Ashley - The Bar, from Perfect Lives (Dundalk, 2024)

Robert Ashley - The Bar, from Perfect Lives

Louth Contemporary Music Society, 2024

Gelsey Bell, Brian McCorkle, Paul Pinto, Dave Ruder, Aliza Simons, Amirtha Kidambi, Caoimhe Hopkinson, Sean Carpio, Steve Welsh 

The Spirit Store, Dundalk - 15th June 2024

A performance of Robert Ashley's The Bar could in the context of the Louth Contemporary Music Society festival be considered a moment of light relief, a bonus extra in addition to the full performance of the composer's final opera Crash the previous evening, but it was also - as the performances at the Spirit Store in Dundalk are turning out to be - an essential and somewhat wayward element that contributes to the remarkable variety that is typical of Eamonn Quinn's programming for the LMCS's annual summer festival.

The second day of the 2024 two day festival opened with Linda Catlin Smith's Dirt Road at the church in St. Vincent's Secondary School. A seemingly austere, delicate, slow moving hour-long piece, the performance explored the interaction of violin and percussion with subtle variation and progression. The afternoon concert featuring Hamza El Din’s Escalay presented an extraordinary combination of Eastern meeting Irish traditional sounds, following on from an Irish traditional version of In C last year. A complete one-off, you only get this kind of thing in Dundalk, only at the LMCS. Before the immersive surround sound performance of Stockhausen's extraordinary Stimmung echoed around St. Nicholas church to close the festival however, we were invited to The Bar at the Spirit Store.

The Bar is just one section of a seven-part opera Perfect Lives that Ashley originally developed as an opera for television in 1983, back in the days when TV music programming was a little more adventurous (or existed even). As one of the more widely seen Ashley operas, Perfect Lives consequently has become almost a definite example of his style, although this is more extensively explored and expanded as it forms part of his Now Eleanor‘s Idea tetralogy. As far as Perfect Lives goes, it at least has that familiar rhythm and meandering philosophical exploration of ordinary people's lives in the Midwestern States of the USA.

"These are songs about the Corn Belt, the people in it, or on it." as Ashley narrates with variations of delivery and intonation for each section of the opera. The characters in Ashley's operas are all regular people, all have plans, but perhaps lulled by Ashley's own voice as the narrator in the recordings of his work, they seem to be subject to a kind of dream logic, getting distracted from their purpose through meetings with others, getting bogged down in details. Ashley's voice gives the impression of it just being a part of the way things go. In another work, Celestial Excursions, he explores how some old people talk endlessly, randomly, with a kind of verbal incontinence. These matters are of interest to the composer and recur in different forms in his work.

Words, as seen in Crash, have a musical quality of their own in Ashley's operas, in the abstraction of the texts, throwing out ideas that may or not be picked up later, that develop into a refrain and are echoed by a chorus. You can no more make sense of way the individual words and phrases fit together than you can 'explain' why one note follows another or how it adds up to create a narrative, and yet patterns emerge, elements connect. It just feels right. Language and communication are very much a part of what defines the character of his works.

The opera Perfect Lives revolves around two characters 'R', an Ashley-like figure and Buddy "The World's Greatest Piano Player", based on "Blue" Gene Tyranny, Ashley's musical collaborator. They arrive in a small Midwest town to entertain the locals at the Perfect Lives Lounge, but end up getting involved in an unusual kind of bank robbery where the money is just "borrowed" for a day. In Part 1. The Park, a man from country in hotel room in small Midwestern town pours a drink, picks up a phone and considers such philosophical matters as how can we pass from one state to another. In Part 2. The Supermarket we meet Helen and John who book adjacent rooms ("This is not very interesting, I know", the narrator admits). In Part 3. The Bank, Gwyn works at the bank. ("That's her job. Mostly she helps people count their money. She likes it.") Gwen is eloping to get married and takes day off work.

