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Metropolitan Opera- Robert Lepage's Das Rheingold


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Hi everyone. My husband and I saw the new production of Rheingold on Sept 30. The singing was first rate. Particularly impressive were Eric Owens (Alberich) and Stephanie Blythe (Fricka). The orchestra was magnificent, and the audience loudly cheered the return of Jimmy Levine to the podium. The new production has many wonderful moments, but overall I didn't care for it. One of the most spectacular effects is when the Rhinemaidens hang (or "fly") in front of projections of water and rocks. The ascent into Valhalla at the end of the opera was also pretty amazing. You can check out some photos of that effect on the NY Times website. (That was the special effect that notoriously failed at the opening night Gala.) As many of you have read, the set designed by Lepage consists of a large number of planks which rotate. For most of the opera, the singers either stand on the stage apron and sing, or stand on the planks and sing. Frequently, there is nothing projected on to the planks. Often, I felt like the scenery did nothing to evoke a time or place. Whereas I felt that Lepage's production of The Damnation of Faust was too busy in terms of the amount of projections used, in this production I felt that the projections were insufficient in number and frequency to provide any scenic details or interest. Moreover, sometimes characters (or, more accurately their acrobatic doubles) enter the stage by rolling down planks, after which the singer emerges from below the stage. I found that to be an idiotic way of having characters enter or leave. Even more problematic is that after Fafner kills his brother, the dead body rolls down a plank, evoking laughter in the audience. This is a serious moment in the opera, and Lepage destroyed it. I find it hard to believe that this production could have cost so much money. I will miss the old production, which always evoked the scenic elements, unobtrusively, with detail and beauty. As for the costumes, I thought Wotan's was particularly bad. Terfel looked silly and overweight. He hardly looked like a leader of the gods. His wig with a mess of stringy hair covering his left eye made him look even worse. I would be very interested in reading other opinions, if anyone attends the HD or live in the house.

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Thanks, abatt, for your review. The physical aspect of the production seem to photograph well in the stills I've seen. It's good to hear from someone who was actually in the theater.

The Met's HD/Live transmission to cinemas is this Saturday, Oct. 9. I'm not able to make that, but am looking forward to the impressions of those who did.

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I loved the production, but I saw it in HD, where the director did plenty to break up what might have been a tedious set in the house, and where close-ups eliminated the static quality of singing from the platform. I'm fine with realistic productions -- Seattle's is as realistic as they get -- but I'm agnostic as long as the production makes sense. My favorite sets of all the Rings I've seen so far are those for the State Opera in South Australia's production in Adelaide in 2004. (Only one miss I could see and great stuff for the rest.) From the viewpoint of a movie goer, I loved the set so much I'd like to live in it; only the rainbow looked weak on screen, but might have been more impressive live. Moving around the set and climbing it would guarantee excellent core strength within a month. I could also see how Bryn Terfel could look squat in the theater when he didn't on the broadcast. It isn't the first production I've seen in which the Alberich was more attractive than the Wotan, but I thought Terfel smouldered.

Flying in the Rhein Daughters wasn't original, but having them swim and gather on the rock shelf was beautifully done. They were luscious. Lepage should get a standing ovation just for their costumes. The rest of the costumes that didn't have breastplates looked a bit Cirque du Soleil-ish to me. They worked really well except for Erda -- Patricia Bardon looked like a platinum blond Morticia Adams -- but at least she wasn't a green-faced torso. Too many of the wigs were right out of "Anne of Green Gables", although I loved that there were a number of redheads.

I would lose the falling/sliding entrances for a handful of characters, and I agree that the death of Fasolt lost impact when people giggled as he slipped off the set.

