Wagner - Siegfried (Brussels, 2024)

Richard Wagner - Siegfried (Brussels, 2024)

La Monnaie-De Munt, 2024

Alain Altinoglu, Pierre Audi, Magnus Vigilius, Peter Hoare, Gábor Bretz, Scott Hendricks, Wilhelm Schwinghammer, Ingela Brimberg, Nora Gubisch, Liv Redpath

RTBF Auvio streaming - 25th September 2024

Well this was unexpected, but in the end perhaps not totally surprising. Ring Cycles are notoriously complicated to stage and require enormous planning and resources. Sometimes they fail, sometimes they are abandoned before they start, sometimes mid-stream (as appears to be the case with the English National Opera production), but this the ambitious new production at La Monnaie in Brussels, the first two parts of which took place in the 2023/24 season with the remaining parts to be fulfilled in 2024/25, is the first I've seen where the director has jumped ship half-way through. La Monnaie issued a press statement advising that the remaining two parts would no longer be directed by Romeo Castellucci and that they had parted ways on this Ring Cycle by mutual agreement, unable to achieve what was planned within the planned timescale and budget.

The reason is probably more complicated than simply creative differences or even just budgetary concerns. It's not as if La Monnaie lack resources or ambition and have staged many extravagant Castellucci productions over the years, so his plans for the remainder of the cycle must have really been really out there. Considering the extraordinary visuals of what was staged the previous season in Das Rheingold and Die Walküre and that there was a proposal for a full length feature film using new untested technology to accompany Siegfried and a "double project" mixing theatre and opera for Götterdämmerung, it is genuinely feasible that the production team were indeed incapable of meeting the technological demands of Castellucci's vision for the remainder of the tetralogy.

The unenviable task of taking over the reins on a Ring Cycle in the middle of the race is handed to Pierre Audi, and it's not as if he even has any clear direction to follow. The horses of the Valkyrie have already bolted from this Ring stable, the previous two parts looking spectacular but having very little in the way of any coherent or even comprehensible intent to latch onto. There may have been ambitions (probably not) for the complete cycle to come together into something more thought-provoking rather than just appear as a series of bizarre visual ideas thrown out for each part by Castellucci, but either way I for one was looking forward to seeing where the director would take it next. It seems however that the next level was just simply unachievable, the artist's ambition greater than anyone's ability to realise its potential. Can Pierre Audi attempt to pull this together what has come before into something just as interesting, while at least remaining achievable?

There are maybe a few minor references to what has come before in the opening filmed footage that plays out before the opera, a group of schoolchildren putting on cardboard masks and wooden swords - a reminder at the surprising use of children to play the gods in one scene of Castellucci's Das Rheingold - and in one of children drawing a large circle - a reference found at the beginning and end of both parts directed by Castellucci. Or perhaps, like the childish drawing of a man with a sword that leads into the overture, it's more a sign that this is a return back to basics which, since that characterises Siegfried in Siegfried to some extent, is a reasonable way to approach it. The children's drawings however only make a reappearance as overlaid projections in the closing moments of the opera, so their inclusion - at this stage anyway - is a mystery.

But it's hard to find anything at all meaningful in Pierre Audi's Siegfried. It's true that he hasn't been given much to work with (apart from Wagner's account of the myth obviously) and it must be difficult to take over any project half-way through, but his style has always been for abstraction and bold grand symbolism. Not the obvious kind though. Here in Act I the scene consists of a wall of tarnished gold blocks (a familiar Audi image) with a huge jagged black ball hovering above it. You could potentially see this as representative of the two figures, one corrupted by desire for gold, the other an unformed ball of potential. You could however find a reason for reading this the other way around, so I may be giving the abstract design more credit for symbolism than it's worth, but it seems to be borne out when a long glowing spear descends and bisects the stage at the arrival of the Wanderer. On its own terms the staging is fine, the effective lighting capturing tone and mood, but it's not really enough to make the playing out of backstory between Mime and Siegfried and Mime and Wanderer any more interesting.

The credibility of Act II unfortunately suffers from poor choices in the combination of costume design and lighting. Alberich and the Wanderer skulk about the darkened stage wearing Judex capes and wide-brim homburg hats, their faces bathed in green light, making it looks like a casting session for Wicked. Perhaps that's not the worst image to hang on Alberich and Wanderer, but it looks silly and rather ruins the tone as they gather outside the formidable grotto of the dragon Fafner. The huge inflatable crumpled ball covered in heavy-duty black plastic sheeting sprouts lights for eyes as the dragon, but the spectacle is brief and the impact of Siegfried slaying the dragon is rather ineffective. There is added gravitas however when Fafner appears carrying the desiccated blackened and rotted remains of Fasolt, underlining the tragic end of the race of giants. That gravity is carried over into the scene between Erda and Wanderer but it has little else to offer, the confrontation and destruction of Wotan’s spear feeling somewhat routine.

It does however lead into a dramatic science-fiction-like Act III, the huge ball splintering or rather replaced with floating shards in a blazing red sky, before giving way to the coolness of the discovery of Brünnhilde in a frozen state in an abstract landscape of a blazing white dawn. That at least gives this scene its own distinct character and tone, although in its abstraction it could equally pass for a scene from Act II or Act III of Tristan und Isolde. It's an effective scene nonetheless on its own terms, held together by the sense of epic revelation and resolution to the tragic consequences of Die Walküre, the performance of the score and the singing all coming together to reveal the full majesty of the moment, which of course is built upon everything that has come before. It's a bit of a chore getting there, but almost worth it in the end.

Audi's taking over of Siegfried was undoubtedly a challenge and it at least looks the part, breaking away from the direction Castellucci was taking the cycle and focussing on just delivering a suitably bold spectacle with good singing. Personally I find that Siegfried needs a little more than that. Although you would be hard pressed to understand the direction Castellucci was taking this Ring des Nibelungen in, Audi's vision has no psychological or philosophical underpinning and doesn't invite one or even have any distinctive directorial stamp. It's just a routine performance, in as much as a challenging work like Siegfried can ever be 'routine'. Peter De Caluwe, the general director of La Monnaie prefers to rebrand this cycle now as two diptychs, the first two "allegorical" about the gods, the second two a "human" story about the love between Siegfried and Brünnhilde. It's a big disappointment however when you think that, however extreme and absurd his ambitions might have been, the reasons given for Castellucci's departure is an acknowledgement that his Siegfried would at least never have been dull.

