Wagner - Götterdämmerung (Zurich, 2024)

Richard Wagner - Götterdämmerung (Zurich, 2024)

Opernhaus Zürich, 2024

Gianandrea Noseda, Andreas Homoki, Klaus Florian Vogt, Daniel Schmutzhard, Christopher Purves, David Leigh, Camilla Nylund, Lauren Fagan, Sarah Ferede, Freya Apffelstaedt, Lena Sutor-Wernich, Giselle Allen, Uliana Alexyuk, Niamh O'Sullivan, Siena Licht Miller

Zurich Opera Ring für alle - 26th May 2024

If there's initially a sense that the 2024 Opernhaus Zürich's Der Ring des Nibelungen cycle is getting a little tired and lacking in surprises by the time we get to Götterdämmerung, it's probably as much to do with the opera itself as the production. When you get this far, it can sometime feel like a duty just to see the cycle through to the end rather than any expectation of surprises or twists being pulled out at this late stage in a production. But see it through you must, just for the powerful conclusion that the whole story had been moving towards from very early on, and even if those surprises are fewer, the quality and consistency that has characterised the previous parts is carried through here impressively.

The only ones indeed not able to predict how the remainder of the production play out are ironically the three Norns. The universe of this Zurich production remains within the familiar backdrop of a rotating stage of rooms, the high panelled walls white again after the darkness of Siegfried. Or a little off-white maybe. The world of Götterdämmerung looks worn and neglected, a little battered, the white paint yellowing, cracking and peeling. The three Norn struggle to hold the strands of the rope of fate together, the events that the gods have enacted have worn it down, their fate is now unknown. We on the other hand have some idea of what to expect, at least as far as how the colour schemes present it.

A Rasputin-like Hagen is most definitely dressed in black for this work's divisions of those who serve nature and those whose actions hasten its destruction. The Gibichung break the simple colour coding however; Gunther and Gutrune, wearing red jackets, are of a different mold to the grand mythical forces of black and white in conflict. The time of the Eternal Ones and heroes is past, Siegfried's grey turning into a black and white suit by the time of his wedding to Gutrune and betrayal of Brünnhilde. The thread has been broken, the Sacred Ash destroyed. the Norn perhaps colour blind and therefore unable to see into the unknown future where now only destruction looms.

In this world where we are heading towards the end of an era, the key scene of Siegfried's betrayal of Brünnhilde is crucial and achieved highly effectively here. Siegfried wears the Tarmhelm while Gunther shambles on like a monster version of himself in a mask. Brünnhilde’s horror is felt, but there is the suggestion when she accidentally tears off the Tarnhelm in a struggle for the ring and momentarily glimpses the true face of Siegfried, that she lets herself succumb to the curse that has befallen all of them, a fate that she has already been forewarned off by her sister Valkyrie, Waltraute.

Again, it's the smallest of touches that make the difference here, such as a dejected Wotan making a cameo appearance in Valhalla, Freia's golden apples untouched. It might look like it's just trying to fill out what otherwise looks fairly bare minimal staging, but it's not. Such little details count here, making it feel relatable, like something human is really at stake and not just a grand myth. If you want to see the destruction of the World Ash and demand of Waltraute that Brünnhilde abandon the Ring and all it stands for as a commentary of capitalism exploiting the natural resources and the end of that road leading to climate change destruction unless nature (the Rhinemaidens) is respected, it's there clearly if you want to see it that way, even if none of it is made explicit in the staging. Not that I'm claiming that Wagner was a very early advocate of Green policies, but it's a theme that is large enough to be held within the grand mythology of Der Ring des Nibelungen.

The singing keeps up the remarkably high standards and consistency of the previous parts of the cycle. And when you have good direction as you have here under Andreas Homoki, it means you can enter fully into the purpose and intent of the work. Klaus Florian Vogt can still get away with an ideal mix of youthful naivety and enthusiasm, if not quite the vocal force you expect (but which it rarely attains) for this role. There is an excellent performance here from Camilla Nylund as Brünnhilde, particularly in her confrontation and accusations of the betrayal by Siegfried. It's fitting that she outshines Vogt in this scene in her outrage. I was really impressed with her performance throughout the second Act, necessary to gives the opera the weight, grief and tragedy it needs at the tragic conclusion. David Leigh, who was the dragon Fafner in Siegfried, here takes the role of Hagen with great power and depth, his delivery clear and ominous throughout. Daniel Schmutzhard and Lauren Fagan sing the roles of Gunter and Gutrune roles well. Christopher Purves is once again brilliant as the dark and bitter Alberich.