Vocally it's hard to judge because the mikes don't differentiate between strong and weak voices, but for timbre, Eric Owens' voice was velvet. The giants (Franz-Josef Selig and Hans-Peter Konig) sounded like equals. Mime's voice was clear; I hope Gerhard Siegel sings the "Siegfried" Mime next season. Almost all of the women sounded wonderful: Blythe, Harmer, the Rhein Daughters; I was least impressed with Bardon, whose tone sounded thin from where it was miked. I heard Terfel last year in recital, and his vibrato was a lot bigger than then. I was very impressed by how he took an intimate, text-driven approach, and if the Entrance to Valhalla wasn't as grand as I've heard, it was a great relief after hearing years of bellowing and strutting. I can't wait to see his "Die Walkure"; the foreshadowing was there at the end of "Das Rheingold".

Donner really is a twit.

I think "Das Rheingold" is mostly Alberich's show, and I wish Alberich would get the final bow, not Wotan.

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Vocally it's hard to judge because the mikes don't differentiate between strong and weak voices, but for timbre, Eric Owens' voice was velvet.

..................................................................................................

I think "Das Rheingold" is mostly Alberich's show, and I wish Alberich would get the final bow, not Wotan.

Really, Alberich and Loge drive the plot, don't they? I listened (but didn't see) the performance and I was most impressed with Owens and Richard Croft among the singers. Neither barked or huffed and both had very pointed and effective delivery of the text.

But evidently, as Helene notes, the mikes tend to even out the playing field volume wise. From some comments I've read by those that were in the house for one of the performances, Richard Croft's very beautifully sung Loge counted for much less as his voice didn't project very well. Actually Croft was the target of a bit of booing in the curtain call, I'm guessing because the booer was disappointed in Croft's decibel level.

My other comment from the broadcast I heard (opening night) was how much more swiftly moving and almost effervescent the pace of the performance was, as compared from Levine's earlier practice of rather slower tempi. I liked this a lot, there is a bit of a tendency among conductors after Furtwangler, Klemperer, and Knappertsbusch to equate slow tempos in Wagner's music with gravity and eloquence. But sometimes "slow" is just ...."slow" and not much else. Kudos to Jimmy L for rethinking his approach at this stage of his career.

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Sadly the volume issue was similar last summer in Seattle: I thought Kobe von Rensberg's Loge was beautifully crafted and a highlight, but I don't think I read a review that didn't complain that he was underpowered.

I've heard Von Rensberg do some very impressive , lovely singing, most particularly in the Met's Rodelinda. It's not really a small voice at all.

I wonder if current audiences don't have unrealistic expectations regarding how singers sound *live*, in an opera house.

There have been recordings for decades but all in all we live in an age where audio-video media dominates us with videos, movies, television, all supplemented with hefty doses of youtube. All that is actually quite wonderful BUT it doesn't really prepare audiences for the actual balance of voice vs all the other elements of an actual operatic performance.

Not all singers automatically block out the orchestra in a performance the way they can seem to do in a recorded example. I think it really requires an adjustment that the listener has to make in an actual performance setting but a lot of today's audience don't realize that they can develop an ability to do that. If they are not absolutely "hammered" with a singer's sound, the term "inaudible" pops up.

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My other comment from the broadcast I heard (opening night) was how much more swiftly moving and almost effervescent the pace of the performance was, as compared from Levine's earlier practice of rather slower tempi. I liked this a lot, there is a bit of a tendency among conductors after Furtwangler, Klemperer, and Knappertsbusch to equate slow tempos in Wagner's music with gravity and eloquence. But sometimes "slow" is just ...."slow" and not much else. Kudos to Jimmy L for rethinking his approach at this stage of his career.

Sounds great--love to hear that JL's foregrounding Wagner's rhythmic drive--if anyone doubts it exists, just listen to those Nibelungen anvils!

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It's wonderful to read these reports. Thank you.

On the issue of audibility in the theater:

I wonder if current audiences don't have unrealistic expectations regarding how singers sound *live*, in an opera house. [ ... ]

I think it really requires an adjustment that the listener has to make in an actual performance setting but a lot of today's audience don't realize that they can develop an ability to do that.