There are no big gestures in the score, which is given a softer reading from Alain Altinoglu than I expected, making me think that La Monnaie were perhaps not using full scale orchestration. It's more likely however that the choices were made for the sake of dynamism, saving the impact for where it is needed and it fairly scaled up for the final scene. Another reason might be to give the singers room to be heard, but there were few problems on that front, although they were left with fairly standard characterisation with no obvious direction. Peter Hoare's Mime is excellent, but it was a familiar weasely and slimy semi-comic routine. Gabor Breitz is a solid menacing presence but brought little that was distinctive to his continuation of the role of Wotan/Wanderer. Scott Hendricks makes great efforts as Alberich but struggles a little. The Wicked outfits perhaps didn't help either of them. The best performance here comes from Magnus Vigilius as Siegfried, totally in command of the role, his voice approaching Klaus Florian Vogt lightness but with a little more steel and not so much softness, which seems ideal. Ingela Brimberg reprises her Brünnhilde from Die Walküre and sings it well, but just as importantly, captures the complexity of her condition as a formidable but now fearful Valkyrie.

External links: La Monnaie-De Munt, RTBF Auvio

Wagner - Die Walküre (Brussels, 2024)

Richard Wagner - Die Walküre

La Monnaie-De Munt, 2024

Alain Altinoglu, Romeo Castellucci, Peter Wedd, Nadja Stefanoff, Ante Jerkunica, Gábor Bretz, Marie-Nicole Lemieux, Ingela Brimberg, Karen Vermeiren, Tineke Van Ingelgem, Polly Leech, Lotte Verstaen, Katie Lowe, Marie-Andrée Bouchard-Lesieur, Iris van Wijnen, Christel Loetzsch

RTBF Auvio Streaming - 8th February 2024

It's hard to describe a Romeo Castellucci production in any way that makes logical or narrative sense, especially when you're only half-way though it. That's as far as we have got with his production of Der Ring des Nibelungen cycle at La Monnaie, and at this stage with Das Rheingold presented earlier this season, the most we can say after Die Walküre is that the focus is very much on tone rather than narrative. It's an approach that is designed to avoid the conventional imagery for one that marries spectacle worthy of the status of the mythology with an intent to delve deeper into the emotional and ideological nature of the work as expressed in the music. If there's a work that can sustain many layers it's Wagner's Ring and Castellucci certainly is aiming to bring a unique response and new ideas to this tetralogy of operas.

What those ideas might be however is still hard to define at this stage, but in terms of mood and character and tone it already has made a considerable impact, particularly with the musical direction under the baton of Alain Altinoglu. That tone is set straight away in Die Walküre - as it ought to be - by the opening storm that shows a Siegmund being battered against a screen bearing a faint imprint of a ring/circle by a gushing torrent of water. His predicament is clear. Less clear maybe is the colourful apparel that Hunding's wife presents him with when welcoming him unwittingly into the trap of her home, but a pacing wolf-like black dog and a shifting array of oppressive rooms, cabinets, wardrobes and furniture enclosing the two of them in tight spaces fits perfectly with the threat that this stay presents to the Walsung.

Why Hunding reposes in what looks like a confessional however is anyone's guess, the set transforming from darkness to light, the set turning minimalist with only the confessional, a bed and a fridge shifting around the open space. The sword Nothung is not buried in an ash tree but borne by or perhaps actually buried in Sieglinde. Removed, it is stored in fridge while Siegmund and Sieglinde welcome the sudden arrival of spring by burying each other in flowers and rolling around in blood, enact a baptism or kind of rebirth as brother and sister in blood. The least you can say is that stagecraft is remarkable and holds attention even if it is hard to rationalise, the shifting props and minor adjustments of lighting, smoothly and imperceptibly changing from one scene and mood into another.

If you think Act I was peculiar, Act II despite being again rather minimalist in overall approach has many more eccentric touches, too many to go through every one of them all and you'd be none the wiser even if they were described. What matters is whether it gets across the gravity and import of this lynchpin scene of this opera and debatably the whole tetralogy. What it seems to focus on is the opposition of ideals and philosophies of the opposing forces within Valhalla, or at the very least find visual ways of establishing their character. Fricke enters Valhalla in an extravagant white wedding gown with a troupe of similarly attired followers, fairly shaking with rage at the mockery Siegmund and Sieglinde have made of the sacred sacrament of marriage. She crushes some white doves while Wotan washes the head of a statue of Buddha with milk. Whether you take any deeper meaning from this or not, there is no reason why these gods should behave as ordinary mortals.

For his part, Wotan recounts his folly and his failure to Brünnhilde wearing a red blindfold with dark semi-invisible figures of his entourage waving flags that spell IDIOT behind him. Brünnhilde's steed Grane is seen as nothing more than disembodied skeletal floating lower legs, again operated by invisible extras. Brünnhilde is crushed momentarily beneath its hoof at the weight of Wotan's will and command to the Valkyrie. Act II of course is all about revisiting the past and determining the future, and it can be a little dry, so these visual theatrics can help establish the nature of what transpires, but it's hard to see that these add anything, or really understand their intent. It seems to get even sillier still when Brunhilde gives Siegmund an orange while advising him of his fate on shifting sands, all of Act II delivered in the gravest intonations, before shapeless creatures smother him. Regardess of what you make of it, musically, vocally and in terms of the tone you expect, it delivers the depth of intensity of the Act.

Likewise, Act III fires into the Ride of the Valkyrie with the same full dark intent. These are Valkyrie to truly strike terror into the soul as, dressed in black robes with helmets and shields, they drag the hairless naked bodies of fallen heroes to their final resting place in Valhalla in the enveloping bleak darkness of the stage. The final scene between Wotan and Brünnhilde is completely stripped back to black as a large white screen is lowered and tilted over them, with only a few ominous shadows rippling across on the other side of the veil behind them. There is a brief burst of flame in a circle, the shape of the ring that has become the connecting or defining element between the beginning and end of each of the two operas so far. Nothing else is needed really when Alain Altinoglu conducts the orchestra to bring out every nuance of emotion and sensitivity from the scene.