We come to Part 4. The Bar, where the star and a slightly seedy older man (Buddy and R) turn up on their day off at the Perfect Lives lounge and get into a philosophical conversation with the owner, Rodney. ("We don't serve fine wine in half pints, Buddy"). What happens in The Bar is no more enlightening or even entirely comprehensible than the previous sections (synopsis interpretations differ wildly), but there are familiar ideas that Ashley revisits in one form or another, such as the body having four ages (The Seed, the Root, the Trunk, the Branches), but also thinking about how we pass from one state to another. All of this is set to a music bar room Boogie-Woogie on piano, using preset rhythm templates derived from the Gulbransen 'Palace' organ.

As ever, there are much more complex ideas involved in Perfect Lives than the simple flowing and often abstract narration suggests. Improvement (Don leaves Linda), the first Ashley opera I discovered via a radio broadcast of a live performance in Vienna, another part of the Now Eleanor's Idea tetralogy, is described as "an extension 500 years later of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 as an allegory for self-realisation". The stated purpose of Perfect Lives is 'Rebirth', or as I've seen it described "A banal road movie and at the same time a cultural-historical reappraisal of European-American mythology" and "a comic opera about reincarnation". As with Linda's surreal and comic encounters with an airline ticket sales person in Improvement having been abandoned by her husband Don at a service station, it's hard to match the verbal descriptions of everyday problems of ordinary people with such high-minded intentions. 

The question of rebirth does float into view on occasion in those reflections on passing from one state to another and these questions come up time and again in Ashley's works, perhaps most specifically in Crash, which considers the average life as being divided into distinct 14-year periods. The music for the operas also appear to be far from the high concept technical exercises in musical virtuosity that you would expect from avant-garde opera. The dominant music in Perfect Lives sounds like jaunty keyboard rhythms that resemble pre-programmed organ tracks or synthesiser backing tracks, which when combined with the dry drawl of the abstract and digressive narration can prove to be hard to remain focussed on and yet fascinating in their flow. It might sound like basic Boogie-Woogie rhythms but the lightness is deceptive, the music clearly intended to evoke an almost trance like state, while being more complex than it appears to be on the surface.

If there are numerous levels and ideas to be teased out of Ashley's Perfect Lives, the Varispeed Collective have their own unique interpretation when bringing The Bar to a live audience, preferably putting it on at a bar. Rebirth not so much, this version is all about the Boogie-Woogie. And at the Spirit Store pub in Dundalk, which is also a notable music venue in the town, that means involving the locals, having a pint of Guinness and having fun. This is not the time for any deep probing of the philosophical content of Perfect Lives, or even the content of this section of it. And you can't really fault them for that, choosing instead to contribute to the wonderful, almost unimaginable range of what Eamonn Quinn has in mind for the LCMS annual celebration of contemporary music.

Ashley's characteristic cadences and dry midwestern drawl are almost impossible to imitate, at least with the particular emphasis he brings to his own words. The composer recognised however that it's necessary for performers to bring something of themselves to a performance, and they certainly did that at the Spirit Store in Dundalk. Neither can you or would you want to replicate the musical rhythms of "Blue" Gene Tyranny. The piano bar room boogie is taken up by Brian McCorkle and Paul Pinto from the Varispeed Collective, the main vocal duties shared between Aliza Simons, Dave Ruder, Gelsey Bell and Amirtha Kidambi special guesting as Rodney, alternating also to provide the chorus backing vocal reactions and interjections, all getting down in the spirit of the boogie. 

It's part of the spirit of the Varispeed Collective's arrangement of site specific performances of The Bar not just to perform it in a suitable location - and the venue at the Spirit Store could not be more perfect - but also involve local musicians. That's a philosophy that also fits perfectly with the philosophy of the LCMS, and what makes their festivals unique, celebratory and inclusive. Caoimhe Hopkinson on bass, Sean Carpio on drums and Steve Welsh on saxophone all joined in with the unique character of the work and the performance. This was a very different interpretation then from the familiar Robert Ashley version, and it would be hard to define it as opera in any classical sense, but you could say that about any Ashley opera. As an element of the LCMS however, who hold to no rules or narrow definition of what contemporary music should be, it was just perfect. Lovely music indeed.