Thank you for this insight. I almost always find that the early part of an opera is the least audible for me. As time goes on, I always seem hear things better.

I never thought about this process before, but I suppose I AM making adjustments in the way I listen. As a result, I can hear what I could not easily hear before..

It's a very interesting idea. In the modern world, maybe this is something that has to be taught.

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It's wonderful to read these reports. Thank you.

On the issue of audibility in the theater:

I wonder if current audiences don't have unrealistic expectations regarding how singers sound *live*, in an opera house. [ ... ]

I think it really requires an adjustment that the listener has to make in an actual performance setting but a lot of today's audience don't realize that they can develop an ability to do that.

Thank you for this insight. I almost always find that the early part of an opera is the least audible for me. As time goes on, I always seem hear things better.

I never thought about this process before, but I suppose I AM making adjustments in the way I listen. As a result, I can hear what I could not easily hear before..

It's a very interesting idea. In the modern world, maybe this is something that has to be taught.

Maybe, but part of the matter of audibility at the Met has to do with that particular house. Someone wrote that it was often the case that a voice that is usually considered rather big won't sound that way at the Met, 'which was built as if made for Birgit Nilsson's voice'. I heard TeKanawa in two performances in 1994, I believe, at the Met, and there was sometimes (but not always in either performance, so it had to do with the house) this problem, even though she was still in very good voice then, if not at her peak. I also heard her last opera role as 'Vanessa' at LA Opera in late 2004, and there was never the problem of fullness of sound at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, rather some of her notes were not pure anymore (not necessarily the high ones, btw. It was a good sound anyway, and the right one to go out of opera on.) But I remember in 'Arabella' even more than 'Simon Boccanegra' (those were the two, and SB was the later one) that there were times when she sounded a bit smaller than was right. And I don't think it would have sounded like that in a smaller, more intimate opera house.

http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2010/oct/08/robert-lepage-rheingold-met/

This article was interesting, I don't think anybody posted it. Made we want to see it, though, and I might, although not this season.

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The title of the piece -- "clanking, ponderous ... " -- certainly gives an idea of what the author, Martin Filler, experienced in the theater.

He does not like "the Machine," finding it intrusive on a number of levels. I was struck by one of his examples: the Rhine Maidens, which have been depicted quite well in the few live performances I've seen of this (one in Seattle, Helene).

The three Rhinemaidens, in traditional form here as mermaids, are suspended in midair by guy wires, but their flailing movements look less like swimming than the death throes of moths pinned to a board. In an age of cinematic digital wizardry, such heavy-handed stage effects are best omitted.

I keep recalling that this equipment -- all 45 tons of it -- required rebuilding the entire stage and under-stages well as making other changes that cost (if I remember correctly) something in the range of $16 million.

The same equipment will serve the sets of all 4 Ring Operas. But that's still a huge investment. Is this the beginning of a New Age in stage technology? The last of the mechanical Leviathans?

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Maybe, but part of the matter of audibility at the Met has to do with that particular house. Someone wrote that it was often the case that a voice that is usually considered rather big won't sound that way at the Met, 'which was built as if made for Birgit Nilsson's voice'. I heard TeKanawa in two performances in 1994, I believe, at the Met, and there was sometimes (but not always in either performance, so it had to do with the house) this problem, even though she was still in very good voice then, if not at her peak. .

Well a few points. Generally the Met has very good acoustics in general, although there are some areas where they are spotty.

But the two largest areas of seats, the center portion of the orchestra (just short of the overhand)and the Balcony/Family Circle have very fine acoustics. I've been in the cheapest , highest seats, the Family Circle, and voices travel all the way up there sensationally. And this is from many, many performances I've attended, going all the way back to the second season the house was open.

As I noted, there are areas that are not so good. The back of the orchestra which is under the overhang is somewhat muffled.

Some of the side seats have an odd balance.