The La Monnaie Die Walküre is given a very different treatment to the one in Das Rheingold. It's a dark shadow world for the larger part of this opera, the world unformed and unstable, from the shifting furniture of Hunding's abode in Act I, the pacing wolf, the swarming figures that swallow Siegmund, the dark mounts of the Valkyrie that pass by in the background. Individually, these things might not add up to anything meaningful, but collectively they establish a specific mood, finding the necessary balance of darkness and light (admittedly more darkness than light in this work). Like Frank Castorf's extraordinary Bayreuth Ring, Castellucci is clearly not going to be restricted to a single style across this cycle, adapting to the distinct character of each of the works and the opportunities they offer. So far however it lacks the thematic rigour of Castorf's Ring and an overall concept hasn't yet emerged other than this idea of a circle or ring being a key image, which is appropriate but hardly revolutionary.

Some might expect more from Romeo Castellucci on this epic tetralogy, but so far Das Rheingold and Die Walküre have been successful in their own context and who knows whether certain visual leitmotifs might not recur in the next two works (probably not). Certainly the musical direction of Alain Altinoglu provides the necessary heft that you would expect and perhaps the intent is to let the language of the music speak more strongly here, with the visual element supporting that in a more abstract fashion. There are some interesting choices made as far as the casting goes, and I'm all for bringing new voices into the world of Wagner, but not all of them are convincing this time around.

I wasn't too keen on the trills introduced by Nadja Stefanoff's Sieglinde in Act I, but she is excellent in the subsequent acts, looking truly anguished rather than dramatically acting it as seems to be the case with Peter Wedd's Siegmund, a joyless Wehwald. Too many of the performances are operatically earnest, the movements too choreographed to show any real feelings. It seems to afflict Gábor Bretz this time around, his delivery inexpressively intoned with little emotional engagement. There is little sign of resignation you expect from Wotan in Act II or fury in Act III. Marie-Nicole Lemieux is another fine singer who was introduced to to the Wagnerian repertoire in Das Rheingold and her Fricka here is capable, her performance good but perhaps not outstanding or as commanding as you might like. For me, Ingela Brimberg's was the most impressive here, connecting deeply with the different sides of Brünnhilde, but all of the Valkyrie were formidable on a scale commensurate with the mythology of the Ring. Whether we can say that about Castellucci's direction of this Ring cycle remains yet to be seen. 

External links: La Monnaie-De Munt, Auvio streaming

Wagner - Das Rheingold (Brussels, 2023)

Richard Wagner - Das Rheingold

La Monnaie-De Munt, 2023

Alain Altinoglu, Romeo Castellucci, Gábor Bretz, Andrew Foster-Williams, Julian Hubbard, Nicky Spence, Marie-Nicole Lemieux, Anett Fritsch, Nora Gubisch, Scott Hendricks, Peter Hoare, Ante Jerkunica, Wilhelm Schwinghammer, Eleonore Marguerre, Jelena Kordić, Christel Loetzsch

RTBF Auvio live stream - 31st October 2023

If you've ever watched an opera production directed by Romeo Castellucci, you'll know not to expect anything straightforward or traditionally narrative driven. It's probably better to think of his work as closer to installation or conceptual art than opera performance direction. There are a lot of conservative opera-goers who don't like the idea of that one bit, but the idea of bringing that style and approach with a willingness to extend theatrical techniques to a work like Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen is thrilling, and this is surely a work that is more conceptual than it is narrative and worthy of such deeper exploration and consideration.

Depending on your view then, Castellucci actually keeps things relatively simple in the opening work of the new Ring cycle at La Monnaie, although some will surely see this Das Rheingold completely overhauled and distorted beyond recognition. Both things are possible at the same time, but also neither are completely the whole story here. If you want to relate the instances of idiosyncratic imagery as representative symbolism, much of what is seen in this Das Rheingold doesn't necessarily serve any meaningful purpose, but there is no reason it should, unless you believe that Wagner's stage instructions should be followed to the letter, and a lot of people do.

The first thing you see on the stage is a huge spinning metallic ring, which is as simple and direct an image as you can get for an opening of a Ring cycle. This gives way after the opening famous 136 opening bars in E-flat major to the scene of three almost entirely naked gold-painted Rhinemaidens frolicking and writhing together in darkness and gold-lit vapour with dancer doubles in a way that inflames Alberich's (gold) lust. It's as effective a way of getting as close to that primal state of the mythological founding origin of the earth/universe as you can imagine, and Castellucci has some imagination.

Valhalla reverts to the almost clean white minimalist set that is characteristic of Castellucci, but with classical Greek statues and friezes, the gods dressed in black robes and crowns, tiptoeing their way through a sea of naked-looking bodies (another familiar Castellucci trope) in modesty saving flesh-coloured garments; little people crushed by the grandeur of Wotan's vanity or workers exploited for labour by the giants? It's open to whatever interpretation you like. The result however is clear, that there is a price to be paid for this. Rather than make the giants appear larger than life as most productions might, if they bother at all, the director here substitutes the singers of family of gods for children who mime the singing. It's not just a gimmick, but a clever and effective way of showing the reversal of power that their vanity has imposed on them, and similarly they become old and enfeebled played by elderly actors as they realise that they have to obtain the Rhinegold in order to save Freia and her rejuvenating golden apples.

The Niebelheim scene also relatively straightforward again presenting strong contrasts, dark and industrial but not overly decorated, with just one machine that seems to specialise in creating large rings of a diameter of about two metres across. Even the Tarnhelm is a ring that Alberich hangs around his neck, disappearing into dark mists. It's superbly atmospheric with Mime and Alberich marvellously deformed creatures. Alberich's Tarnhelm transformation is created by him peeling off his rubber bodysuit to be captured naked, tortured and smeared in black oil in the empty Castelluccian white space. Scott Hendricks handles this humiliation of Alberich bravely and it is also dramatically effective, transforming this world into something alien but recognisable, the horrors of what occur feeling very real. Another nice touch that adds to this is where Alberich's curse becomes a black smear that the dwarf leaves down one side of Wotan's face and eye.

That's all relatively simple and direct for this director, although of course there are lots of other little eccentric touches; the playful and disrespectful Loge throwing ink bombs at photos of classic cast members of Ring operas in the past wearing winged helmets and breastplates, Fasolt killed by a giant crocodile falling from the sky, Erda a headless statue sitting in lotus position. Does it add up to anything in terms of a concept or commentary? Well you could see the now almost obligatory condemnation of consumerism in a society that is heading towards late capitalism meltdown, but the parallel is not made explicit or over-emphasised as it might have been in the Chereau/Boulez Ring at Bayreuth, or indeed Frank Castorf's more recent cycle there. It's not just decorative either, although it is that too (it looks stunning), but it's too early in the cycle to pin down to one simplistic reading. There will certainly be plenty of other opportunities for the director to build on or diverge from any interpretation placed on the opening chapter.

