Los Angeles Opera inaugurated their first complete Ring cycle with a Rheingold that was unlike any other, crafted by director Achim Freyer with an exceptionally artistic hand that made for an evening that was riveting from start to finish.  It was a Rheingold that made one forget entirely that the opera is musically the weakest in the cycle, a Rheingold that somehow made one wish its two and a half hours without interval were longer.  It was a singularly daring feat of artistic imagination—yet one that was markedly inhuman, featuring larger than life characters in stylised costumes with stylised movements, creating a measure of distance between the drama and the audience.  This suited the world of the opera well, but left one wondering whether Freyer and his cast would be able to do justice to the overpowering humanity and feeling of the next opera in the cycle, that recurrent favourite, Die Walkure.  Remarkably, what was achieved was not only another intensely inventive, intelligent performance, but one that was utterly moving as well.

From the outset, James Conlon’s conducting, admirable but restrained the evening before, showcased the intensity that was to become a hallmark of the performance.  The opening, rather than played before a darkened stage, depicted iconography of Siegmund battling the kinsmen of Hunding, swords blazing.  The orchestra generated the necessary power here, perhaps not so firmly shaped initially as would have been ideal, but quickly coming together to transition into what was perhaps its most exceptional feature during Sieglinde and Siegmund’s dialogue.  Conlon invested his orchestra here and throughout the evening with an intimate, almost chamber-like quality, beautifully evoking tenderness and longing as the characters fall in love.  This was to recur to extraordinary effect in the opera’s final moments, where he elicited playing from the strings of uncannily silky, shimmering textures; the familiar magic fire music was ineffably moving, played with a level of delicate beauty that is rarely achieved in Wagner.  All things considered, where the previous evening showcased the proficiency of the orchestra under its conductor, Walkure cemented its brilliance; what was formerly muted was given wings.  It was still refined, but incredibly powerful.

But what of Freyer’s production?  Once again, unusual, non-naturalistic costumes and movement were employed from the very beginning.  Siegmund and Sieglinde are depicted as two halves of a whole self, each painted as the twin to the other in contrasting divisions of black and blue.  The opening prelude, utilised by Freyer to depict the aforementioned fight entered into by Siegmund, finds the characters wielding iridescent weapons—yes, reminiscent of lightsabers, hence earning the cycle the overly simplistic appellation of the ‘Stat Wars’ Ring one hears bandied about—flashing stylishly.  If evocative of science fiction to some, it is a visual feast, perfectly complementing the visceral power of Wagner’s stormy orchestration.  It brings out all the more the contrast between the prelude and the quiet intimacy of Siegmund’s introduction to Sieglinde.  The set design follows the same model as that in Rheingold, featuring a raked disc upon which the events of the story progress.  For this introductory scene, the background is dark, the stage cloaked in shadow; Freyer takes the unusual tack of positioning the lovers at opposite ends of the stage from one another, turning the drama into an abstract metaphysical dreamscape rather than the more common theatre of blatant physical desire.  Between them, placed directly in the centre of the stage, an iridescent rod moves slowly but intractably around the floor as the hand of a clock, a constant reminder that the story has transitioned from gods to men—and that mortality now overshadows.  Stylised movements and expression once again rule the day, yet somehow, this succeeded in evoking a pronounced sense of feeling, its visual restraint allowing the music to attain preeminence.  The stark set design and delicate lighting, the way Siegmund and Sieglinde are positioned away from each other, masked in shadow, all succeed in bringing out their essential loneliness.  Individually, they are veiled in night almost to the point of nonexistence; this is especially stark in contrast to the boorish Hunding, dressed in glaring red as he strides proprietarily about the stage.  Only when he leaves do Siegmund and Sieglinde move from their solitary corners to find each other, meeting at the centre of the stage and only together becoming complete.  Their physical contact, so long deferred, now becomes all the more potent for its late arrival.  Brightness finally reigns as the two embrace at last, an image of them rising up above the stage in twain, vivid expression of love’s transcending power.

Through it all, the heartbreaking humanity of their narrative is bound together by the peerless singing of Placido Domingo and Michelle DeYoung.  What more can one say of Mr. Domingo’s Siegmund?  It was exemplary all the way through, his truly heroic tenor imbuing the role with a depth it is difficult to imagine anyone bettering.  Though his voice no longer manages softer syllables with as much delicacy as it used to, it still cuts over the orchestra with the force of granite, bringing Siegmund’s heroism to brilliant life.  He was well complemented by his Sieglinde; Ms. DeYoung, despite having sung the mezzo-soprano role of Fricka the evening before and only stepping in for Anja Kampe at the last moment, was splendid.  In fact, one would never have intuited she was singing outside her normal range; her high notes were bright and steady, well projected with a beautifully clear timbre.  Her ‘O hehrstes wunder’, carried off with gravity and genuine radiance, was a highlight of an evening replete with outstanding moments.  Ms. DeYoung is a talented performer, and one can only look forward to her return as Waltraute in Gotterdammerung.    

However, it was ultimately the magnificent Wotan of Vitalij Kowaljow that carried the evening.  Where Rheingold saw him inscrutable and remote, his performance in Walkure fleshed out Wotan’s fundamental humanity.  The second act opens with the god being joined by his favourite daughter, the valkyrie Brunnhilde, sung here by a more than able Linda Watson.  She emerged onto the now familiar raked stage totally concealed beneath her armor, great black wings wrapped around her.  She is death personified, her shield bearing a grim skull; as the wings open and she emerges, fearsomely clad in black with a death mask in hand, one truly has the sense of her as an angel of destruction.  With the back of the stage projecting a sea of billowing clouds, Mr. Freyer conjures exquisitely the mythological power and motion of Wotan’s rock high above the mortals below.