The Birgit Nilsson comment came perhaps from a joke. When the house was completed, but not open, the subject of the acoustics was very, very touchy and a subject of great concern to Rudolf Bing and his staff. After some test student matinees in early 1966, the whole management team was very relieved. And so a joke went around. One member of the staff would ask another "Could you hear Nilsson and Corelli from where you sat?" The context was of course that you could hear these two singers from almost anywhere in almost any quality acoustic. The joke was repeated all Spring and Summer during 1966 until the opening drew near and all kinds of disasters with stage machinery made the prospect of the opening a not so joking matter.

My own experience is that any singer that has a reasonable technique and is projecting well can be heard pretty much anywhere except unless the conductor is really leading an unbalanced blend of orchestra and voices. Ms Tekanawa is not the best example of a singer who projected well. It was often a sore point that she was almost marking many performances. It was a lovely sound but not always backed by much energy. Sometimes she was fine but other times, one wanted to yell out "Sing OUT Kiri".

I have heard a few singers who didn't carry well but generally they were voices that weren't focused or very, very soft grained, or singers that were performing under stressed conditions. A few conductors seemed intent on drowning out singers, mostly recently the Australian Simone Young, for reasons only known to them. And if that was there intent, it was possible to have a performance where the singers were hard to hear through the dense texture of the orchestra.

The Met is enormous, true, but really the main problem is not the acoustics per se, but more the scale of the auditorium. So many works, Mozart, Handel, all the early 19th Century works suffer from the size of the house in terms of scale of the performance. It can all be heard, but the balance would be better in a smaller auditorium.

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He does not like "the Machine," finding it intrusive on a number of levels. I was struck by one of his examples: the Rhine Maidens, which have been depicted quite well in the few live performances I've seen of this (one in Seattle, Helene).
The three Rhinemaidens, in traditional form here as mermaids, are suspended in midair by guy wires, but their flailing movements look less like swimming than the death throes of moths pinned to a board. In an age of cinematic digital wizardry, such heavy-handed stage effects are best omitted.

I can understand his perceiving it that way, and perhaps others at the Met did as well. On HD, contextualized by the acting during the close-up shots, they were clearly swimming.

The falling and sliding did elicit laughs, as did the moment when Alberich as toad was captured and potted with the flick of a sword. Being new to the Ring I was puzzled by the way Loge, in his first few moments on stage, walked backwards up the inclined set in an insecure, effeminate way. I was thinking "fop?," but I couldn't make sense of that characterization from what I knew of the plot. Was that walk supposed to reinforce the fact that he's only half divine, or reinforce his being untrustworthy by making him seem eccentric? Or is that just how Croft moves?

The other moment that struck me as a little off, but may have been intended, was that when Wotan reminded Fricka of his blinded eye, that was the one time we in the HD audience could actually see it through the hair covering it. (He made us laugh during the bows when he pointedly flicked that hair off his face).

Like Helene I thought the rainbow effect depicting the bridge to Valhalla was underwhelming, but for me it was largely because the set had been so impressive earlier on, especially in the opening scene when it depicted the Rhine.

Poor critic and new to the Ring that I am, I'm better at saying what I didn't like than what I did. But I was very much impressed with the singing and acting of Eric Owens, who I remember from Doctor Atomic a couple of seasons ago. I loved his costume as well. I don't know how Albericht is traditionally played, or if there has been a range of interpretations. But Owens made the character appropriately crude, yet sympathetic as well.

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You've probably got some points there, although I wouldn't say TeKanawa was 'marking' either of those 2 performances, and I did hear them from the Family Circle, where I've always loved the sound. It could be so that she didn't by the 90s always project throughout, but then again, even she admitted that, while she had become by that time identified with 'Arabella', that it is 'in some ways a boring opera'. That is true, it is. But the energy level was sporadic within one performance, because I didn't change seats, and sometimes it did come full force and gorgeous. In 'Boccanegra', she was filling in last minute for someone who'd been fired, I think, and one critic said she couldn't get that very ornate trill, another said she got it perfectly, and when I heard it she did also (probably ratcheted up the energy for that). I wasn't especially interested in that opera, either, though. But it's obvious she was much hotter in the 70s, and that can still be seen in Losey's film of 'Don Giovanni'. But there will always be off nights and on nights when the voice begins to age and get ready for retirement.

