A New and Better World? in Music and Vision 9 December

A New and Better World?
GIUSEPPE PENNISI was at
La Scala Milan for
Wagner's 'Die Walküre'

On 7 December, St Ambrose Day, patron saint of Milan and traditional date to inaugurate the 'season' of the Teatro alla Scala, if you happened to be in Milan city center you would not have sensed the economic crisis. An oversized temporary Tiffany shop under the Christmas tree in the main square, expensive gifts in the windows of the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele, elegant customers going from department store to department store, and pretty Christmas markets in the medieval Piazza della Mercanzia. Inside the theatre, where orchestra and central row boxes seats had been sold for 2,400 euros a piece, gentlemen in dinner jackets and dames adorned with jewels were walking in the foyers. In Milan, el diné ('money' in local slang) does matter; if you have it, you show it off. In each level of the foyer (there are four) a buffet was ready for those who needed a snack during the long performance (Richard Wagner's Die Walküre) -- from 6pm until 11.30pm; prices of the snack were commensurate with those of the tickets. Outside the theatre, on 7 December, riots erupted against luxury at a time of distress and unemployment: two policemen were hurt and had to be hospitalized.
The much awaited performance was videocast live to several countries as well as shown in a large network of movie houses. Thus, this review will be read by many M&V readers who may have already seen and listened to the performance on TV or in a nearby cinema. Ths report is based not on the 7 December 2010 performance, but on a general preview staged on 4 December for youngsters under thirty years of age and some hundred music critics from all over the word. The young audience (at 10 euros a ticket) was enthusiastic; for most of them, it was their first encounter with Wagner.
Die Walküre is the most frequently performed of the four operas of Wagner's Ring. It is well-compacted in three Acts, each one of about eighty minutes; musically, on its own account, each Act is divided into three sections. Thus, it is a rather symmetric opera, still anchored to the German Romantic style -- eg preceding Wagner's music drama of 'total theatre', already theorized by him but actually tried out from Tristan und Isolde onwards. A determinant for the popular success of Die Walküre is that it deals mostly with love intertwined with power politics. Love and power are two staples of music theatre. Each spectator can easily give his own personal meaning to music in the pit and action on stage. It is a complex love story because several facets of love overlap each other: Hunding's sadistic sexual passion for Sieglinde, Siegmund and Sieglinde's total passionate love (honest and pure in spite of the adulterous and incestuous intercourse), a tired marriage relationship between Wotan and Fricka, the motherly love of Sieglende for her yet-to-be-born child (Siegfried) and, especially, Brünnhilde's complex love for her father (Wotan), her half-brother and half-sister (Siegmund and Sieglinde), and her other sisters (the valkyries). Power politics is central to the plot because the King of the Gods (Wotan) would want to betray his own basic laws but he is stopped by his long term (and often misled) wife Fricka from doing it. Thus, Brünnhilde becomes his willing executioner (in breaking the laws); in spite of her own father's wish, she is to be punished.
Die Walküre is one of the most popular Wagner's work also because it is full of action on stage (races, duels, fights, rides) not through the accounts of the protagonists (as, eg, in Siegfried). A single exception is Wotan's fifteen minute monologue in Act II -- a real headache for stage directors.
The production on stage in Milan until 2 January 2011 is a joint-venture with the Berlin Staatsoper Unter Den Linden; the entire project provides for a full staging of The Ring in 2013 -- the bicentenary of the composer's birth -- after having staged one opera per year of the full cycle in the preceding four 'seasons'. This Die Walküre will be in Berlin in the Spring. M&V readers may recall that a review of the Prologue (Das Rheingold) was published on 22 May 2010. Throughout the project, the musical direction is entrusted to Daniel Barenboim and the stage direction to the Belgian Guy Cassiers and his colleagues (Enrico Bagnoli, stage set and lighting, Tim Van Steenbergen, costumes) from the Antwerp experimental theatre company Toneelhuis.

Waltraud Meier as Sieglinde and Simon O'Neill as Siegmund in Act I of 'Die Walküre' at Teatro alla Scala, Milan. Photo © 2010 Brescia/Amisano
As underlined on 22 May in M&V, on Rheingold, Cassiers and his associates appeared to have a rather antiquated view of The Ring; they read it as a struggle of the populace against globalized capitalism. Somewhat similar was Ruth Berghaus' reading in the sixties, when she was the main stage director of East Berlin's major opera house. But Ruth Berghaus had a lighter hand than Cassiers and friends; also, she knew quite well what Wagnerian music theatre is. This 'political' view is now softened to the overall improvement of the production.
Before commenting the stage direction and alike, let us focus on the music. Daniel Barenboim is known for slowing the tempos, especially in the most lyric parts of the opera, and sharpening them when the action gets moving. This is, in my view, a merit especially in the first Act of 'Die Walküre', a true Kammerspiel as Georg Solti underlined in several occasions. Overall, the production lasts nearly two hundred minutes (without accounting for the intermissions) -- as much as Solti's and nearly fifteen minutes longer than Boulez's. But Boulez is a quick runner.