External links: Louth Contemporary Music Society, Lovely Music, RobertAshley.org

Ashley - Crash (Dundalk, 2024)

Robert Ashley - Crash

Louth Contemporary Music Society, 2024

Gelsey Bell, Brian McCorkle, Paul Pinto, Dave Ruder, Aliza Simons, Amirtha Kidambi

An Táin Arts Centre, Dundalk - 14th June 2024

The LCMS, the Louth Contemporary Music Society, have been hugely imaginative in their programming over their 18 year history, finding accessible yet challenging and innovative ways to bring new music to a wider audience. Some of the names invited to put on performances of their work in Dundalk include Terry Riley, Philip Glass, John Zorn, Salvatore Sciarrino and Kaija Saariaho, but founder Eamonn Quinn makes great efforts to involve local musicians and present challenging but still accessible material to the local audience. In 2018, Gavin Bryars led world class musicians and local children's choir and music students through a moving rendition of 'Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet' and last summer's Folks' Music festival saw a thrilling rendition of Terry Riley's 'In C' played in a completely unique fashion by some of the finest Irish traditional and folk musicians. For their 2024 festival, going under the title of Lovely Music, the progamming of Robert Ashley alongside Linda Catlin Smith, Hamza El Din and Stockhausen is equally inspired.

I can't say for certain whether there has ever been a Robert Ashley opera performed in Ireland before, but it's hard to imagine anyone being as bold and adventurous as the LCMS. Holding a two-day festival dedicated to new music every June, bringing in some of the major figures as guests and featuring some of the best new music ensembles in the world to this small town, they don't usually feature opera as a rule or indeed have the resources to stage full operas, but then rules about what we think of as opera don't really apply to Robert Ashley’s works. There are several companies that specialise in performances of his operas and - I say this as someone who has long awaited for the opportunity to see one performed live - we were fortunate enough to have the Varispeed Collective come over and perform two works, Crash and The Bar (a section from the TV opera Perfect Lives).

Crash, Robert Ashley's last opera, was first performed just after his death in 2014. Like all his works, it's based around voices and a concept, but appropriately for a work that feels closest to autobiographical, there is a refinement of both those features. Crash consists of just voices: there is no music, not even the plinkity-plonk (apologies for using advanced musicological terms) electronic keyboard backing that often features. As far as concept goes, Crash appears to be a little more straightforward than some of his works in its structure into sections that advance the underlying concept. Of course many of his works start out that way and are far more sophisticated in their structure than they appear, but quickly meander down inexplicable and unpredictable twists and turns. As indeed does Crash.

There is at least an effort to hold that concept together a little more tightly than usual. As is announced at the start of the opera, it's based on the idea of life being divided into stages, not unlike Shakespeare's seven ages of man, but in the theory Ashley works with that was inspired by a book about Hindu belief, it sees it being divided into distinct 14 year cycles that govern our lives, each with their apogee and nadir that bring times of fortune and misfortune. That's 14 years for the masculine part. The feminine part is a 10 year cycle and one might be more dominant than other or become more dominant at different stages. The idea is one that the narrator(s) say is one that many religions hold to, seeing it as being related to the physical manifestation of the body as impure and evil, while the spiritual aspect has now been lost.

Structurally then Crash is divided into six Acts of 14 year cycles; Act 1 years 1-14, Act II is 15-28 through to Act VI covering 71-84, each section around 15 minutes long. The narration likewise has three interweaving narrative voices and three backing voices, which makes it somewhat easier to follow than Ashley himself doing all the main voices and appearing to go off in tangents, as in other works where the structure is less immediately evident. One voice sings as if they are talking in a conversational manner on the phone, another has a floating meditative singsong voice, the third exhibiting a mild stammer or halting glitch. All of these are styles that Ashley would have adopted himself in other works as the main narrator/actor.