But, generally I like the Met sound too. That 'Meistersinger' production in 1995 or 1996 sounded stupendous, and everybody in it as well, but that production was so glorious, period. I think I was in the Family Circle for that too. And, more recently, if on a lower level musically than the opera orchestra, I've commented on the pleasure of going to ABT at the Met because the sound is vastly superior to the micro-sound you hear when you go to NYCB. I don't know how NYCO can survive with such wretched sound. Have you seen anything at NYCO since the theater has been re-worked? I don't recall anybody even talking about an NYCO season, although I could have just missed it.

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From the NYReview article:

the Machine malfunctioned on opening night. In the climactic final scenethe entry of the gods into Valhallait failed to form the Rainbow Bridge on which the deities march triumphantly toward their new heavenly home. Stranded, they slinked sheepishly into the wings.

Whatever he said about 'the Machine', it only made it more attractive to me, and was the main reason I'd like to see it. However, I do not want it to malfunction, because it makes the capitalists have to give in much too soon. We all want to see them 'live it up' even with all that unpaid mortgage, not 'slinking sheepishly into the wings'. I rarely think of wanting to ask for my money back for something, but that is a kind of major offense. I frankly think they should have seen if they could repair it and re-do the scene! How grotesque! Makes me think of all I read about the preparations for 'Antony and Cleopatra' to open the Met at Lincoln Center, a few years before I got here--lots of fights and things falling apart, as I recall. Must have been great theater, though.

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kfw, I had forgotten about the toad. I don't think that I've ever seen a production live where the toad didn't get laughs. I wouldn't be surprised if that was intentional on Wagner's part, pride coming before the fall and all.

It also reminded me that practically everyone I knew in NYC had that copper wine cooler/Duralog/NYT holder from Pottery Barn that served as a Tarnhelm/toad holder.

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kfw, I had forgotten about the toad. I don't think that I've ever seen a production live where the toad didn't get laughs. I wouldn't be surprised if that was intentional on Wagner's part, pride coming before the fall and all.

Thanks for the explanation

It also reminded me that practically everyone I knew in NYC had that copper wine cooler/Duralog/NYT holder from Pottery Barn that served as a Tarnhelm/toad holder.

and thanks for the laugh!

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The Washington Post's Anne Midgette asks if the production was Cast for Simulcast?.

If you watched "Das Rheingold" from the Metropolitan Opera in a movie theater via live simulcast Saturday afternoon, I'd be willing to bet that you heard some very pretty singing. You might even have been puzzled at the end about why Loge, the god of fire, got booed, since the singer who played him, Richard Croft, sang particularly prettily.

Let's forget, for a moment, the question of whether "pretty" singing has any place in a Wagner opera -- Wagner, after all, advocated bel canto technique. Let's talk about what the opera sounded like when you attended live. I was in the opera house for the performance, and I can tell you why Croft got booed: I could barely hear him, even from prime orchestra seats.

He wasn't alone. [ . . . ]

My theory: This "Rheingold" was, at least in part, cast for the simulcast, which evens out vocal size and favors smaller voices that are easier to record -- and, of course, attractive looks.

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It sounds like the "live" versus "simulcast" issue is one we will be addressing more and more.

Of course, the audience at the live performance at the Met and those in the movie theaters are, in one sense, a single community. But their experiences are not identical. It seems as though productions and casting may be shifting to cater to the simulcast audience, to the detriment of the live audience.

That's why it's good to hear from BOTH audiences. I will be interested to see how this story plays out.

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I saw the HD performance last Saturday and thoroughly enjoyed it. I am a huge sucker for Wagner's huge orchestrations, so this result is pretty much a foregone conclusion with me.