Again, I am in awe of the musical performance here of the Philharmonia Zürich under Gianandrea Noseda. I've never rated Götterdämmerung all that highly compared to the more popular and widely performed parts of Der Ring des Nibelungen, once in jest unfairly and inaccurately suggesting that it was little more than as a compilation of variations of the leitmotifs from the earlier works, but the beauty and delicacy of the score, particularly in the linking orchestral interludes, is brought out wonderfully in this performance. The weight is perfectly balanced and emotionally attuned without ever slipping into bombast. Perhaps the close attention paid to the detail of the drama and singing help this, but that's not to take anything away from the quality of the musical direction and performance.

As the opera moves towards its conclusion it's clear that there are no major new ideas or grand concept employed here and that the success of the production lies rather in the fact that it is just very good direction that is completely in service to the drama. You look at the deceptively simple minimalism of the sets and colour schemes and wonder how it can still be so effective in establishing mood and drama, and yet it is indeed one of the most effective stagings of Der Ring des Nibelungen that I have seen. It doesn't put a foot wrong anywhere. The mood is right, the acting and singing is of the highest standard, it works hand-in-hand with the musical performance, but what really drives it is the interaction between all those elements. These are not individual performances or creative indulgences, it's a collective ensemble performance, interacting, giving and taking, acting and reacting. And maybe it's there, in how it finds a way for the spectator to connect meaningfully with this grand formidable work of mythology, that this Zurich Ring succeeds so impressively.

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

Photos - Monika Rittershaus

Mozart - Die Zauberflöte (Opéra Bastille - Paris 2014)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Die Zauberflöte

Opéra National de Paris, 2014

Philippe Jordan, Robert Carsen, Pavol Breslik, Julia Kleiter, Daniel Schmutzhard, Franz-Josef Selig, Sabine Devieilhe, Eleonore Marguerre, Louise Callinan, Wiebke Lehmkuhl, Regula Mühlemann, François Piolino, Terje Stensvold, Eric Huchet, Wenwei Zhang

Opéra Bastille, Paris - 6 April 2014

The last production of Die Zauberflöte at the Paris Opéra was in 2005 and the themes of the opera were given a radical reworking by La Fura dels Baus. It wasn't a great success to my mind, taking far too many liberties with the meaning of the work in their concept, setting it as a war between opposing hemispheres of the brain. Consequently we had a giant inflatable brain divided in two on the stage, with singers bouncing around on it when they weren't suspended from cables. More controversially, the Catalan theatre company also removed all the recitative and spoken dialogue, replacing it with poems read by a male and a female actor seated on podiums at opposing sides of the auditorium. It got a mixed response and I don't recall it being revived at all after Gérard Mortier left the Paris Opéra.

Robert Carsen's new production - presented first at the Baden-Baden Easter Festival last year - is in many ways just as radical in how it portrays those opposing forces of light and dark, of male and female.  It might not entirely make any more sense of a work that already has its own inconsistencies and mysteries, but where Carsen's interpretation differs from that of La Fura dels Baus is that it at least settles on an aspect of the work that is entirely in line with the composer's worldview. Carsen's Die Zauberflöte is about the supremacy of love, of the inevitable triumph of light over dark, of the victory of enlightenment over obscurantism.

Focussing on this aspect, Carsen's production consequently avoids the ceremonial structure that more traditionally form the basis of presentations of the work - the masonic rituals, the mythic qualities of the battle between darkness and light. He also almost entirely glosses over the questions of misogyny in the work, contrasting what is actually said with a more enlightened view where male and female and the opposing forces of darkness and light actually work in harmony, in common accord, as two halves of a whole (with less of the bludgeoning imagery of La Fura dels Baus). Sarastro and the Queen of the Night actually walk hand-in-hand in this production, which is not something you would see anywhere else, or indeed think that it could really work.

Does such an approach indeed not go against the intentions of the work? Well, Die Zauberflöte is drawn from a number of sources, myths and legends, all of which undergo further upheaval at the hands of the librettist Emmanuel Schikenader in such a way that makes little rational sense or demonstrates any consistency. Mozart's hand and influence in the music is however on surer ground, more of a whole in its adherence to the composer's sense of order and benevolent, enlightened worldview. (The beauty of the music has a similar relationship with Da Ponte's libretto in Così Fan Tutte). The music of Die Zauberflöte is sweet and beautiful and Carsen's production responds very much to that.