The first voice talks about the basic concept (initially anyway) of the 14 year cycles, the second has a detached poetic quality that seems to relate to the main character's out-of-body experiences (electrocution, fainting, allergic reaction) and the third voice relates life experiences through those ages, covering the highs and lows of his career as a composer and musician. The other three backing voices recite vocalisations and chanted refrains of words from the main narration behind the narrative voices. Along the way, the text hits upon all variety of subjects including small people, neighbours and the discovery and meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The choices of what is expanded on as significant moments in the main figure's life are almost inexplicable, but of course they all relate to an examination of a life subject to forces outside oneself, or within oneself.

Just to complicate - well, not just to complicate but to adhere to the idea of cycles where dominant forces appear - the three singers doing the conversational, poetic and glitch voices switch with the 'backing' voices, and each of the two groups of three take their turn as one of the three voices in each of the sections. These are complex musical ideas, arrangements and leitmotifs, all presented in an unconventional manner, hugely distinctive and quite unlike anything else, but which nonetheless are surprisingly easy to grasp. Grasp perhaps, but not necessarily fully comprehend. You are kept on your mental toes trying to relate the interweaving stories and ideas and it requires intense concentration. There is no time in the flow to stop and consider an idea, so it's almost impossible to take everything in. There inevitably comes a point in Crash, like all Ashley's work, where you think either you or the work has wandered off and lost the meaning at some point.

Unless you see it performed. In that respect at least, Crash is much like traditional opera. With six people sitting at desks with no musical instruments and essentially reciting the text into microphones, you might think there is nothing that can be gained here that you can't get from listening to the exact same thing on CD, but the performance is a vital element. It's not that it varies to any degree from the recorded version, and I'm not going to claim that you can glean any greater meaning from the text, but there is definitely a truer connection established when you see people involved who can't help but bring themselves into the interpretation, allowing you to see as well as hear the quirks of Ashley's score presented to you. And yes, the visual engagement does certainly helps focus and the mind is less likely to wander, or at least not wander any more than is intended.

There are a few other reasons why this performance for the LCMS's Lovely Music festival was special, it being the 10th anniversary of the opera's first performance and the 10th anniversary of Robert Ashley's death. To make it even more of an occasion, it was performed by the original cast who worked with the composer on this final opera, the Varispeed Collective (including Amirtha Kidambi, whose solo musical career with the Elder Ones I am a big fan of). To be honest, just seeing a Robert Ashley opera performed is something I never even expected to see and that it didn't disappoint. It's a promising sign that Ashley's work still has followers, admirers and supporters (including Lovely Music that publishes his recordings) all contributing to keep his legacy going. This was an utterly fascinating performance of the work of a truly unique and inimitable composer.

External links: Louth Contemporary Music Society, Lovely Music, RobertAshley.org

Wagner - Siegfried (Zurich, 2024)

Richard Wagner - Siegfried

Opernhaus Zürich, 2024

Gianandrea Noseda, Andreas Homoki, Klaus Florian Vogt, Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke, Tomasz Konieczny, Christopher Purves, David Leigh, Anna Danik, Camilla Nylund, Rebeca Olvera

Zurich Opera Ring für alle - 24th May 2024

Following the first two installments of the Andreas Homoki Ring Cycle for Zurich there was good reason to look forward to their continuation of the epic work in Siegfried. That's not always the case for me. After Das Rhinegold and Die Walküre, I often feel it's more of a duty to see a Ring Cycle through to the end, and it can even be a bit of a chore in some rare cases. Not so here. Even if Andreas Homoki directing and Gianandrea Noseda conducting just continued along the existing path without feeling the need to add any other new ideas, such was the standard and quality of cast in the first two parts that I was confident that the remaining two long evenings of Der Ring des Nibelungen would continue to be hugely enjoyable and as impressive as the first two.

And indeed it does, at least as far as Siegfried goes. There is nothing exceptional about the opening scene other than a sense that it is as good as and consistent in tone with what has come previously inside the house of the Ring. What is noticeable is that the white panelled walls have been swapped for a darker rooms for what takes place in Siegfried. Act I's room contains oversized pieces of furniture (presumably since its inhabitants are dwarf and youth) that hasn't been well cared for, all of it dull, worn, upturned and scattered around. The set doubles up as a forge and workshop very effectively when it comes to repairing Nothung. It matches the sense of disregard of Siegfried by Mime, whose focus is single-mindedly on one thing; the Ring.

