Gérard Depardieu Makes Fun of Airplane Incident Wagner Style

Estonia's National Opera Draws Big Crowd With Wagner

Richard Decker as Parsifal in the Wagnerian production at Rahvusooper Estonia.

"An audience of around 5,000 applauded the National Opera production of Richard Wagner's opera Parsifal, performed for the first time ever in Estonia, at the reclaimed Noblessner Foundry on Tallinn's waterfront. Parsifal, the last opera written by Wagner, premiered in Bayreuth in 1882 and is considered one of the most complex classical music pieces, presenting a major challenge to companies choosing to stage it....On November 5, Giacomo Puccini's opera Manon Lescaut, another first-timer in Estonia, will premiere at the National Opera. The musical director and conductor will be Arvo Volmer, with Latvian-born Andrejs Zagars as the stage director." [Source]

Bayreuth Festival Gears Up For Opening of 100th Season

"The Richard Wagner festival in Bayreuth, Germany will be starting its 100th season on Monday with a new production of Tannhäuser. And marking this centennial milestone of the world-renowned opera festival, Sebastian Baumgarten will be making his debut as stage director in the landmark opera house atop Bayreuth's celebrated Green Hill. With Thomas Hengelbrock conducting, Swedish singer Lars Clevemann will have the title role in the opera subtitled The Battle of the Singers in Wartburg Castle. Festival director Eva Wagner-Pasquier, amid the rehearsals underway, stresses the high artistic expectations of the festival in interpreting the works of her great-grandfather.'We want to offer the very best worldwide,' she says. The festival itself is not celebrating a birthday this year. The two co-directors Katharina Wagner and Eva Wagner-Pasquier are instead focusing more on the year 2013 - the 200th anniversary of the birth of their great-grandfather, and likewise the 130th anniversary of his death....Every year, the festival opening attracts prominent people from politics, business and culture, and it will be no different this time. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, a regular guest in Bayreuth, is scheduled to come. Among various other dignitaries expected at the premiere, there will be the new head of the International Monetary Fund Christine Lagarde, European Central Bank president Jean-Claude Trichet, EU Health Commissioner John Dalli, and a number of German actors and actresses including Veronica Ferres, Maria Furtwängler and Edgar Selge. With his Tannhäuser, Baumgarten will be putting the focus of the conflict of the title character torn between the sensual world of Venus and the clearly-

structured system in the Wartburg Castle. 'I am not interested in the yearning for a dreamlike opulence, but rather in the fundamental philosophical aspects,' Baumgarten told the German Press Agency dpa. The selection of the singers turned out to be an 'absolutely lucky break,' the 42-year-old says. Along with Lars Clevemann as Tannhäuser, Michael Nagy will be playing the role of Wolfram von Eschenbach, Camilla Nylund singing the Elisabeth role and Stephanie Friede performing as Venus. Guenter Groissboek plays the landgrave, and Lothar Odinius is in the role of Walther von der Vogelweide. Besides Tannhäuser, this year's programme returns the Hans Neuenfels staging of Lohengrin (conductor: Andris Nelsons), the Christoph Marthaler staging of Tristan and Isolde (conductor: Peter Schneider), Stefan Herheim's interpretation of Parsifal (conductor: Daniele Gatti), and for the last time, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg." [Source]

Susan Bullock Versatile as Brünnhilde and Mother Abbess

(Photo: Anne-Marie Le BlÇ)

This summer, dramatic soprano Susan Bullock takes on the role of Brünnhilde in Acts 2 & 3 of Wagner's Die Walküre for the Manchester International Festival on July 15 under conductor Sir Mark Elder. She then makes her way to the BBC Proms Festival for August 13 performances of this year's first "Comedy Prom" hosted by Tim Minchin. The highlight will be the "Last Night of the Proms" on September 10 when she will sing the Immolation Scene from Wagner's Götterdämmerung, "Climb Every Mountain" from The Sound of Music and "You'll Never Walk Alone" from Carousel (both musicals are by Richard Rogers). The evening will end with her leading Arne's "Rule Britannia."