That's not to say that Carsen ignores the darkness in the work. Far from it. The sense of death is greatly emphasised here in the imagery of open pits that suggest graves (even the orchestra pit is surrounded by a grass verge as if the orchestra too are in a mass grave), coffins are scattered around, and even Papagena first makes an appearance not as an old lady, but as a dead one, wearing the form of a skeleton and emerging out of a coffin. Carsen's way of integrating such imagery into the work, in the context of Mozart's music, is to see it as part of the cycle of life. This is borne out in the projections of woods that form the backdrop for the majority of the work, Johnny Maritneau's photographs depicting the same woodland scene in different seasons of the year.

The stage design is described in more detail in my review of the web streamed broadcast of the Baden-Baden production, but the full impact of the brilliance of the design, the levels that are revealed in the depths of the stage, are only really apparent when viewed live and as a whole. Carsen's production is far from how Die Zauberflöte usually looks, and it may lack the usual special effects and magic by settling for a more prosaic naturalistic approach, but it's no less impressive in its simplicity and beauty than, at the opposite extreme, the extravagant floating stage production at Bregenz in 2013. In fact, the full beauty and sweetness of Mozart's music (and nature) is only all the more apparent and Philippe Jordan delicately draws that beauty out of the Paris orchestra. This is music that could charm the birds out of the trees and in this production, it did.  

The singing was just as sweet. The only cast member here that was also in the Baden-Baden production was Pavol Breslik as Tamino. Hearing him sing live in the theatre, his lovely light tenor actually didn't appear to be strong enough for the role, not always rising above what is a relatively small orchestra. On the other hand, he stood in to sing the Shepherd and Young Seaman roles in Tristan und Isolde two nights later with tremendous force and precision, and I would never have considered him a Wagnerian singer. His voice is beautiful though and it has the perfect sweetness of timbre for this production. Daniel Schmutzhard was a solid Papageno, who never once struck a false note in either voice or performance. Franz-Josef Selig was a deeply impressive Sarastro, every word clear and resonant, with even those extremely low passages controlled and commanding.

It was the female roles who impressed the most however. Sabine Devieilhe's debut at the Opéra de Paris (having wowed Paris audiences with her Lakmé at the Opéra Comique) lived up to high expectations with a phenomenal Königen der Nacht. When Tamino ponders "Was that real or have I taken leave of my senses?" after her Act I aria, you really can sense how he might indeed be overawed. It was Julia Kleiter however who stole the show as Pamina, and it was most pleasing to see the audience respond so enthusiastically to her at the curtain call. Her voice was lush and fully rounded, perfectly controlled yet filled with emotion and feeling for Pamina's situation. This was a world class performance that perfectly complemented the sentiments drawn out by Jordan and Carsen's direction.

The Paris Opéra's new Die Zauberflöte doesn't perhaps explore the full richness of Mozart's masterpiece. It doesn't really play to the comic element, it doesn't have much time for its esoteric side, nor for the serious aspects of the work's majestic ritualistic side. This was a warm, uplifting Magic Flute that swept you along and it clearly held the audience enraptured with the beauty of its sentiments.

Mozart - Die Zauberflöte

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Die Zauberflöte

Bregenz Festival 2013

Partick Summers, David Pountney, Ana Durlovski, Gisela Stille, Daniel Schmutzhard, Alfred Reiter, Rainer Trost, Dénise Beck

ARTE Live Web, Internet Steaming, 25 July 2013

If it were anywhere else and any other work, you might think that the production here was just a little bit over the top, but this is the floating lake stage in Bregenz and it's Mozart's The Magic Flute, so really, anything goes. Bregenz productions are always truly spectacular and one would think that the previous installation of a giant 'Death of Marat' in Lake Constance for Andrea Chénier would be a hard act to follow, but this year's The Magic Flute tops it. Mozart's playful and magical work clearly inspires the imagination of director David Pountney and his production team - as it should - and, even with considerable competition, this is by far the most impressive production I think I've ever seen of Die Zauberflöte.

