’s 45-ton set for the Metropolitan Opera‘s current production of Wagner’s “Ring” cycle is loud, gimmicky and exorbitantly expensive. But so are many top restaurants in this city and that has never stopped New Yorkers from clambering over one another to get a table. The question to ask about Tuesday evening’s season premiere of “Götterdämmerung,” the fourth and final part of the cycle, is what remains when you take away the creaking planks and pretty video projections. The answer is chunks of great music, some singing that was so-so and some that was truly gorgeous and, here and there, patches of real music theater. The most consistent delight came from the pit, where Fabio Luisi drew a muscular, passionate, but never hurried performance from the orchestra. The cast returned largely intact from last season when Mr. Lepage’s “Ring” first lumbered onto the stage of the Met. Unfortunately the same cannot be said of its members’ voices. The American tenor Jay Hunter Morris last year made up for the lack of Helden power in his voice by singing with great musicality and refinement. On Tuesday evening his voice sounded raspy and tired; too often he tried to squeeze out an extra inch on a phrase by yawning his mouth wide open, with the result that any finishing vowel turned into an “A.” The soprano Deborah Voigt was again Brünnhilde, a role she has made her own, though she took astonishing liberties with the text much of the evening. She still has the stamina to see her through, but while she is able to produce top notes that are loud, clear and slightly metallic, there is little warmth left in her voice. Nowhere was this more poignantly obvious than in the scene in which Waltraute appears to plead with Brünnhilde to renounce the Nibelung’s ring. Waltraute always has an unfair advantage: She only has to perform in this one scene and the singer can harness all her reserves into one dramatically riveting and emotionally nuanced monologue. But the Scottish mezzo Karen Cargill brought such exquisite expression and a warm, vibrant and ample voice to the part that she thoroughly outclassed her colleagues onstage. Here, finally, was a singer who could control multiple dimensions, singing with fervent intensity without raising the volume and conjuring up different colors for her character’s pangs of pity, hope and anger. Wendy Bryn Harmer was in fine voice as she returned to the role of Gutrune, bringing out the fundamental decency of this flawed and conflicted character. Iain Paterson repeated his dramatically assured portrayal of Gunther, which benefited from his musical sense of phrasing and communicative singing style. Hans-Peter König and Eric Owens were riveting as Hagen and his father, Alberich, who plot Siegfried’s downfall as much out of greed as a deep-seated sense of inferiority. It was the scenes featuring these dark male voices, as well as the excellent Met men’s chorus, that offered the most cohesive unity of drama, singing and music. They culminated in Siegfried’s death and funeral march, where Mr. Lepage’s staging was for once keenly attuned to the instructions embedded in Wagner’s score. <NYT_AUTHOR_ID> <p>“Götterdämmerung” returns to the Metropolitan Opera on May 2 and 11; (212) 362-6000 or metopera.org. |