With the BBC coverage of the BBC Proms, singing isnt' the thing the soprano is most concerned about, “...everyone asks me now is ‘What are you going to wear?’ If I had a pound for every time that’s been said, I’d be a rich lady!” [Source]

Amy Shuard Sings Immolation Scene from "Götterdämmerung"

Seattle Opera Continues Wagnerian Legacy into 2014

Greer Grimsley as Wotan at Seattle Opera
(Photo: Rozarii Lynch/Seattle Opera)

"Seattle Opera, also known as America's House of Wagner, brings back its popular production of the composer's Ring cycle in 2013. It's the same production that premiered in 2001, but with a few cast changes. Alwyn Mellor, as Brünnhilde, and Stefan Vinke, as Siegfried, will make their company debuts in 2013. The 2013 Ring will be the ninth and final cycle overseen by Seattle Opera General Director Speight Jenkins. He plans to retire in September, 2014. The cast includes: Asher Fisch (Conductor); Stephen Wadsworth (Director); Alwyn Mellor* (Brünnhilde), Stefan Vinke* (Siegfried), Greer Grimsley (Wotan), Stephanie Blythe (Fricka), Stuart Skelton (Siegmund), Margaret Jane Wray (Sieglinde), Richard Paul Fink (Alberich). *Seattle Opera debut

Wagnerians Greer Grimsley and Stephanie Blythe (Photo: Rozarii Lynch/Seattle Opera)

Tickets to the 2013 Ring will be available in fall 2012. Seattle Opera also announced a production of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg in August, 2014. Not seen in Seattle for 25 years, it is Wagner’s only comedy. The cast will be announced next year." [Source]

Opéra de Lyon Cast Brings Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde" to Life

Wagnerians in France. (Photo: Stofleth)

"...Ann Petersen’s first Isolde is youthful and fresh but every bit the spurned princess. There is no edge to her voice, no shrieking for effect, simply gorgeous singing throughout. A revelation. Clifton Forbis, a globe-trotting Tristan, flashes electrifying muscular power but still floats captivating sotto voce effects. His third act agony is a triumph of rage and frustration. Stella Grigorian lacks the heft to sustain Brangaene’s cantilevered line, but Christof Fischesser’s superb Mark cradles his monologue like a polished lieder singer." [Source]

Wagner Soundtrack for the End of the World in "Melancholia"

"Let us get it over with right away. The end of Lars von Trier's film Melancholia. Everybody dies. Not just the guests at the grand wedding held in the first part of the film at an ever-so-romantic castle surrounded by a golf course. And not just all life on Earth. For in the world evoked by the Danish film maker this time, we are absolutely alone in the universe. So what ends in our planet's cosmic embrace with the ten times bigger planet, Melancholia, is life as such and our recollection of it. No ending could be more final." [Source] Watch the trailer for the film, which is underscored by Wagner's Tristan und Isolde overture:

Battle of the Bacchanales: Saint-Saëns vs. Wagner

In Review: "Tannhäuser" at the Dresden Semperoper

(Photo: Matthias Creutziger)

"Impressively, all the singers in this production, with the exception of the renowned Wagnerian tenor Stephen Gould in the title role, were the Ensemble members of the Semperoper. It may lack the starry cast of Vienna or Covent Garden, but the German system of maintaining a group of principal singers who sing a variety of roles throughout the season helps create a natural rapport between the singers which is essential in Wagner. Of the cast, the American soprano Marjorie Owens singing the role of Elisabeth stood out for the richness of her timbre, the ease in projection as well as the sincerity of her expression. On the other hand, Tichina Vaughn’s portrayal of Venus, with her wide vibrato, seemed a bit of a caricature although she brought out more personality in Act III. Stephen Gould is a highly experienced and dependable Tannhäuser with amazing vocal stamina, and he sang with plenty of ardour and passion. Wolfram von Eschenbach was sung by Christoph Pohl and if his 'Abendstern' aria did not have quite the charisma of Christian Gerhaher at Covent Garden last December, he played the crucial role in the last scene with genuine emotion. The Landgraf was sung authoritatively by Michael Eder. Lastly but not least, the Dresden Staatskappelle orchestra conducted by the venerable Peter Schneider was at the heart of the whole production....a prominent Wagner interpreter and a regular at Bayreuth, paced the music perfectly, and his balance of the voice and orchestra was exemplary." [Source]

Wagnermachine

Wotan and Loge descend to the Nibelheim in one of the most "cinematic" moments in Das Rheingold.