It's all to little avail of course if you can't bring the requisite musical and singing forces to Das Rheingold, there can be no concerns at all with the La Monnaie production; even if few are familiar or experienced Wagnerians, the casting and singing is impressive right across the board. This is the first time I've seen Gábor Bretz singing Wagner and he makes for a grave, resonant and commanding Wotan. I wouldn't associate Marie-Nicole Lemieux with Wagner either, but she is an excellent Fricka, heartfelt in her fears for what horrors her unfaithful husband has visited upon the gods. It will be interesting to see how she handles the role of the much less forgiving wife in Die Walküre. Anett Fritsch is a superb Freia, and Scott Hendricks very impressive as Alberich. He is not always this reliable, but this is one of the best and most consistent performances I've seen from him. Nicky Spence makes the mischievous playful schoolboyish Loge seem effortless.

Musically, this is also a real treat with Alain Altinoglu conducting the La Monnaie orchestra in the first Ring cycle there in 30 years, and this looks like it will be a memorable one. With not so much an ascent to Valhalla on the rainbow bridge, the gods at the conclusion to this Das Rheingold drop into the pit of the ring, dressed in white like members of a death cult, accepting the course that fate has placed them on. This is everything you want from the start of a Ring cycle; epic and spectacular, visually and emotionally stimulating, with impressive singing and musical direction. To be presented at La Monnaie across two seasons, with Die Walküre to follow in January 2024, Romeo Castellucci delivers a majestic, intriguing Das Rheingold, serving the work in his own particular style and visual language, leaving the way open to explore the further riches of the remaining parts of the tetralogy.

Links: La Monnaie-De Munt, RTBF Auvio

Massenet - Don Quichotte (Bregenz Festival, 2019)

Jules Massenet - Don Quichotte

Bregenz Festival, 2019

Daniel Cohen, Mariame Clément, Gábor Bretz, David Stout, Anna Goryachova, Léonie Renaud, Vera Maria Bitter, Paul Schweinester, Patrik Reiter, Elie Chapus, Felix Defèr

Unitel/C-Major - Blu-ray

Good music is timeless of course but styles can go out of fashion, and the history of opera is lined with bodies of work by composers who have been the victim to changing trends, social upheaval and censorship. Jules Massenet is by no means a neglected or forgotten composer, but for me the majority of his work is very old fashioned and unlikely to inspire in today's opera world. There are certain exceptions - the remarkable Werther above all - and it's looking increasingly like his Don Quichotte is one of those works whose charms and qualities are proving to be timeless. Which is fortunate because that's pretty much what the opera is about.

And it's that idea that director Mariame Clément sets about demonstrating right from the outset of her 2019 Bregenz production. Even before the opera starts it's necessary to make some things clear, because as timeless as its music and themes are, the noble knight's gallant and chivalrous attitudes, his deference and respect towards beautiful women, his wooing and serenading and duelling love rivals, could be seen in a modern context as not only a little old fashioned and out of date, but even offensive by some. That just wouldn't do. Don Quichotte should leave you with that impression that he (and the opera) may be a relic of the past, but it's just a little bit sad that such ways have been left behind. Even as we respect and mourn their lack of relevance to the present day, perhaps there may even still be something to be learned from it.

Clément's Bregenz production rather catches the audience off guard however by opening with a slick modern Gillette advertisement showing that masculine gallantry is demeaning to women and that the new man should be much more progressive and egalitarian in their outlook. The modern man would scoff at the ways of Don Quixote, his lauding of women and putting them on a pedestal, and indeed that is exactly what happens in the opening act of the opera, where it's not just some uncouth villagers mocking the old Chevalier but a couple of modern opera goers mocking these outdated ideas from an on-stage audience.

The clever, very realistic advertisement, the meta-theatrical outbursts from a planted extra in the audience and the commentary from the 'front row' are clever enough to plant the seed of the idea that is developed in the rest of the opera. Clément doesn't rest on that however but employs a few other tricks in order to retain something of the traditional presentation of the opera while viewing it at a slight modern remove. In this case of course it's an entirely valid approach, as what is lost between the innocence of the old ways and the enlightened new ways is precisely what the opera is about, and not only that, but it even describes Massenet's opera itself.

Although it's undoubtedly necessary to make the comparison, Clément risks losing the audience by using each of the acts to present a different Don Quixote in each of the Acts. In Act II, a more modern Quixote and Sancho look quite different from their classical versions, Quixote here having a groomed and shaved appearance (Gillette presumably), Panza looking like a biker with tattoos and expressing a less favourable view of womankind. The two are in the bathroom of their hotel presumably, where Don Quixote sets himself against not a windmill but an extractor fan (maybe Sancho here is his drug dealer). It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but Clément just about gets away with it through her usual modus operandi of providing humour and spectacle, as the back wall opens up to a giant fan. More than anything however, it's the singing that provides all the necessary conviction.

The ambition of creating a Don Quixote through the ages where "we could be heroes" carries over again with no real continuity into Act III. Against a background of a graffiti covered wall in a suburban wasteland or HLM complex, Don Quixote is this time dressed - unfathomably - as Spider-Man confronting a gang of hoodlums in the 90s on his mission for Dulcinea. Act IV takes place in an office workplace with something of a Lois Lane and Clark Kent vibe about it. Any one of these ideas might have sufficient as a modernisation and provided greater consistency to the production (and opera), but it might not have established the necessary contrast between the gradual move away from the age of chivalry to the present day quite as well.

Behind it all - most evident in Massenet's score - there's a longing to believe that such heroism, romance, nobility, sincerity, pureness of heart and warmth of soul is still possible in our own time. That's blended in beautifully with the fear and sadness that Dulcinea expresses in Act V that even if it existed we probably aren't worthy of it, and as such it is scorned. The closest we have to an acceptance of heroes is that it's the stuff of movies, Dulcinea in Act V viewing the final moments of the wandering knight as if on a movie screen. Massenet's handling of the underlying emotional charge of this is just beautiful, and it's all the more touching when these characters are sung as well as they are in this Bregenz production.