Appearances aside, the real attention is given over to the detail of the musical performance that matches the alternatively playful and sensitive sides of the scene, a tone that is likewise conveyed though consistently fine singing performances that have been a hallmark of this Ring Cycle. Here Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke reprises his anxious and animated Mime, Tomasz Konieczny again the Wanderer, and Klaus Florian Vogt is introduced as Siegfried, each of them solid, reliable and playing to their best. You have everything necessary here to engage you in the drama that is to unfold over the course of the work, while the recounting of what has come before is anything but a chore.

Set up as such, more than any other time I can remember (other than expecting to be taken aback by the unpredictable in Frank Castorf's Ring cycle - who can forget the Mount Rushmore of Revolutionaries in his Siegfried?) I very much looked forward - this time for consistency rather than surprise - to seeing how the subsequent Acts would play out. Of course, it helps that since Zurich are using the same cast in the same roles almost throughout, you have the return of Christopher Purves as Alberich to look forward to in Act II. As expected, he is fantastic again here. The scene of Siegfried's reflection on his mother and his failed attempts to communicate with the Waldvogel feel a little overplayed in Act II, but it presents a lovely little oasis of beauty within a very dark scene of greed, treachery and dragon-slaying.

While such touches and little details are well-considered to balance out the tone of the work, and the consistency of the quality of the musical and singing performances count for a lot, there remains a niggling feeling that they could do a little more, that the production could benefit from a deeper exploration of some of the themes typically found in this work. The stage direction, lighting and costume design do give some clues however, gentle ones maybe, nothing too imposing, and it's literally all spelled out in black and white. The use of black and white clothing is a fairly obvious convention, but it's how it is applied here that adds another dimension and gives the work a little commentary worth considering. All the figures here are mythological, but there are some who are closer to nature and purer in their motivation and duty than others, uncorrupted by greed for money and power. The Rhinemaidens, Erda, the Valkyrie, the Waldvogel all are pure white spirits within the context here, as does the change to the basic set colour scheme in the two halves of the tetralogy. That's a fairly strong adherence and visual representation of a central theme of the work.

You can see Siegfried (in shades of grey) in those terms, his refusal to accept the authority of Wotan, laughing at his pretensions that rely on a past reputation that no longer has any currency (literally) in a new world. In that light, it makes the confrontation between them as effective as it can be. Siegfried is not overawed by the golden majesty of the expensively built Valhalla shown to him. He has purer motivations, motivated by love for the mother he has never known and the promise of the maiden surrounded by fire. And, as far as those sentiments go, in Siegfried anyway, it's all about maintaining a coherence, a consistency, an equilibrium between the disparate elements and factors that come into play over the course of the opera, recognising the key scenes and giving them due attention in the direction of the performances.

I'm not sure you can extend this theory to the rapturous declarations of the final scene of Siegfried's awakening of Brünnhilde, but there's a limit to what you can do. Even as Klaus Florian Vogt and Camilla Nylund give it their all, it's all still a bit overly glorified, but in some ways you could look at this as perhaps a necessary scene to counterbalance what comes next in Götterdämmerung. As if recognising this, director Homoki includes some moments of fun - without making fun of it - when Siegfried and Brünnhilde get down to business in a playful clinch after Vogt shows his concern for the lack of respect shown to the hastily cast aside Nothung. 

Again it's a case of little details making a big difference, but aside from that it's left to the singers to deliver the impact of each scene in the opera, and there is no doubt they all carry it through brilliantly, as they did in the earlier parts. New here in the lesser roles are Rebeca Olvera as a bright Waldvöglein, we have a different Fafner here, but arguably he has transformed from Giant to Dragon and David Leigh sounds superb. Anna Danik's Erda makes the most of her brief appearances again here. What really counts of course is your Siegfried and while he might not be anyone's idea of a heldentenor, Klaus Florian Vogt’s unique voice yet again feels absolutely right for this production as it does for whatever Wagner tenor role he undertakes. He makes it seem effortless, which is quite an achievement.