The scenic picture complete, Fricka arrives, robustly sung by Ekaterina Semenchuk.  As she does battle with her husband over her rights as a goddess, her long, tendril-like arms reaching towards him expressively, one watches in awe as she wears down the god who the night before was at times embodied in a form that towered over half the stage.  Yet for all his might, Wotan’s power is broken by his own divine law, his will bent to his wife’s.  Mr. Conlon gave lucid expression to the tension of the scene, perfectly echoing the tightly-knit drama unfolding on the stage.  The mythological stature with which Mr. Freyer invests his gods and Wotan in particular renders his fall before Fricka all the more tragic, and his narration to Brunnhilde all the more poignant.  His express longing now only for the end was chilling, as was his inhuman rage against his daughter borne out in act three.  Here is a Wotan who knows how to intimidate and move in equal measure, to conjure great beauty as well as great force.  Mr. Kowaljow not only sustained a resounding projection of his anger, he succeeded in carrying off a farewell with a slow, majestic ‘Leb wohl’ that was heartfelt and incredibly powerful.  It was a bravura performance, which, taken with the exquisite playing of the orchestra, made for amongst the most exciting and affecting endings to Walkure I can remember.

For her part, Ms. Watson proved more than capable, thrilling in the second act, if not quite able to dominate the third in the same way as Mr. Kowaljow.  Yet her opening scene was conveyed with gusto and vocal power, her jubilant valkyrie cries filling the theatre.  The top of her voice is occasionally a little more steely than desirable, showcasing more heft than elegance, yet her annunciation of death to Siegmund was stately and measured, and her final scene with Mr. Kowaljow was wonderful.  Eric Halvarson made a fine Hunding, his bass fearsome and sonorous, his characterization effecting just the right blend of masculine dominance and loutish pride.  The valkyries were wonderful, filling the stage on winged horses creatively constructed from wrought-iron bicycle frames.  Their horses were tethered around an icon of Wotan rising up fearsomely in the centre of the stage, clouds billowing on the screen behind them as their long black capes flapped in simulated flight.  It was the most dynamic rendering of their famous ride I have experienced—whatever else, Freyer’s production leaves one with breathtaking imagery one is not soon likely to forget.

One of the things I find most astonishing about his production is the way Freyer eschews naturalism, the norm in current stagings of the Ring, dealing in archetypes rather than outwardly recognizable human beings.  Yet as is the paradoxical nature of myth, this makes the tragedy in some ways more universal and emotionally resonant than if the characters did bear better resemblance to recognizable humanity.  Their decisions are invested with a meaning and grandiose consequence most lives are not; Wotan’s aspirations and failings move the universe.  This is superbly realised in Freyer’s concept, which, for all its uniqueness, is more firmly grounded in Wagner’s text than most naturalistic productions.  Nuanced touches abound to this effect.  In the second act, for instance, it is now de rigueur for Wotan to express visually his unmitigated grief at Siegmund’s death; many productions have him collapsing on his knees or cradling the body of his son in his arms.   Freyer, on the other hand, follows Wagner’s actual stage directions, which call for Wotan simply to lean against his spear in quiet despair.  His grief is all the more heartrending for its understated incommunicability.  Similarly, in the final scene, Brunnhilde and Wotan typically embrace in a powerful show of human emotion.  In this Walkure, Wotan’s reserve prevents him from making such overtly emotive overtures, even when Brunnhilde longingly tries to embrace him.  Kowaljow’s Wotan moves warily away from her—then, pausing, turns back wistfully, placing his hand tentatively on her shoulder and discovering that it is too late, that she is already asleep.  The god’s lonely confinement within his own godhead, the anguished restraint exhibited toward the daughter he loves above all else, was infinitely more evocative of feeling than any more objectively demonstrative act of emotion could have been.  Taken with the intimate gestures of Conlon’s coruscating orchestra, it was a moment to remember.

Which isn’t even to speak of the sheer stagecraft of the piece, the way Wotan descends on the stage from above, spear gleaming white, to shatter Nothung, or the way Freyer employed his fantastical doppleganger technique to allow Wotan to completely surround the Valkyries—from both sides as well as above—as they fearfully hide Brunnhilde from his wrath.  When Wotan narrates his past to Brunnhilde in Act II, a ghostly parade of figures is conjured onto the stage, slowly circling him in phantasmagoric representation of the events he relates.  Several appeared in Rheingold, forming a memorable visual leitmotif to augment the musical.  Freyer’s imagination continues to astound; one need only suspend all prior expectations of the art form to be fully swept up in the ravishing world he paints.  

So, a triumph for all concerned, a simply riveting performance that did full justice to that distinctly Wagnerian nomenclature of music-drama.  As a fully integrated act of theatre granted life with the most sublime music, LA Opera’s Walkure is in a class of its own.  Perhaps the best thing about Freyer’s production is that as good as its installments are, its boundless creativity leaves one ever eager to find out what will come next.  On then to Siegfried—though the inevitable fall of the gods notwithstanding, one may perhaps be forgiven for lingering on the memory of this night.  For those who were there, it will not soon be forgotten.




John E De Wald
Opera Britannia

Photographs by Monika Rittershaus and Robert Millard