Set right in the waters of Lake Constance at Bregenz, the opera is performed on the domed back of a giant turtle that is surrounded by three huge dragons, but the stage itself is evidently only half the spectacle. As a piece of stagecraft, Johan Engels' design is also a state of the art production, vividly imagined and impressively choreographed. The overture, for example, shows the capture of Pamina, the Queen of the Night looking on horrified as Sarastro, Monostatos and his slaves transport her away on a boat that takes a circuit of the stage. The stage then erupts into life in the battle that ensues, fireworks flying, a serpent winding down the stage to inflate to enormous proportions as the dragon that attacks Prince Tamino. The green, stepped stage revolves, one half sprouting giant inflatable blades of grass or spikes that create a forest and change colour depending on the scene, the other half used mainly to create a podium or dais for the grandstanding of The Queen of the Night and for Sarastro.

Another significant feature of the Bregenz production is Marie-Jeanne Lecca's larger-than-life puppets for the three ladies (each operated by three puppeteers, reflecting the significance of this number in the work) and for the three boys, while the actual roles are sung off-stage (and by female singers moreover). There are probably logistical reasons for this, although the stage is accommodating enough for all sorts of activity and numbers of extras and acrobats. If it allows the singers to concentrate on the singing however, well then that's also a benefit, but primarily it's clearly for the sake of magic, spectacle and sheer scale. The dancing animals, for example, charmed by Tamino's flute, are recreated here through giant glowing eyes in the forest and it works wonderfully. Everything comes together exceptionally well in this way, the principal singers interacting with all the marvellous creations, the whole thing meticulously timed and choreographed.

As has always been the case with any production I've seen at Bregenz, just because there is huge importance placed on spectacle and entertainment doesn't mean that the musical performance or the singing is in any way neglected or relegated to secondary importance. Conducted by Patrick Summers, the small ensemble of the Vienna Symphonic orchestra give a lovely, sensitive reading of Die Zauberflöte, capturing the translucent beauty of the score and the brightness of its melodies with a lively performance. The use of electronic sound effects on occasion is to be deplored of course, but if it's taken as part of the theatrical effects and it adds some atmosphere to the dry dialogue, well, it doesn't really matter that much, all things considered.

There are times also when you think that a high level of fitness, intrepidness, acrobatic agility and a head for heights are more important considerations than singing ability when it comes to casting for Bregenz. For this production, where several performers have reportedly ended up in the lake on one or two occasions, you might even add swimming as an important requirement this time, but while the cast may indeed possess these additional qualities, the singing is marvellous too. For this particular work - a Singspiel - vocal agility is perhaps not quite as important as the possession of a lightness of tone, clarity and good diction to carry the content.  There are, of course, one or two exceptions to this rule.

Lightness, clarity of tone and precision is certainly true of Gisela Stille's Pamina and Rainer Trost's Tamino - both warmly engaging as well as finely sung - and true also of Daniel Schmutzhard's Papageno and Dénise Beck's Papagena. The exceptions to the rule, or at least having requirements quite literally far above and deep below the normal range, are of course the roles of Königen der Nacht and Sarastro, and they are very capably handled by Ana Durlovski and Alfred Reiter. Also good is Martin Koch as Monostatos (wearing a very nearly obscene codpiece).

There were quite a few trims applied to the score in this production and not just to the spoken dialogues (no March of the Priests at the start of Act II, Sarastro's 'In diesen heil'gen Hallen' reduced to second verse only, Sarastro, Pamina and Tamino's trio skipped), seemingly with the intention of allowing the work to be played straight through without an interval.  This is perhaps for practical reasons, but still there was nothing here that seemed to compromise the integrity of the work. Much of the Masonic rituals and imagery were also played down in favour of the more exotic Egyptian references in the worship of Isis and Osiris. The production design however on the side of Sarastro and his followers seemed closer to Aztec or Inca pagan rites and sacrifices, with even a dark fantasy look and feel to their costumes, particularly in the Armoured Men scene.  

As productions of Die Zauberflöte go however, the Bregenz production then not only looked great and sounded great, it was played perfectly in the spirit of the work. It's rare that you get all those elements coming together in a way that captures the pure vitality, the meaning and the entertainment of the work as well as this, although unquestionably the emphasis here leans more on the entertainment side of the work than the esoteric. The ability to scale the work up for the Bregenz stage works in its favour in this regard, but that also undoubtedly brings other considerable challenges. It's quite an achievement by Summers and Pountney then that this comes across quite as brilliantly as it does.