External links: Opernhaus Zürich, Ring für alle Video on Demand

Photos - Monika Rittershaus

Wagner - Die Walküre (Zurich, 2024)

Richard Wagner - Die Walküre (Zurich, 2024)

Opernhaus Zürich, 2024

Gianandrea Noseda, Andreas Homoki, Eric Cutler, Christof Fischesser, Tomasz Konieczny, Daniela Köhler, Claudia Mahnke, Camilla Nylund, Sarah Cambidge, Ann-Kathrin Niemczyk, Barbara Senator, Anna Werle, Simone McIntosh, Siena Licht Miller, Michal Doron, Noa Beinart

Zurich Opera Ring für alle - 20th May 2024

Sometimes - not often but sometimes - you get the impression that as critical as the Siegfried and Sieglinde story is to Die Walküre and the impact it is to have down the line in Der Ring des Nibelungen, that it isn't always accorded the same attention or gifted with the quality of principal singers as is necessary for the undoubtedly important and rather more dramatic Wotan, Fricke and Brünnhilde conflict and the Ride of the Valkyrie centerpiece to come. Well, the opening of the 2024 Zurich Die Walküre confirms that the superb balance and attention that was paid to all areas in the preliminary evening opera (which itself is no lesser opera) carries through to the First Day of the Ring, and it pays dividends here.

It seems that the reason they are able to do this is in large part by stripping the work down to its essence, yet managing to do so without losing any of the epic mythological quality of the work. There are no indulgences, or none that are excessive or distracting, but the attention to detail is directed to the places where it should be. From those opening moments of Die Walküre, the whole production takes place in the same high white panelled walls of a mansion, where an invisible to the world Wotan is still seen to be playing an important part in the arranging and direction of events, his spear striking lightning bolts, leading the Wölfing to shelter unwittingly at the home of his sister and his enemy Hunding.

The set revolves to show the huge tree dominating the room where Hunding and his men have entered the house. Within the walls of the room, there is no other decoration of the set, yet everything that is needed (except the sword) is there and it still looks impressive, but it is the singers who are the vital element here in getting across the import of the scene. Eric Cutler and Daniela Köhler are so good here that the screen director is happy to draw in for close-ups to show how well they can carry this scene. Director Andreas Homoki is also brave enough to show the depth of the attraction between Siegmund and Sieglinde a little earlier and more intensely than usual, and it develops to close to Tristan und Isolde levels here. Both Cutler and Köhler are simply outstanding and more than capable of living up to that comparison. 

Another promising development is how Sieglinde relates the story of the sword in the tree as it plays out in the scene, the Wanderer’s presence felt again, placing the sword there at the moment of most need, and you can feel that need now. It's also promising because it suggests that the subsequent Act is not going to be as dry as it often can be, but from what we've seen so far, I think we knew that already. That is borne out fairly quickly with the way that Homoki depicts the arrival of Brünnhilde and all the Valkyrie to the gold table conference room style Valhalla, where Wotan is soon to have that long unwinnable dispute with Fricka. It fits perfectly with the aesthetic elsewhere, the Valkyrie wearing horse head helmets, both warriors and horses.

Again, rather than overwork the scene Homoki chooses to use only what is needed and with good direction of the performers and fine singers that is more than enough to deliver the necessary impact and import of the encounter between Fricka and Wotan. Fricka does not laugh or glory in the outcome, despite Brünnhilde's reading of what has occurred between her and Wotan. She knows she has struck a hard bargain and almost sympathises with her distraught husband. Little details like this count for a lot. There is restraint also in Wotan’s account of the origin of his woes to Brünnhilde needing little more than a rotation of the rooms to reveal Erda as her mother. I perhaps expected a little more from this pivotal scene, but can't fault what is presented here, and it seems a wise choice not to throw in too much and risk upstaging the action to come in Act III or indeed the subsequent scenes 3 to 5 in Act II.