I would like to comment on the work of Lepage. I was totally captivated by his Damnation of Faust. I thought his use of modern technology to be a breakthrough, and opened up all sorts of possibilities; so I greatly looked forward to what he might be able to accomplish with the demands of Wagner's near impossible imagination. In a word, I was disappointed. Not by everything, but by much.

I thought "the machine" was brilliant. It's ability to create forms as if by magic was spectacular. The opening e-flat chord of Das Rheingold has never had the effect on me as this one did when the straight line of the tops of the "planks" of the machine started to move in a sine-wave pattern. That long opening chord (and how it develops) has always seemed to me to represent the Rhine River as well as undifferentiated nature. That sine-wave motion was at once the river, but also as elemental to nature as can be (nearly everything of order in the physical universe in some way depends on this most basic harmonic motion).

Then I became disappointed with the Rhine Maidens. The Rhine Maidens should be totally at home in their element of water -- completely free to swim in all directions with abandon. Not so here. The singers had to struggle against their very human fears of steep slopes and edges. These ladies did a marvelous job, but Lepage is asking too much here. Indeed, my overall objection to Lepage's concept is that he asked too much of all his singers. In my younger days I used to be a rock and ice climber on the cliffs and glaciers on the volcanos in the Northwest where I live. I know the very human feelings of being on edges, and stepping on slopes that are steep enough that you are not sure the soles of your feet will stick. These singers are NOT natural rock climbers :wink:. I take my hat off to them for having the bravery to do as well as they did. Sure they had a rope attached to their bodies making the movement even possible, and providing safety; but believe me, just having a rope does not stop fear (I once froze on a rock climb in Yosemite Valley for an hour until my partner talked me through the move even tho I was well roped and anchored). I was amazed that most of the singers were able to trust the setup so well. I was distracted however by the Rhine Maidens (who had to trust totally), and by Loge (who had to walk backwards).

OTOH, I thought Wotan and Loge's descent into Niebelheim to be extraordinarily effective. The way that staircase twisted into a "staircase into Hades" and the other-worldly way the 2 singers moved, totally had me feel I was descending into a whole other world beyond human experience.

I think the Met and Lepage have done opera a favor with this production. The future possibilities for hi-tech stagecraft in opera boggles my mind (and I have little doubt we are only seeing a tip of the iceberg here). However, the use of such hi-tech spectacle can't make the singers uncomfortable as they attempt to fight off primordial fears of falling (even babies won't cross a gap on a suspended pane of glass....this fear is built into our DNA).

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....although this wouldn't be the first production to make severe demands on them.

I agree; however......

In Seattle Opera's current production, the 3 Rhinemaidens fly too, but they are totally suspended in the air. The stage crew moves them around (back and forth, up and down, and maybe a little forward and back). The Maidens do all the arm and leg movements, of course, including full flips. But I have to think that is easier than what Lepage made these Maidens do since in the Seattle Opera version the Maidens are always in the same situation. They are fully supported by a harness (they even have "foot pedals" that they stand on); but in the Met production the Maidens support themselves to some extent.....and their "support" situation is always changing. Also they have to do it just right or they would flop to the ground (they wouldn't go very far since the rope would stop them from doing little more than what would happen to you or I if we simply fell to the floor). So the Met Maidens never know exactly how secure they are....which is what invokes all that primative fear stuff. Seattle's Maidens are more like someone in a parachute harness.....they may be falling but it "feels" secure (if I'm making myself clear).

This is particularly true for Loge I thought. He has to walk backwards up the ramp at a steep angle. If he doesn't lean against the rope at the right angle, he will surely slip and fall to the ground. Again, it wouldn't be far (it would be like a chair being pulled out from under you), but he has to do it right, and he is surely aware that he could, at any moment, fall. The Seatttle Maidens never have to worry about anything like that even though they are suspended 20 feet in the air. Indeed, I thought Richard Croft (Loge) looked very uncomfortable.

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