You could almost hear a collective sigh of relief at the unveiling of the Met's new production of Das Rheingold (I caught up with it via HD over the weekend): it was pretty good, and at times its imagery was pretty great, even if on opening night the most dazzling effect in the whole show (the rainbow bridge to Valhalla) failed to operate.  The retirement of Otto Schenk's traditional, handsomely pictorial Ring (which had been inspired by an 1897 Bayreuth production), and the installment of high-tech theatre guru Robert Lepage in the driver's seat of a new cycle, led many to fear they'd be forced to watch Wotan in a jockstrap zap Brünnhilde with a laser pointer for the next twenty years. And the controversial premiere of the wildly-expensive L.A. Ring, with its giant puppets and light sabres, only raised anxieties to a fever pitch.

No wonder, then, that at one level Lepage decided to play it so safe.  His gods prowl the stage in something close to Schenkian costume, and the acting (such as it is, more on that later) hews to a standard, grand template.  There aren't any dramatic surprises in this Das Rheingold (although there's one vocal disappointment).

Rather than court conceptual controversy, Lepage has devoted himself to the technology of the production.  He has created, with designer Carl Fillon, a 45-ton set the Met's stagehands have taken to calling "the Machine."  The Machine is essentially a set of 24 steel planks that rotate like see-saws on a central spine.  Together, in various configurations, the planks serve as screen and surface for Lepage's trademark projections and vertiginous wire-walking effects.  It sounds simple enough, but the Machine proves capable of astounding imagery, from a stairway across the sky (at top) to the rising tide of the Rhine (below).  What's more, the Machine is designed to provide the core of the rest of the Met's Ring Cycle (Die Walküre, with Deborah Voigt, will premiere in May). So it's not just a set, it's a virtual "Wagnermachine."

And I have to say I think Wagner himself would approve of this idea, even if not all the critics have.  Of course many are simply tired of the way the Ring has become conceptual catnip for auteur directors - and even Lepage's dramatic circumspection didn't appease their irritation with his technical bravado (plus, as several pointed out, the Machine isn't exactly silent, at least not yet).  Of course how you feel about that issue probably depends on how you feel about the whole Wagner "question" - the entanglement of his legacy with his notorious anti-Semitism, and particularly the exalted status of the Ring within the Nazi regime.  Not for nothing did the Berlin Philharmonic play Wagner just before the Soviet tanks rolled in.

Thus, when the Bayreuth Festival finally resumed operations in 1951, its productions of the Ring were carefully scrubbed of any old High-Aryan schtick.  Gone were the winged helmets, and in came blasted heaths and doomed existentialism (at left, the 1951 Siegfried, conducted by former Nazi Herbert von Karajan).  And a consensus of approval formed around this new compromise.

Of course some new formulation around Wagner had to be reached; I know they don't like to play him in Israel, and of course I understand why, but he's just too important to ignore.  Indeed, I sometimes think many people are in denial about just how artistically influential this nasty anti-Semite actually was; probably only a handful of people - Shakespeare, Beethoven? - have had a larger impact on the performing arts. Wagner's influence even stretches into our physical theatres - he was the first to demand that house lights be dimmed during performance, and he designed Bayreuth, his playhouse, as what we'd now perceive as a proto-movie theatre.  These were of course only the outward manifestations of a profound shift in attitude toward what was happening on the stage: Wagner aimed to create a kind of collective dream, a  "Gesamtkunstwerk," or "total art-work," in which every facet would interact to produce a particular effect on the audience - usually a mystical combination of sensation and subconscious response.

The impact of these ideas was tremendous.  Wagner completely dismantled opera's tradition of recitative and aria, replacing it with a complex of musical motifs - a mode that would echo for years through musical impressionism (and really on into modernism).  Likewise his insistence on the proscenium as a mystical dividing line - a "fourth wall" between art and audience - provided the basis for Chekhov, Stanislavski. the Method, and eventually Marlon Brando.  And the concept of Gesamtkunstwerk found its apotheosis in the cinema - where such composers as Max Steiner and Bernard Herrmann recycled Wagner's motifs as "soundtracks," synched up to imagistic editing which in itself was rhythmically indebted to his music.  Wagner's inflation of heroic legend into pop myth likewise resonates throughout the commercial culture, from Superman to Star Wars.  In fact, every time a Jewish kid cracks a comic book - much less a "graphic novel" - he essentially is reading a Wagner libretto.