In the brief interlude, the rotating set permitting quick scene changes, the room is occupied with a scene of snow flecked trees in dimmed light as Siegmund and Sieglinde reach the end of their flight. The remainder of the Act could hardly be more intense, the set hardly more beautifully decorated and lit (all credit to set designers Christian Schmidt, Florian Schaaf and lighting designer Franck Evin), as Sieglinde collapses and Wagner's stunning music introduces Brünnhilde, arriving to alert Siegmund to his terrible fate. This for me is the most moving scene in this production of the opera, testifying to the validity of the choices made in the stage direction, the overall approach taken and the build up to this scene. A split-screen effect is achieved by a semi-rotation between the cool blue of the dark forest to the gold conference room of Valhalla. It's in the Valhalla realm that Wotan's intervention in the heat of battle strikes his son the Walsüng down. It's devastatingly brilliant musical drama.

The subsequent Ride of the Valkyrie then is everything it ought to be. The voices of the Valkyrie are phenomenal, creating a formidable force as they herd the rightly terrified fallen heroes like sheep. Yet again the production continues to increase the intensity up to the next level. Act III doesn't need much in the way of set decoration either. Brünnhilde and Wotan’s confrontation takes place against the backdrop of the huge rock that will become Brünnhilde’s prison. Again, it's minimal to need, the direction leaving room for the music and the intensity of the scene to exert everything that is essential, and it's immensely powerful. The singing is fantastic, the direction perfect, the sets and lighting effective, the all-important musical drive under the direction of Gianandrea Noseda of the highest Romantic tragedy.

Camilla Nylund might not be one of the most forceful Brünnhildes, but her delivery is clear and lyrical. She comes into her own in Act III, fleeing Warfather and justifying her defiance of his will. Again, I can't fault Tomasz Konieczny’s performance as Wotan. It's sung with drive, passion and is technically impressive, but still not to my personal taste. Like Nylund, he really called on all reserves for the final scene of Act II and for Act III. We got another superb performance from Claudia Mahnke as Fricka and, as noted earlier, an impressive Siegmund and Sieglinde in Eric Cutler and Daniela Köhler. This is a superb follow up to everything promised in Das Rhinegold and it sets the scene for what will now be a highly anticipated Siegfried.

External links: Opernhaus Zürich, Ring für alle Video on Demand

Photos - Monika Rittershaus

Wagner - Das Rheingold (Zurich, 2024)

Richard Wagner - Das Rheingold

Opernhaus Zürich, 2024

Gianandrea Noseda, Andreas Homoki, Tomasz Konieczny, Christopher Purves, Claudia Mahnke, Matthias Klink, Xiaomeng Zhang, Omer Kobiljak, Kiandra Howarth, Anna Danik, Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke, David Soar, Brent Michael Smith, Uliana Alexyuk, Niamh O'Sullivan, Siena Licht Miller

Zurich Opera Ring für alle - 18th May 2024

Das Rheingold opens to what is a familiar Zurich opera ‘house’ style, certainly under the direction of Andreas Homoki, as in his Der fliegende Holländer, but also Orphée et Eurydice and I Capuleti e i Montecchi, which is to say it takes place in a revolving set of white walls of elegant rooms. The intent here is at least more readily apparent even if it takes place nowhere near the Rhine, the playful Rhinemaidens skipping through the rooms in white silk pyjamas, all of this appearing to represent an ideal, a freshness, a world as yet untainted. That's all about to change, and Alberich's appearance and presence does feel intrusive and dangerous, Christopher Purves just superb in this scene with the Rhinemaidens and later also in the Niebelheim scene. I'm already seduced by the beauty and relative simplicity of Homoki's approach to Opernhaus Zürich's Das Ring des Nibelungen.

I'm getting ahead of myself of course, always thrilled by the possibilities opened up in the "preliminary evening" of this expansive work and this one looks promising, not trying too hard and risking tripping itself up further down the line as some do when they accumulate symbolism and buckle under the weight of a concept stretched too far to remain coherent. As far as taking this stripped down elegant house idea through just within the span of Das Rhinegold - which is challenge enough - it succeeds marvellously, directing the focus onto the characters and the significant roles they play within the drama and in Wagner's musical telling of it.

