I laid out a not inexpensive but thoroughly worthwhile £19 or so on a digital link to the Melbourne Opera recent performance of Das Rheingold which they were streaming for a few days – I had been interested to see it as a result of emailed conversations on Manchester Wagner Society business with its conductor and his wife.
I really enjoyed this – I don’t always focus as much as I should on streamed opera on a small computer screen, but I found this very absorbing. Somehow the excitement of a huge challenge for a relatively small company, who’d not tackled the Ring previously, conveyed itself in the performance and made this a very absorbing and indeed moving experience.
The sets and lighting I thought were good – see picture above- particularly for the Valhalla scenes – the Rainbow Bridge ending looked genuinely impressive. I was less convinced by the Rhinemaidens’ luminous swings and the extra floaters – again, see picture – but they weren’t disastrous or detracting. There didn’t really seem to be any Rheingold in the first scene, which felt a little odd. The work of the director on the interaction of characters was less impressive, I thought – there was too much of eyes-to-the-front and semaphoring. I liked the costumes – Russian giants, glitzy minor gods and goddesses, particularly
There were some good singing actors, particularly the Loge (a gift of a role if you’ve the right temperament – James Egglestone had). Simon Meadowes as Alberich had a powerfully projected and sensitively sung approach, and I was also struck by Lee Abrahmsen as Freia. The Mime seemed to be forcing his voice quite a lot. Eddie Muliaumaseali was a bit of a cipher as Wotan, and seemed to get drowned by the orchestra occasionally – I didn’t really get much sense of what Wotam was about from him . I thought the orchestra and the conducting were excellent – it was quite a fast moving performance that fitted the straightforward narrative-focused style of the production very well. On the recording the snarling brass and timpani came across particularly well!! Perhaps there were a few moments of orchestral uncertainty occasionally, but the whole musical approach had an impressive sweep.
I felt I would much rather have listened to this than Radio 3’s re-run of the ROHJCG Rheingold from the Ring cycle in 2018
John's musical journey 