I could go on and on; what this all means, of course, is that it's perfectly appropriate for artists to continually connect with, and re-interpret, this great composer and problematic personality - just as we constantly re-connect with Shakespeare (by comparison, a charmer, btw).  The trouble is that re-interpreting Wagner means spending a bucket full of money, as spectacle is really a sine qua non of his work.  And with money, inevitably, comes controversy.  Thus the high stakes surrounding the Met's $17-million Ring.

The Rhine maidens literally swim up into the playing space.

So what has Robert Lepage given us for our $17 million? Well, to my mind, he has ignored the loaded political questions inherent in Wagner - he simply has not interpreted Das Rheingold.  He has instead created an interesting meta-meditation on the concept of Gesamtkunstwerk - his production is literally a stage machine for producing psychological imagery; its "theme" is its own ability to extend the technical end of Wagner's vision.  And intriguingly, if the composer's apotheosis came with the advent of cinema, then Lepage has returned the favor, and turned the Met's considerable resources to producing cinematic effects on stage.  (Since I was watching the production on another screen, the ironic ramifications of this concept loomed large.)

Thus it's no surprise that Lepage's "Machine" often serves as a screen, too (for projections of water, fire and sky).  When it's on the move, however, it really comes into its own, and the effects it can conjure are startling, and more powerful than anything the cinema can offer.  During the opening Rhine music, for instance, its planks rippled like waves, then began to rise before us like a tide; the effect of sinking into the water, as Wagner's famous arpeggios rippled in ever-more-complex configurations, was thrillingly palpable.

But even more memorable are the amazing shifts in "perspective" Lepage achieves.  Thanks to stunt doubles and hidden wires, Wotan and Loge cross the sky on a twisting stair (at top), that's sometimes fully perpendicular to the audience; we seem to be floating above the actors, like a movie camera, as they descend. Lepage pulls off a similar, but even more dazzling, riff at his finale (at bottom), as the gods ascend a literal rainbow up the ramparts of Valhalla; this counts as one of the most beautiful stage effects I've ever seen.  It's really too bad it didn't work on opening night; all by itself it might have turned several skeptics into believers.

Not that there's nothing to be skeptical about in this production.  As has been widely reported, several of Lepage's gambits (such as the entry of the gods via slalom) don't really work, and over longer scenes, the planks of the Machine begin to look bland in a retro-70's-modernist kind of way (at such moments I began to ponder how indebted Lepage is to the work of Josef Svoboda, but that's another essay).  The costumes likewise had their misses (the giants Fasolt and Fafner looked a bit cartoonish) - and props like the magic helmet and the net in which Freia is weighed against her ransom left one scratching one's head.

And the cast, though promoted as a Wagnerian dream team, proved a bit uneven in performance.  The strongest acting came from Stephanie Blythe as Fricka and Richard Croft as Loge, with the best singing courtesy of Blythe and Eric Owens as Alberich.  In his highly-anticipated debut as Wotan, however, I'm afraid Bryn Terfel was dramatically bland and at times even vocally slightly strained toward the finish.  Perhaps most troubling was the fact that Lepage didn't really block his singers effectively.  They were often constrained to the flat, forward part of the set (as "the Machine" moved behind them), and yet within this constricted space they sometimes seemed to be wandering, or indulging in what opera wags call "park and bark."  Down in the pit, though, maestro Levine was having a grand time, serving both as attentive accompanist and happy orchestrator of grand climaxes; nothing new here either, really, but it was great hearing Levine doing what he does best.

Of course the Ring is a work-in-progress, and productions with intense technical (and safety!) requirements often take time to really gel.  As it stands, the Lepage Ring is a dazzler at times, and always conceptually intriguing; but whether it will eventually find its dramatic and musical feet, along with its technical and conceptual foundation, is still an open question.

In LePage's most stunning image, the gods ascend a rainbow to Valhalla.