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Wagner Society in NSW Inc
Dr June Donsworth Recalls Siegfried 20 June 2007 at Teatro La FeniceI want to share with the Society some memories (taken from my journal) of seeing a wonderful Siegfried at the newly risen La Fenice in Venice.It may be of interest that I booked this seat by phone +39 041 2424, in February 2007, it cost E126.50 with booking fee included, and for me it was a perfect seat, three rows from the middle and in the center. [As the Fenice's website reveals, ‘costumi, scene e parti della decorazione realizzati nel laboratorio dell'Oper der Stadt Koln' . The Cologne Opera site reveals that it was last performed there on 16 March 2007, but it appears to have been premiered in November 2002. Editor] Act. 1. Familiar scungy rubbishy place, a caravan, tools, iron pot (for forging Nothung), kitchen area with pots and pans. Siegfried, Stefan Vinke, is actually a YOUNG Siegfried; he wore a khaki shirt and army-type fatigue pants, short dark hair, round unlined face and a very sweet tenor voice. He was very lyrical when singing the tender parts (about his mother), but could boom it out when necessary. His voice never wavered, and kept on the note with the required strength right to the end. The orchestra played wonderfully throughout, being able to suspend time in the quiet scenes and really give it all in the big passages. I was impressed when Mime went to light a cigarette, then almost immediately threw it into the iron pot which instantly burst into flames inside, ready for the forging scene. The Wanderer (Greer Grimsley) looked very elegant in dark blue suit, long grey coat and walking stick for his staff, immaculately groomed grey hair, handsome face, grey fedora, and sang very well indeed; Mime great too. Siegfried comes on with a bear-fur coat and headpiece, not a real bear. The ending of Act 1 was very dramatic: when Siegfried bangs the door of the caravan, it bursts open and fire engulfs the caravan. Act 11. The dragon scene. Initially the dragon appeared as a shaft of light when the back curtain rose a little, and the dragon roared, but in his big scene the dragon appeared as 2 huge wooden claws which gradually descended to the floor, and from its middle (and mechanical innards) poured forth white snorts of smoke. The forest was great, a series of half cut-off stumps of big trees, giving the scene a sense of foreboding and calamity (and now I have seen the current Bayreuth Ring, not dissimilar to that). When Siegfried stabbed the dragon, the singer of Fafner himself appeared in dirty forest green clothes covered in red paint (blood presumably).The bird was a dead stuffed bird which Siegfried picked up off the floor and she sang (a bit flat) from the back. Act 111. The scene between the Wanderer and Erda is in a drawing room with 2 lounges covered in white drapes. Behind is a big picture of Brunnhilde's rock, and there is a roaring fire in a fire place. Erda is concealed in the drapes of the lounge and emerges from them. A great duet between Erda and the Wanderer. Erda is in a long skirt, a nice cardigan and grey felt furry slippers. She is young and slim. They both sing valiantly. The scene between the Wanderer and Siegfried was very moving. Greer Grimlsey had very convincingly acted his pleasure at Siegfried's approach.Siegfried was a real brat and the Wanderer's hurt was palpable. The forest floor was covered in straw. The last scene was very dramatic. A straight row of flames at the back of Brunnhilde's sleeping place. In the foreground was a floor which looked grey and soft. Scattered around this floor were a number of helmets and swords of the dead heroes. In the middle was a grey heap which turned out to be Brunnhilde. Her ‘awakening' was magic and both Susan Bullock (who is 40-ish, nice face and relatively slim) and Stefan Vinke sang superbly. She had a heavy dark coat over her (her armour ) and another coat over a brown dress and bare feet. It was a truly superb ending. Many in the audience gave a standing ovation at the end, and a very excited audience spilled out into the Campo afterwards.