A Successful Challenge in Music and Vision 2 February

A Successful Challenge

Wagner's 'Götterdämmerung'
ends the Palermo 'Ring' cycle,
reviewed by GIUSEPPE PENNISI

Fifteen minutes of applause, accolades and ovations after six hours in the theatre. Three hundred and twenty students, hosted in the fourth tier of boxes, as part of a special program to help change the audience were most enthusiastic; many of them had never been in an opera house and only a very few of them had seen and heard a Wagnerian music drama. The bottom line is that the adventure started by Teatro Massimo di Palermo in January 2013 ('A Key Flaw', 26 January 2013) was highly successful.

The basic concept was to stage a full Der Ring des Nibelungen for the bicentenary of Wagner's birth; two operas at the beginning of the 2013 season and two at the end. The added ambition was that the production would not be a joint venture with other Italian or foreign opera houses, but a product of the Teatro Massimo alone, where a fully staged Ring had not been seen and heard since the early seventies. Finally, the stage direction, sets and costume design had been entrusted to an innovative British pair: Graham Vick and Richard Hudson.

Teatro Massimo di Palermo. Click on the image for higher resolution

The road was quite impervious: after the first two operas, the program was suspended for financial and other reasons. The sets and costumes were not expensive, as most of the action developed on the bare stage with a few props, and in modern clothes. But staff costs were high, with Vick and Hudson added to the thirty five soloists, some thirty mimes in various capacities (eg the Rhine waves, the Valkyrie's horses, Wotan's raven, the forest animals, and the hunters' dogs). The project was resurrected last year with Siegfried ('A Rebel with a Cause, 29 December 2015) and concluded with Götterdämmerung ('Twilight of the Gods') which inaugurated the 2016 'season' on 28 January. I attended this performance. During the lapse of time, many changes had occurred in the cast, and the music direction had passed from the young and precise but cold Pietari Inkinen in 2013 to the passionate old Wagnerian hand Stefan Anton Reck.

Eric Greene as Gunther and Elizabeth Blanke-Biggs as Gutrune in Act I Scene 1 of Wagner's 'Götterdämmerung' at Teatro Massimo di Palermo. Photo © 2016 Rosellina Garbo. Click on the image for higher resolution

In Götterdämmerung there are no gods of the German pantheon. They are awaiting their end in the Palace as one of the Valkyries (Waltraute, Viktoria Vizin) begs her sister Brünnhilde (Iréne Theorin) to return the gold ring to the Rhine maidens. Also the evil Alberich (Sergei Leiferkus), old, tired and in a wheelchair, appears only in the dream of his son Hagen (Mats Almgren). This is a drama only between men and women.

Iréne Theorin as Brunnhilde and Christian Voigt as Siegfried in Act I Scene 2 of Wagner's 'Götterdämmerung' at Teatro Massimo di Palermo. Photo © 2016 Rosellina Garbo. Click on the image for higher resolution

The king of the Gibichungs, Gunther (Eric Greene) and his sister Gutrune (Elizabeth Blancke-Biggs), tired of incestuous sexual games, decide to get a wife and a husband each. With a magic potion, Hagen tricks Siegfried (Christian Voigt) into cheating his own wife Brünnhilde into wedding Gunther and getting Gutrune for himself. When the double wedding ceremony is organized, the plot is discovered. Brünnhilde, Gunter and Hagen swear to take revenge on Siegfried.

Mimes as dead heroes in Act I Scene 2 of Wagner's 'Götterdämmerung' at Teatro Massimo di Palermo. Photo © 2016 Rosellina Garbo. Click on the image for higher resolution

During a hunting party, Siegfried encounters the Rhine maidens (Christine Knorren, Stephanie Corley and Renée Tatum) and due to another potion from Hagen, Siegfried's memory comes back. He tells the maidens about his life and his love for Brünnhilde; this gives Hagen a pretext to stab him as a traitor and try to get the ring (which provides immense power). But only Brünnhilde can take the ring from Siegfried's finger.

Iréne Theorin as Brunnhilde, Christian Voigt as Siegfried, Eric Greene as Gunther and Elizabeth Blanke-Biggs as Gutrune in Act II of Wagner's 'Götterdämmerung' at Teatro Massimo di Palermo. Photo © 2016 Rosellina Garbo. Click on the image for higher resolution

She returns the ring to the Rhine maidens, and with her horse, throws herself into Siegfried's funeral pyre. The fire also burns the Palace of the Gods, whilst the Rhine overflows its bed and destroys the Gibichungs' kingdom. All this in preparation for a better humanity — and a better God.

Two Rhine maidens, Christine Knorren as Wellgunde and Stephanie Corley as Woglinde in Act III Scene 1 of Wagner's 'Götterdämmerung' at Teatro Massimo di Palermo. Photo © 2016 Rosellina Garbo. Click on the image for higher resolution

This complex plot flew very well in Vick and Hudson's hands. There is plenty of action, involving the almost bare stage and almost the full theatre; ie Waltraute appears and starts her scene in a central box of the third tier, the double wedding party is celebrated by ladies in fur coats in the orchestra seats, and finally the funeral pyre is lit by young terrorists — kamikaze.

Mats Almgren as Hagen, Christian Voigt as Siegfried, Eric Greene as Gunther and two mimes as ravens in Act III Scene 1 of Wagner's 'Götterdämmerung' at Teatro Massimo di Palermo. Photo © 2016 Rosellina Garbo. Click on the image for higher resolution

Stefan Anton Reck and the orchestra were really impressive is providing the appropriate tints. The cast was good, especially Iréne Theorin as Brünnhilde, possibly the best in the market for such a taxing role. As in the previous opera of the cycle, the weak point was Christian Voigt in the role of Siegfried; he arrived almost voiceless at his key third act scene with the Rhine maidens. But Wagnerian tenors are hard to come by.

Copyright © 2 February 2016 Giuseppe Pennisi,
Rome, Italy