Siegfried, Andreas Schager; Mime, Arnold Bezuyen; Der Wanderer, Tomasz Konieczny; Alberich, Olafur Sigurdarson; Fafner, Wilhelm Schwinghammer; Erda, Okka von der Damerau; Brünnhilde, Daniela Köhler; Waldvogel, Alexandra Steiner. Valentin Schwarz (director), Andrea Cozzi (designs), Andy Besuch (costumes), Konrad Kuhn (dramaturgy). Reinhard Traub (lighting), Luis August Krawen (video), Bayreuth Festival Orchestra, Cornelius Meister (conductor)
The weather has got cooler in the last few days in Bayreuth – indeed there was some rain during both Walkure and yesterday the Hollander performances. Temperatures obviously in the Festspeilhaus have also gone down (except raised temperatures among those getting crosser and crosser with this production!) Certainly my 40-minute walk there has been a much pleasanter experience.
I continue to be intrigued by the audience. Internationally, Brits and Americans predominate, though there are also quite a few French and a few Chinese. What’s interesting from the conversations overheard among the English speakers is that not everybody is terribly knowledgeable about these operas – some are, but others are clearly experiencing The Ring for the first time. And there are also some young people ie teenagers here with their parents. What sort of experience they are having I’d love to know…. Anyway, onwards with Siegfried
Act 1 started off fairly conventionally as most productions go. We were in a battered old? house or maybe series of shacks – maybe it is the same house as Hinding’s – but if so, why?. As the lights get brighter it begins to look weirder….There is a cheap happy birthday glittery sign over the door and we are back in Mime’s slightly dubious schoolroom, though without the transparent white box and this time his pupils seem to be puppets of various sizes as well as a kind of Punch and Judy box in to which he occasionally disappears – maybe all this may be something to do with Siegfrieds birthday). Siegfried appears seemingly drunk and seems way past Mime’s coercive schooling – like the young Hagen in Rhinegold he has masses of energy not bring productively used and which turns into destructiveness. He eventually goes off with the largest of the puppets. There must be something here around distorted childhoods – which Siegfried certainly has, but where this idea is going isn’t clear. The Wanderer scene is handled fairy conventionally – Wotan is in the same suit he wore for Walkure. The Forging scene again roused storms of bòos at the end but I thought this was undeserved. A sword of sorts seemed to appear- I couldn’t quite see how…hidden within Mime’s walking stick, maybe. The forging doesn’t take place as such, but instead Siegfried embarks on a manic orgy of destruction, decapitation and quartering all the puppets and the furniture in time to the forging song. From the final splitting of the anvil moment which here involves Siegfried about to run Mine through with his sword and then missing and collapsing on top of him, we assume that he is still drunk. Most of this I thought was quite clever and well done, but I still am baffled by the childhood sub-theme
Act 2 is set in a big living room somewhere – it is unclear where but its Fafner’s residence and he has a troop of carers. Wotan and Alberich have their exchange and we don’t realise till the end of that scene that there is an elderly gentleman sitting with his back to the Idience.in a bed/wheelchair. This is Fafner, accompanied by the “Rhinegold’ the now older young Hagen. You also notice that there is another glowing pyramid on a table nearby. Siegfried and Mime come in and sit downstage on a sofa set. Wotan and Alberich sit in the opposite corner. The Wood bird is one of the waitresses, and Siegfried (who continues to be someone with considerable appetite in various respects- when he’s not drinking he’s scoffing pot noodles) starts flirting with her when she comes to him upset after her employer ie Fafner makes sexual advances to her. This seems a mistake – isn’t Brunnhilde meant to be the first woman he’s come across? Fafner when woken seems to have a stroke after being pushed by Siegfried out of his chair but it maybe that young Hagen is also involved in killing him. Siegfried encourages young Hagen to come with him and Mime potters around to see what else Fafner has in a cupboard. He comes back with several toy horses, which seem to make periodic appearances in the operas so far without explanation (they appear in Valhalla and with the dream young family in Act.1 as well as Mimes house) – what their significance is I have no idea. Mime is killed by Siegfried with the sword from his walking stick, and then suffocated with a cushion which Young Hagen enthusiastically joins in with. The act ends with the Woodbird, leading both Siegfried and Young Hagen away.
Act 3 has the same set as Walkure Act 2, but somehow looking more dilapidated (it also seems to have sprouted – but maybe I just hadn’t noticed it yet a large metallic-looking pyramid stage right). Erda looks as though she’s leaving the place and appears with the child she took away in Rhinegold, and the girl leaves when she does – Wotan now has the hat he should have had in Act 1 but he leaves it around – it is later taken up by Brunnhilde. When Siegfried comes along with the young Hagen, Wotan is found curiously sloped in the same invalid chair/bed Fafner was in. Young Hagen somehow leaves Siegfried at some point as the encounter with Brunnhilde begins. There is a coup de theatre when Brunnhilde comes in masked from her deep hibernation – this is well done. The final scene is – not that it needs much enlivening – added to by quite sensible actions for Siegfried to show his fear and his distraction at being faced by Brunnhilde – several times he has to be restrained from running away by Grane: he also brings out what I think is a comfort blanket which Mime gave him for his birthday (might be wrong about that). Act 3 was really powerful, I found – principally because it consists of three big set pieces with glorious music and the director doesn’t provide too much distraction.
Andreas Schager was simply astonishing. He throws himself wholeheartedly around the stage, he’s tireless in playing a violent young man, full of inner demons and vocally he sounds as fresh at the end as he does at the beginning. I’ve never heard anyone sing and act this role better live except for Alberto Remedios. Schager lacks a certain lyricism, but he tries harder at this than most I’ve heard. A genuine helden-tenor, then. I have also been very impressed by Tomasz Konieczny. He was another last minute replacement (the role was originally to be sung by Gunther Groessboeck (in fact even more originally by Ian Paterson), then by John Lundgren and he then pulled out a few weeks before the first night). His voice is large, with a lot of attention to varying tones and volumes, and with very good diction (he also managed to injure himself on a collapsing chair in the first cycle Walkure). Arnold Bezuyen was tireless and very effective as Mime – one of the best I’ve seen. I’m not quite sure why the management wanted two Brunnhilde’s for this Ring – were they trialling Daniela Köhler? Anyway, she was very good at hitting the high notes and acting the role as Brunnhilde transitions from being a goddess – whether she’d stay the course for Walkure or Gotterdammerung who knows. Olafur Sigurdarson continues to impress as Alberich. And – praise be – the orchestra sounded much better than for the first two nights (though there was a bit of a disaster when the first horn missed their cue and the first few notes of the first appearance of the Siegfried motif in the first act)– there was some beautiful woodwind playing, the strings sounded glorious, and Meister didn’t do so many of his sudden lurches – though there was a disconcerting sudden surge forward for the closing duet, which however Kohler and Schager coped with admirably. On the whole, despite some of the annoying direction issues, this was the most enjoyable and the best played and sung of the three Ring operas I’ve heard in this cycle. And the singing continues to be without any reservations first class. The grumblers were saying 10 years ago that Bayreuth could no longer attract the really first class singers. That’s certainly not the case this year
John's musical journey 