A scene from Act I of 'Die Walküre' at Teatro alla Scala, Milan. Photo © 2010 Brescia/Amisano
We feel the atmosphere from the introduction to the first Act -- Siegmund's run to a shelter (Sieglinde's and Hunding's cabin in the forest). Barenboim shows to the listeners the peculiarity of the first Act: in spite of Wagner's theoretical writings, there is a great deal of music that the composer never, or rarely, make use of subsequently in The Ring; thus there are almost no leitmotives until Siegmund's tonic B Flat motif signaling that a new love (or a new world?) is born. The staging opts for a highly stylized approach: there are no dogs, no Hunding's henchmen running after Siegmund. In his run, the young man is lonesome. The cabin is a rather modern woodhouse where a high tree dominates. The lighting is dark; it remains as such even at the end of the Act where a sunny Spring dawn is in the score. Waltraud Meier (Sieglinde) is very skilled in avoiding acute and any C but she is no longer the Sieglinde she used to be; her timbre has darkened and she does better with the low than with the high tonalities. Simon O'Neill is still a very professional Siegmund vocally, but he no longer looks like a young man (not even made up). John Tomlinson is Hunding; I much prefer to keep a good memory of his long past as a great Wotan. In short, Barenboim and the orchestra -- eg the cello solo at the appearance of Sieglinde -- are not fully matched up by the overall staging (acting is quite good in the love scene and at the end of the Act) and by the uneven singers.

Vitalij Kowaljow as Wotan and Ekaterina Gubanova as Fricka in Act II of 'Die Walküre' at Teatro alla Scala, Milan. Photo © 2010 Brescia/Amisano
In the second Act, we are in the 'heart of things' starting with the masterpiece of leitmotiv manipulation as conducted by Barenboim and played by La Scala orchestra: we hear the Sword and Hunting motive finally flowing into the Valkyries' ride, in one arch. Berenboim slows the tempos so that during Wotan's monologue, the audience can have a summary of what went on in Das Rheingold. Three excellent singers (and magnificent actors) take center stage (but the set is always bleak and gloomy): Vitalij Kowaljow, a young Ukranian bass with a very extended range, as Wotan, an excellent Nina Stimme (Brünnhilde) and a very good Ekaterina Gubanova as Fricka. Barenboim takes a very solemn approach to Wotan's monologue and to the three confrontations (Wotan versus Brünnhilde, Wotan versus Fricka, and again Wotan versus Brünnhilde). Here, the orchestra and the singers deliver an engrossing Todesverkündigung, when Brünnhilde announces to Seigmund that he must die but she is won over by the human plight of the young man and of his sister-bride. Under Barenboim's baton, the somber mood drops like a weight from the music and the lovers' encounter ends in great jubilation, before the double killing drama ending the Act (which lasts ninety-four minutes).

The Ride of the Valkyries - Act III of 'Die Walküre' at Teatro alla Scala, Milan. Photo © 2010 Brescia/Amisano
In the third Act, Barenboim, Stimme, Kowaljov, Meier and the eight valkyries are quite effective musically and vocally, but it is really hard to imagine the young semi-Gods in the black widows' attire of the German upper class at the beginning of the twentieth century; of course, they cannot ride, but they also have a hard time moving on stage. Their mountains and hills are (obviously!) dark, and the magic fire is made up of a few turn-of-century red lamps descending from the higher level of the stage. Barenboim and the singers make up for the stage direction, sets and costumes from the very beginning of the Act (the well known ride) to Sieglinde's exalted rapture, a motif which makes only a few appearances in The Ring but carries the highest significance when it does appear -- it is also the last motif in the final scene of Götterdämmerung: according to some authors, it means transformation, according to others, redemption through love. Meier and Stimme had the perfect emission and volume, and the orchestra stressed the passion, an anticipation of the blessing at the end of the cycle.

Vitalij Kowaljow as Wotan and Nina Stimme as Brünnhilde in Act III of 'Die Walküre' at Teatro alla Scala, Milan. Photo © 2010 Brescia/Amisano
The last scene -- Wotan's farewell to Brünnhilde -- is the moving climax of the opera. Often played as a concert piece, its power defeated even Cassiers and friends' heavy handing. The first duet (Stimme -- Kowaljov) was enrapturing; the big orchestral peroration when Wotan agrees to surround his sleeping daughter with a wall of fire was moving. The tremendous E major chord was highly emotional: the now helpless King of the Gods embraces Brünnhilde before the music dissolves the intense father-daughter relationship into a major fire. The fire music is initially brisk and then becomes increasingly soft. Barenboim excelled in the skillful blend of the sleep music and the fire music into a modulation based on a long slow sweep. On 4 December 2010 the youngsters exploded in a fifteen minute accolade after over five hours in the theatre. On 7 December, the elegant crowd also erupted into a long applause. Clearly, they thought that for 2,400 euros a seat, they had received their money's worth.
On 22 May in M&V, my review stressed how horrible the Rheingold staging by Cassiers and friends was, with the stage crowded by mimes, dancers and doubles of the singers. Luckily, all this useless paraphernalia has been dropped in Die Walküre and, I understand, was conceived only for Das Rheingold, eg the Prologue, but the approach remains more attentive to politics (the struggle for a new and better world) than to the rest.
Copyright © 9 December 2010 Giuseppe Pennisi,
Rome, Italy

RICHARD WAGNER
DIE WALKUERE
LA SCALA
MILAN
ITALY
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