[I love the Italian for a Waldvogel - Voce di un Uccello – sounds like an Italian aria already. Editor] Das Rheingold - 23 June 2007 Teatro Communale, FlorenceI obtained tickets for this in February on the Internet http://www.maggiofiorentino.com/index_eng.shtml a cost of E98 for Rheingold and E104 for Walkure . Once again, they were fantastic seats. This production came from Valencia in Spain . It was conducted by Zubin Mehta and directed by Carlos Padrissa.The Dance Company from Spain, La Fura dels Baus, were an integral part of the action and also acted as technicians on stage, manoeuvring the ‘fork lifts' etc. Cast: Wotan: Juha Uusitalo; Donner- Ilya Bannik; Froh- German Villar; Loge- John Daszak; Alberich- Fran z-Josef Kapellmann; Mime- Ulrich Ress; Fasolt- Matti Salminen; Fafner-Stephen Milling; Fricka -Anna Larsson; Freia - Sabina von Walther; Erda- Christa Mayer; Woglinde- Silvia Vazquez; Wellgunde- Ann-Katrin Naidu; Flosshilde-Hannah Esther Minutillo. Scene 1. 3 Rhine maidens in skimpy black costumes, patterned-leg stockings, a wrapped–thing around the torso, each in her water tank, on a sloping grid stage. Lots of splashing. They sang well. I did not like the Alberich in any way. His look was: grey hair, stocky build, and a kind of plastic apron around his middle. I found his voice un-menacing and I thought he was a wooden actor. Huge digitalised images as a back drop. At the end of the scene, the water baths fill up with more water, the Rhinemaidens do a lot of diving deep into their separate baths, holding their breath for ages, and the water pours out of the baths on to a steel grid floor. Alberich yanks a bag of gold from each tank. On the whole, I think, there was a lot of stage action but with little dramatic effect. Scene 11. The gods are standing up, each in their elevated separate cage (a contraption a bit like a fork lift). The cages are manipulated into place by black clothed technicians (are they some of the dancers?) and they make the cages sway in the air. Both Fricka and Wotan have good voices, but, because they were trapped in their airborne cages, they were rendered passive, imprisoned in space, with no body language to accompany the words they were singing. The overall effect was that the singing was completely divorced from its emotional meaning and impact, and there was no interaction between the Gods. Loge came on in a little motorized scooter, very smooth, and it moved in time with the music, but his voice was not satisfying, and he also did not interact as his machine did all the approaching and reversing whilst he stood like a dummy on it. The giants were also in their own mechanically driven crane-cages, with big mechanical legs and arms, and sang well. This scene was introduced by computer graphics of geometry, space images of the world etc. Fricka was a very glamorous young woman, lovely voice, tall white boots and bits of creamy leather and light tan floaty bits off her waist (matching Wotan's outfit). Freia was in a more conventional cream overdress over a gold-coloured underskirt, holding a big shiny red apple.The 2 brothers were in light tan outfits. They sang so far back on the stage that they were hard to hear. Scene 111. The Nibelheim scene - digitalized images of machines, some kind of human genome operation, big eggs hatching into big babies, a lot of dancers in gold costumes hung up by their ankles and later on, they became gold ingots?? In the Tarnhelm scene, Alberich turns himself into a ‘dragon' , made of several men bent over with flames flickering, and then a quite big green mechanical frog which jumped mechanically. Mime's voice was not to my liking. Alberich sang most of his Curse lying down, and did not impart a proper sense of threat. Wotan and Loge descend to Nibelheim in a wire cage, through the sky, and this was a great entrance to the scene. Scene 1V. The last scene has the gods back in their elevated cages; the gold dancers are piled up as the gold to hide Freia. It was disappointing again that Loge's voice was so weak, but the ending was very dramatic as the dancers climbed on to each other in a pyramid fashion and formed a web which represented Valhalla at the back, whilst rainbow coloured lights appeared on the sides. Overall, I thought the Orchestra playing was mediocre and the productions, although imaginative, lacked drama because of the fork lift concept and mediocre singing. Die Walkure - 25 June 2007, Teatro Communale, FlorenceConductor Zubin Mehta: Director Carlos Padrissa: Cast: Sigmund--- Peter Seiffert; Hunding - Matti Salminen Wotan - Juha Uusitalo; Sieglinde - Petra Maria Schnitzer; Brunnhilde - Jennifer Wilson; Fricka - Anna Larsson; Gerhilde - Bernadette Flaitz; Ortlinde - Helen Huse Ralston; Waltraut - Pilar Vasquez; Schwertleite - Christa