Superficial appearances aside, although it contributes to the mood of the whole production, creating a wonderful unity with the lighting, the richness of the musical performance of the Philharmonia Zürich under Gianandrea Noseda and the distinct character that they are attempting to establish from the outset, the real strength here is the stage direction. It's immediately obvious that the singers haven't been left to their own devices, but have been given purposeful direction and given something to work with, bringing life, personality and motivation to the work. There are no 'park and bark' performances here. It makes it fully engaging and entrancing, not to mention that the singing is also uniformly superb. What you have here is the full package, a considered approach that brings this vast enterprise to life with a lightness of touch that is uncommon in this work, but which suits it very well.

Are we seeing or are we likely to see any new angle on the work or any new ideas proposed? Well, it's too early to say for sure, but this doesn't look like a Ring Cycle that is going to run away with wild ambitious concepts. If it doesn't at this stage appear to be proposing anything new, if it is successful even just for finding a core purpose, sticking with it and bringing it out clearly, then along with a solid musical and singing performance, this is really all you need. That's established straightaway with Wotan first appearance, gazing on a landscape painting of his Valhalla within it. The dream of asserting his will and presence within a perfect world of splendour and magnificence; a noble nation with Valhalla at the summit. The lust for power/money is never satisfied, always wanting more, and there is a high price to be paid for that.

The lesson is one that Alberich learns to his cost as well, abandoning any love for his fellow man (or dwarf), exploiting their labour to satisfy his own lust for power. Whether you want to paint this - as others have done - as the Earth paying the price for unregulated capitalism, there are other ways of putting this across. In fact, Das Rheingold is a moral tale on the same level as Tolstoy's novella, 'The Forged Coupon', powerfully adapted for cinema also by Robert Bresson as 'L’argent'. No good ever comes from a false act. In fact, the harm of the original act, the stealing of the Rhinegold in the opening scene, is multiplied in severity all the way through the acts of bad faith employed by Wotan and Loge's deception of Alberich and then Fasolt and Fafner. Handed down to Siegfried, we see how this original act leads to the ultimate collapse of the Gods. Money is the curse, the lust for it by individuals over love for one's brother, enslaving and corrupting, the world ultimately destroyed by it.

There is no cleverness or symbolism employed or required to make this point clear. Rather there is a balance between the literalism of the mythological setting and serving the intent underlying the myth. The set gives this world a feeling of solidity, of a drama played out in the real world (so to speak). The images employed by Wagner just as effective in this context as they are in the original, the Tarnhelm a hood forged out of gold chainmail, Alberich's transformations indeed into a dragon and a frog. The ring here is an actual ring, the misappropriated Rhinegold piles of large solid gold nuggets. In keeping with the late 19th-early 20th century setting of the stately house, Donner and Froh wear blazers and straw hats and wield cricket bats, all of this just adding to the richness, taking nothing away from it. The acting, with this music associated with the actions, just adds to the sense of their being something real and important at stake in this Das Rheingold.

Since the focus is firmly on the drama being brought out of the underlying motivations of the protagonists, it is essential that you have singers of sufficient quality to really bring this out. Personally, aside from the terrific performance already mentioned by Christopher Purves as Alberich really nailing this down from the outset, Claudia Mahnke is an outstanding Fricka and Brent Michael Smith a menacing enough Fafner without having any need of the giant's height. But really, there are any number of performances to enjoy here, including Matthias Klink's entertaining Loge, which he plays like Master of Ceremonies on occasion. It's wonderful that this Zurich Ring Cycle will also have a rare consistency of the performers in the same role all the way though. Personally, I still can't warm to Tomasz Konieczny's Wotan, but it's indisputably an excellent performance. All things considered, when a Das Rheingold is this good, it increases anticipation for how the rest of this Ring Cycle will play out.

External links: Opernhaus Zürich, Ring für alle Video on Demand

Photos - Monika Rittershaus