Quite simply there are superb performances across all the principal roles. Gábor Bretz is a rich, soulful Don Quichotte and he’s matched for depth and warmth of baritone timbre by David Stout’s Sancho. In voice and presence, Anna Goryachova's Dulcinea presents a worthy object for the attentions of the noble chevalier. The conductor Daniel Cohen doesn’t hold back either on the emotional richness or dramatic impact of the music, powering the Wiener Symphoniker orchestra through Massenet’s wonderful score.

The all-region compatible Blu-ray presentation of the 2019 Bregenz Don Quichotte from Unitel/C-Major is impressive. Filmed in 4K, it looks marvellous in the 1080i Blu-ray HD resolution and comes with glorious Hi-Res soundtrack mixes in PCM Stereo and DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, both of which give the singing in particular a wonderful resonance, warmth, and clarity. The only extras are in the booklet; a detailed tracklist and synopsis, with a note on the composition of the work by Massenet and some observations on the production by Mariame Clément where she puts the variety of each act down to the lack of narrative continuity in the almost separate scenes of the opera itself.

Links: Bregenzer Festspiele

Offenbach - Les Contes d'Hoffmann (Brussels, 2019)

 

Jacques Offenbach - Les Contes d'Hoffmann

La Monnaie-De Munt, 2019

Alain Altinoglu, Krzysztof Warlikowski, Eric Cutler, Patricia Petibon, Michèle Losier, Sylvie Brunet-Grupposo, Gábor Bretz, François Piolino, Willard White, Loïc Félix, Yoann Dubruque, Alejandro Fonte, Byoung-Jin Lee

ARTE Concert streaming - December 2019
It's not hard to recognise that there's a darker side to the stories and the fate of the character Hoffman in The Tales of Hoffmann, but it's by no means certain in my experience that Jacques Offenbach actually manages to draw them out in his opera. The composer's only true opera aside from his delightful comic operetta entertainments, The Tales of Hoffmann is often treated the same way as his opéra-comique works and it's rare that a director will address the underlying issues of alcoholism and mental illness in any serious way. You might expect Krzysztof Warlikowski to try to do a little more with this at La Monnaie, and he does even if it feels he's trying a little too hard.

Always keen to give a classic work a contemporary treatment that addresses the issues in a way that we are more familiar with, often using references to whatever is currently hot in the movie world, Warlikowsi goes the whole hog this time and updates the drunken fantasist of ETA Hoffman's tales into a Hollywood screenwriter-director going through a personal crisis. Obsessed with his leading actress Stella, who whatever way you look at this opera is very much the muse for his creativity, he strives to find a way to overcome his own demons through the roles he develops for her.

When it comes to movie references it's well known that Warlikowsi often relies on the films of David Lynch for inspiration, and since Lynch has tackled similar subjects of Hollywood chewing up its stars in his films Mulholland Drive and Inland Empire, it makes sense (some kind of sense) to employ the same sinister qualities and techniques that Lynch evokes in those movies. Warlikowski doesn't stop there however, borrowing the three pink showgirls from the casino from Twin Peaks: The Return, sets the Olympia segment in Twin Peaks's The Black Lodge, has a microphone stand from similar sequences in Blue Velvet or Mulholland Drive and even has Nicklausse and Giulietta swap identities wearing black and blonde wigs in a nod to Lynch's surreal noir Lost Highway. I'm sure Wild at Heart must be in there somewhere too.

The other current hot movie reference is where the villain(s) of the piece, Lindorf/Coppélius/Doctor Miracle/Dapertutto and his crew all adopt the make-up and look of the Joker. As far as getting underneath the surface these references are definitely in the right zone for using farce and fantasy to suggest a sinister undercurrent where drawing on personal resources and responses for the sake of entertainment can take its toll on creative artists. It's most evident in the Olympia story where the automaton becomes a kind of manufactured starlette groomed for stardom, Hoffmann's "beer goggles" blinding him to the superficiality and fakeness that his assistant Nicklausse is able to see. Olympia indeed becomes a Mulholland Drive-like victim of the Hollywood system.

As far as that goes Warlikowski gets the point across effectively in Act I, but even though the concept permits Hoffmann as director to pour his auteur obsessions out on the screen in the other sections of Offenbach's Tales of Hoffmann, it does - as I often find with this work - tend to drag and get somewhat unwieldy. Warlikowski's references, interventions, interpolations, twisting of the narrative and adding layers doesn't really add much more to this, but tends rather to make it all even harder to follow than usual. In the Antonia section for example, Patricia Petibon breaks out of character (see Laura Dern in Inland Empire) and into another character as an actress who uses her own trauma of the death of her son to feed into her performance of Antonia, and show how it takes a lot out of her emotionally.

Essentially Krzysztof Warlikowski just wants to bring an edge of realism/surrealism to the work, showing that behind Hoffmann's fantasies are real people with real personal lives and drama that Hollywood exploits for the sake of entertainment. If you want to you can extend that another level in that this also makes you aware that the performers of the opera also have their own lives and baggage that it can be difficult to reconcile with an artistic lifestyle. Certainly the fake Oscar ceremony that Warlikowski inserts before the conclusion hits those points about home in a hugely effective and even slightly discomforting way.

Unfortunately it's just all too much, Warlikowski as he is wont to do throwing everything at the opera, much more than I feel Offenbach's writing can sustain, and as a result it feels like a bit of a mess. Which, to be frank, and accepting that Offenbach left the work unfinished at the time of his death, would be how I regard The Tales of Hoffmann as an opera anyway. Less is often more with this work in my experience, and it's telling that the only wholly successful stage productions I have seen are those that scale the whole thing down. The 2015 ETO production (which also used Hoffmann as a movie director much more effectively than Warlikowski) and the Irish National Opera's 2018 version demonstrate that despite my misgivings the work can indeed aspire to something greater.

Whatever its structural or narrative weaknesses, the one redeeming quality of The Tales of Hoffmann as far as I'm concerned is in its melodies and songs that run through the work, in the repetitive catchiness of the "Chanson de Kleinzach" and in the charm of "Belle nuit, ô nuit d'amour" and it's there that the real strength of the La Monnaie production conducted by Alain Altinoglu can be found. The latter sung by Patricia Petibon and Michèle Losier is certainly worth waiting for - well, almost worth waiting for as I found my patience running out as usual with this work. Losier is superb, genuinely making something greater out of the Nicklausse role, Petibon not always able to meet the challenges of the demanding soprano roles in the opera. Eric Cutler's Hoffman is sympathetically engaging and Gábor Bretz cuts a suitably sinister figure as The Joker basically, in a production of Hoffmann that is certainly no laughing matter.