Mayer; Helmwige - Eugenia Bethencourt; Grimgerde - Manuela Brass; Rossweisse - Hannah Esther Minutillo. Act 1. Started with a bare-treed forest (digitalized images) and every so often a wolf (ethereal), and it created the feeling as if one was fleeing through the woods. Eventually Siegmund appears and throws himself on the ground where there is a pile of bones, and amongst them a heap of rags which turns out to be Sieglinde. She is young, dressed in very bedraggled clothes, dreadlocked hair, black tattoos on her arms, and a rope around her neck. She propels herself along the floor by crawling on her arms and feet like an ape. She is definitely a cave-dwelling primitive creature. (pre-homo-erectus?) Siegmund looks old, thickset body, grey hair (they were very badly matched physically). Behind them was a huge digitalized image of a tree. Hunding sung by Matti Salminen - great voice. He is dressed in a forest-green-moss-like loose costume. Siegmund is in fur. Sieglinde is in a strappy black top and a kind of net skirt down to her ankles with an opaque bit to the mid-thigh. When Siegmund and Sieglinde ‘find' each other, their love allows her to throw off the rope around her neck and take a few tentative steps standing vertically. I thought this whole scene and the ‘metaphor' was embarrassingly crass and ridiculous and felt like tittering. Siegmund pulls a red sword out of the digitalized tree: their love song was sung moderately well, but not soaring to great heights. Having been preceded by such banality, one could not take them seriously. The Orchestra played beautifully in the lyrical moments. When the sun came up, a digitalized owl flew into a tree and blinked at Siegmund and Sieglinde (this was funny and meant to be I think). Act 11. In the first scene Wotan and Fricka are in their elevated cages again. They both sang well, but the elevated isolated position of their cages freezes them in their own space and prevents emotional interaction. Brunnhilde enters, also in an elevated cage. She is of dumpy build, with a dreadful costume, light tan flanges of material like the other gods, but with a horrible pair of brown frying-pan like breast plates with red dots in the middle, a waist and hip belt in the same colour and of metal-like material. She truly looked a fright - and she had a silly headband to cap it all off. She sang quite well, but really just OK. There were back images of Siegmund and Sieglinde fleeing in to the forest which were very effective. I thought the orchestra played beautifully in the Annunciation scene, but I was not moved at all by Brunnhilde's singing. There was a great feeling of menace before Siegmund and Hunding's battle. Siegmund's death lacked drama and Hunding just stood there stock still after killing Siegmund until Wotan told him ‘go' and then he dropped down. Brunnhilde was convincing in urging Sieglinde to flee. Act 111. I went to the Ladies' a bit late in the interval and was locked out of the stalls and had to sit in a box. In fact I think the acoustics were better up there than in the stalls. The Valkyries all had similar costumes to Brunnhilde. After their bit, Wotan arrives in his cage, but does descend from it finally to interact with Brunnhilde. Somehow his farewell did not move me at all, I think because he had been in his cage up until then and we, as the audience, had not built up any rapport with him and so could not get involved in his grief and the terrible poignancy of his farewell. The placing of Brunnhilde on the rock was beautifully done, a huge disc descends, then it turns over to be horizontal, supported all around by the black clad dancers (members of La Fura dels Baus). Brunnhilde and Wotan climbed on to the disc, he covered her, and at the very end, with the last strands of music, a flame was passed from one black helmeted dancer to the next around the edges of the disc until there was a whole circle of flame. It was very effective, but somehow the singing in this scene did not bring the usual tears to the eyes. Overall, I thought this production had lots of faults in its conception. Basically the idea of the gods being in elevated cages destroyed the emotional impact of the whole opera. The images of the First Act (prehistoric, apelike Sieglinde being ‘freed' from her bonds to Hunding (the rope around her neck was too too much) also just destroyed one's capacity to take this production seriously.
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