Links: La Monnaie-De Munt, ARTE Concert

Mozart - Die Zauberflöte (La Monnaie, 2018)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Die Zauberflöte


La Monnaie-De Munt, Brussels - 2018

Antonello Manacorda, Romeo Castellucci, Ed Lyon, Sabine Devieilhe, Sophie Karthäuser, Georg Nigl, Elina Galitskaya, Gábor Bretz, Dietrich Henschel, Tineke van Ingelgem, Angélique Noldus, Esther Kuiper

ARTE Concert - 27 September 2018

As if you couldn't already guess from the fact that it's Romeo Castellucci at La Monnaie, the opening pre-musical sequence alerts you pretty quickly to the fact that this is not going to be a 'traditional' Magic Flute by any means. A man walks onto the empty stage and throws a steel bar at a glowing glass neon tube until it breaks plunging the stage into darkness. Yeah, you think, it's The Magic Flute, we get it; light/darkness, enlightenment/obscurantism, a lot of ritual and symbolism. If you think Castellucci is going to be that obvious, you quickly realise that you're going to have to think again.

But yes, certainly Castellucci tends to find the big underlying contrasts or forces in conflict within an opera and brings them to the fore to the point where they are what the opera is all about. The actual stage directions and dramatic narrative are soon left behind as Castellucci usually starts to push those ideas even further into god knows where. (See his recent Moses und Aron or Tannhäuser). You might take for granted that Die Zauberflöte is all about masonic rituals with fairy tale characters and situations, but you're not going to see any of that in a Castellucci production. Doesn't that mean you lose something of the essential character of Mozart? Unquestionably yes, but can we trust Castellucci to give back something of equal worth?

Maybe not of equal worth, but there is something here in the La Monnaie production, no matter how obscure it gets, that approaches Mozart's work in a new way and provides a commentary on it as well as interacting and highlighting less familiar aspects of the work. There are perhaps no major new revelations and it might not all fit together in any way that is entirely comprehensible, but Castellucci does relate Mozart's Magic Flute to our experiences of the world today and that is bound to be more meaningful than any play on ancient masonic rituals, magic and obscure symbolism (not that Castellucci doesn't have even more obscure symbolism of his own).

So no, there's no serpent slain by Tamino and there's no traditional depiction of the three ladies. There's actually four here in the first Act and four boys too which totally screws up the numerology which is often considered to be important in the work. But is it really? By changing the numbers, Romeo Castellucci is able to steer the work in a new direction, one where symmetry and mirroring takes its place. There is certainly this contrasting of two sides of one human nature (an important aspect that Castellucci takes pains later to ensure is not neglected) in the divisions of the Königin/Sarastro, Tamino/Pamina, Papageno/Papagena, in male/female, in lightness/darkness, in rationalism/obscurantism, in good/evil.

It's also there in the division and structure of the opera itself and Castellucci contrasts the two Acts in a way that highlights aspects of the opera quite unlike anyone else has done before. Act I is all elegance, beauty, balance and symmetry in a uniform haze of brilliant white; by no means the obvious way to reflect this half of the opera, but if you like you can see it as a visual representation of Mozart's music itself. That's emphasised by the costumes which are period 18th century frock coats and powdered wigs. Papageno is indistinguishable from Tamino in identical elaborate costumes and there isn't a single scene, action or gesture that reflects the familiar course of the opera's dramatic action. You can be damned sure that there's going to be no actual magic flute or glockenspiel.

Instead figures move around in an elaborately choreographed display of symmetrical precision, with rotating patterns of white masked dancers, some topless with feather headdresses and fans like something out of the Crazy Horse in Paris. Architect Michael Hansmeyer's set designs however continue to accumulate detail, building up into an elaborate wedding cake or the stucco interior of some impossibly grand white cathedral. It is an extraordinary display, utterly beautiful, daring to ignore adherence to any traditional depiction of the drama in favour of just highlighting the elegance and beauty and symmetry in Mozart's music. It's something that is enhanced - or works both ways - with the nimble musical performance from the orchestra pit under Antonello Manacorda emphasising the melodic brilliance and effervescence with a wonderful lightness of touch.

As extraordinarily beautiful as it all looks, it's also a very cold and sterile way to approach Mozart and The Magic Flute, but of course that's only half the story. In direct contrast to elaborate representation of the music in Act I, Castellucci brings the work down to earth in Act II with a depiction of the human reality that can also be found in Die Zauberflöte which might otherwise be lost amidst all the comedy, symbolism and ritualism. Similar to his last production at La Monnaie, Orphée et Eurydice, Castellucci brings the experiences of real ordinary people in to highlight the underlying human reality of the questions of the trials endured by Tamino and Papageno. A group of six women talk about their personal experience of blindness and living in darkness, and a group of six men talk about surviving horrific burns in a 'trial of fire'.

In contrast to Act I the second half is depicted in mundane real-world terms in a warehouse environment, the glamorous fairy-tale white period costumes swapped for identical yellow-brown factory worker overalls and yellow-blond wigs. The performances are more dramatically realistic, you can at least sometimes tell characters apart from the labels on their back and there's even an actual flute! Inevitably there's a lot more than this in the production and as is often the case with Castellucci it goes off in all kinds of weird directions. Mirroring/contrasting the opening of the first Act, for example, the second part opens with lactating mothers pumping breast milk - for real - into it bottles that are subsequently emptied into another glass tube by the Queen of the Night, the action accompanied by some obscure text that presents a different perspective on the less than flattering idea of motherhood traditionally represented by Königin der Nacht in the opera.

In this way, Castellucci actually deconstructs Die Zauberflöte entirely, separating the work down into its component parts, none of which on their own are convincing or satisfactory but which when played through to the end do nonetheless still manage to capture the totality of what is in the opera. It's highly doubtful that the work needs to be deconstructed in this manner or even benefits from it in any way when it's all there already in the genius of Mozart's blending of all its elements, but it does highlight aspects that we (or other directors) might neglect though familiarity. The 'real-people's lives' human element while looking initially like a frustrating diversion, turns out to be very moving, so there is a case to be made for it.

Evidently as far as stage direction, concept and interpretation go this is not a Magic Flute for everyone and, despite its fidelity to the themes in the work and its underlying humanity, it can't be said that it respects Mozart's intentions. In terms of musical and singing performances however it's hard to fault. The orchestra highlight that compositional and melodic brilliance in the first half and seem to find the human warm in the opera in the second half. The casting is an outstanding collection of lyrical Mozartian voices with Ed Lyon as Tamino, Sabine Devieilhe a lighter than usual but eminently capable Königin der Nacht, Gábor Bretz a fine Sarastro, Sophie Karthäuser an impressive Pamina, Georg Nigl and Elena Galitskaya fulfilling the roles of Papageno and Papagena well, each of them at least brilliantly distinguishable from their voices if not always in appearance or role-playing.

Links: La Monnaie-DeMunt, ARTE Concert

Strauss - Salome (Salzburg, 2018)

Richard Strauss - Salome

Salzburg Festival, 2018

Franz Welser-Möst, Romeo Castellucci, John Daszak, Anna Maria Chiuri, Asmik Grigorian, Gábor Bretz, Julian Prégardien, Avery Amereau

Medici.TV


There comes a point in a Romeo Castellucci production when you wonder if it's worth the effort trying to make sense of it. It's not that they don't have meaning and value, Castellucci's productions are original, striking and do often find a new way of looking at a familiar work, but there are strange elements within that defy any attempt to pin them down or directly relate them to the works in question. Even when the director provides you with some pointers of where he is coming from, you can't always follow where he is takes it. Ultimately however, it fits or it doesn't, it will work for some and not for others. His Salzburg Festival production of Salome presents the same issues and is likely to similarly split audiences.

Salome for Salzburg is typical Castellucci in that respect at least. Some of the director's familiar techniques and obscure images are in there, but the production is not just a rehash of familiar tricks and tics, and - unlike a director with a singular vision like Robert Wilson for example - he doesn't try to force each opera to fit into their distinct worldview, but rather approaches it on it own terms, even if there is sometimes a similar visual aesthetic. This production is very much a response to Salome, even if inevitably it doesn't entirely match the familiar imagery and stage directions that we are accustomed to expect on some level with this opera, and even if it can appear somewhat obscure and occasionally even baffling.

In fact, rather more than most directors who take a work on its own terms, Castellucci is also known for taking the location into consideration and making it part of the production. Not that you really have much choice when it comes to the Felsenreitschule venue in Salzburg, an open air riding school carved into the very rock of the city. There's a reference here then to a Latin inscription carved above the nearby Sigmundstor or Neutor Tunnel 'Te Saxa Loquuntor' ('The Stones are talking of you') that Castellucci employs as a distinctive way to consider the work in terms of its Salzburg production, but what it means is anyone's guess, and easier to describe than interpret.

The location itself is of course spectacular in its own right, even if it's just for scale and atmosphere. The arcades are actually blocked off here to form a more solid surrounding wall, with openings used occasionally for entrances, exits and props. If nothing else it gives 'presence' to the flow and decadence of Oscar Wilde's original text and the taboo-breaking nature of the content that is in line with the employment of Strauss's musical forces. The detail of the composer's attempts to account for the line-by-line control of mood and subtext is where Castellucci perhaps has more of his own personal views and ways of presenting it.

You expect eccentric touches and they are most obviously there with the lower half of everyone face painted red. Everyone that is except Herodias, who is painted green for some reason and Salome, whose face is not painted, but who is marked out in contrast to everyone else by her virginal white appearance. Virginal is very much suggested by the opening scene before the music starts, showing her as little more than a child - whether it's a flashback or a suggestion of her real age is unknown - who cuts through the veil that presents the Sigmundstor Latin inscription. The back of Salome's dress when she appears in the opera appears to be stained with menstrual blood. If it was any other kind of blood, I think we'd know about it from the production and her protective and vocal mother Herodias might have had something to say about it.

The other significant person in the work of course is Jokanaan, or the prophet John the Baptist, whose voice does indeed appear to talk of you from the stones (Te saxa loquuntor), imprisoned below the floor in a cistern. His face is painted black, making his first encounter with Salome very effective indeed; she slight and delicate in white, eclipsed by the dark, wild, primitive and almost bear-like mass of Jokanaan, a man who had lived in the wilderness. Indeed there is an eclipse of sorts, with a huge black circle that overwhelms and enfolds their first encounter. Reinforcing his wild erotic presence, a live horse can be seen rearing out of the circular pit that holds him. So far so much is mostly just giving emphasis to the forces at work in the opera, forces that are most definitely there in the sinister, sinuous, beautiful and violent music, the Vienna Philharmonica well conducted through that variety of moods and colours by Franz Welser-Möst.

The other strange and confusing touches in the production relate to and contrast with how we expect to see the more iconic scenes of the work. During the Dance of the Seven Veils, Salome doesn't actually dance (heaven forbid that Castellucci should be so literal), but instead she kneels head down semi-naked on a plinth with the word SAXA written on it, while a block of stone is lowered 'crushing' her beneath it. Feel free to interpret that how you like. Instead of Jokanaan's head being presented on a silver charger, we have Jokanaan's naked decapitated full torso, with the head of a horse (presented as a first appeal to Salome to change her mind) left beside it in a shallow pool of white liquid. As far as taboo-breaking goes, you would expect an animal head to have additional shock impact and hint at illicit desires - which you should really be aiming for at the conclusion of this opera - but neither the thunderous cacophony of the closing notes nor the staging really make the necessary impact here.

That perhaps doesn't matter as much when the performances have been intense elsewhere throughout (although I do think that the impact of the conclusion should be viscerally felt). Asmik Grigorian certainly carries the kind of soaring intensity that the opera's Salome ought to have, reaching the luxurious heights and the depraved depths of the work. Herod and Herodias can sometimes be given to older singers just past their prime, but that's not the case here with John Daszak and Anna Maria Chiuri. Daszak isn't ideal but does carry a suitable haunted quality. Chiuri is spectacular, giving this Herodias a lot more input than usual. Gábor Bretz is not the most sonorous Jokanaan, but again his presence is felt. I'm not sure that Castellucci has any great vision for the work or the characters, but he certainly gets to the heart of their natures, working with the opera and the location to bring his usual unique qualities and intensity to this Salzburg production.

Links: Salzburg Festival, Medici.TV

Wagner - Lohengrin (Brussels, 2018)

Richard Wagner - Lohengrin

La Monnaie-De Munt, 2018

Alain Altinoglu, Olivier Py, Gabor Bretz, Eric Cutler, Ingela Brimberg, Andrew Foster-Williams, Elena Pankratova, Werner van Mechelen

ARTE Concert - April 2018

When it comes to Lohengrin, a more cautious director would seek to downplay rather than actually highlight any associations that might be made between Richard Wagner and the Nazis. It's an issue however that is hard to avoid, since the question of German nationalism lies very much at the core of the opera and, regardless of its intentions it certainly formed a view of nationalism that Hitler and his adherents took in another direction. Olivier Py, directing for La Monnaie in Brussels, however tackles the issue head-on ...in a roundabout sort of way.

In fact, Py even takes to the stage before the start of the opera to explain why he sets his production in 1945 at the end of the war when Berlin and much of Germany was lying in ruins. Mainly it's because he believes that Wagner's Lohengrin is not just a nationalist display, but a warning of where such sentiments can lead. Wagner can't be entirely exonerated for his antisemitism, for a sense of jingoism in his works or for their and his family's later association with the Nazis, but there is certainly a case that Lohengrin is a work of artistic and cultural expression that does consider the disastrous future impact of nationalistic sentiments that can take art and culture and twist it toward personal and political interests.

Certainly Olivier Py and his regular stage designer Pierre-André Weitz's touch is all over the La Monnaie Lohengrin. It works in contrasts of black and white with little of shading in between. On one side we have Elsa and Lohengrin in pale blue, Lohengrin even associated with angels, while Ortrud and Friedrich von Telramund are all in black. King Heinrich incidentally (and somewhat negligibly) is dressed in grey. Py's Catholic or Christian faith may well play a part in reducing Lohengrin to such stark divisions, but it's perhaps more a case of emphasis as they are already there in Wagner's work. Ortrud certainly appeals to the pagan gods Wotan and Freia in a way that "allows evil to enter this house" as Telramund describes it. Is it a lack of 'faith' that leads to the ideal of the German nation being destroyed from within? And is this inevitable corruption of a pure ideal not indeed what Wagner's opera is all about?

Well, it's perhaps a little more complicated than that and it's certainly not as 'black and white' as it looks in the La Monnaie production. Firstly, there's the setting of Lohengrin, which as Py indicated, appears to take place in the ruins of the Third Reich, in a burnt-out theatre that has a platform at the front and the rotating ruin of the building behind. It's hard to imagine a 'straight' playing out of the legend then, and indeed the early indications point to a little bit of reinterpretation with the suggestion being that it is Ortrud who has choked the child Gottfried, the future ruler that would have taken Brabant to glory. Py, as he often does, introduces other obscure quotes, symbols and messages; "Der Tod ist ein Meister aus Deutschland" (Death is a master from Germany) on a wall, Ortrud painting a thick black cross, Elsa a white cross in chalk. Lohengrin's duel with Telramund in on a chessboard (black and white) rather than with swords, although a battle between factions takes place in the background.

It's hard to see any real connect between Py's 1945 setting of the work and Wagner's setting of the medieval legend, but that could well be intentional, showing a disconnect between a glorifying vision of Germanic culture (contrast this with the rather ideologically vacuous 2016 Dresden production) and the reality of the inglorious conclusion that awaits when it appropriated towards what Py describes as "the aesthetisation of politics". That kind of reading is certainly heavily supported by the rather meta-theatrical set of Act 3, Scene 1. The pastoral idyll behind the massed chorus of the people of Brabant in this burnt-out theatre is nothing but a rolled-out backdrop that the stagehands lift, the set rotating to reveal a sentiment that is built on a framework of German romanticism and idealism, represented by dusty statues, busts and monuments to Schiller, Holderin, Casper David Friedrich, Goethe, Novalis, Schlegel, Grimm, Heine, Carl Maria von Weber and Beethoven, with even what might be a Nothung buried in the stump of a dead tree.

There are a lot of ideas and ideals here that never quite seem to gel together into something entirely coherent in a way that works hand-in-hand with the opera itself, but the essential points are valid and well made. The lack of faith in the ideal even by as pure a spirit as Elsa (who Py aligns with a view of Wagner that Elsa represents the 'volk') who has fallen under the corrupting influence of the likes of Ortrud and Telramund, means that Lohengrin refuses to be the figurehead that leads the forces of King Henry the Fowler into battle against Hungary. Ortrud certainly hammers home the point of ideals being corrupted in her final words: "Erfahrt, wie sich die Götter rächen, von deren Huld ihr euch gewandt!" (Learn how the gods take vengeance on you who no longer worship them!). In case that message isn't delivered forcefully enough by Elena Pankratova, the fact that it is uttered amidst the ruins of 1945 makes it hard to ignore the implication that you could also see Lohengrin as a substitute for Wagner foreseeing and denying responsibility for the misuse of his art that the Nazis would put it towards.

Pankratova, as it happens, gets that across with absolute conviction in one of the strongest performances among the cast here, but even if not everyone is up to her level, there are no weak performances or anyone who lets the side down. Andrew Foster-Williams might not have the same strength of personality or voice, but that suits a dominated, wheedling portrayal of Telramund and it's an effective performance. Ingela Brimberg mostly meets the challenges of the role of Elsa and her voice likewise complements that of Eric Cutler as Lohengrin. Cutler is almost Italianate in his phrasing and lyricism, if not quite to the extent of Piotr Beczala (at Dresden). With Klaus Florian Vogt's monopolisation of the role in recent years however, we know that a lighter higher voice can work well, but it's a romantic-heroic role that allows a wide range of interpretation, and it's always interesting to see what a new voice can bring to it.

It felt like it was more Alain Altinoglu's conducting of the La Monnaie orchestra that was a little stiff, not really succeeding in capturing the romantic lyricism of the opera or finding a way to connect it with the perhaps harder edged tone of the production - but as ever it's hard to give a fair assessment of that from the compressed audio reproduction of a live streamed broadcast. There are moments however that capture the more militaristic and Germanic side of the work well, and some fine contrasting moments of warmth and sentiment, as in the lovely warm low brass of Lohengrin's regret in having to reveal his identity. It's an interesting production, one that does try to engage with the issues surrounding Lohengrin and its subsequent history, and indeed even look at it as an opera that looks towards the future, but inevitably in those circumstances - much like Hans Neuenfel's recent Bayreuth production - it doesn't feel like it gives a true sense of the opera as Wagner may have intended it.

Links: La Monnaie, ARTE Concert