Wagner - Siegfried (Berlin, 2022)

Richard Wagner - Siegfried

Staatsoper unter den Linden, Berlin - 2022

Christian Thielemann, Dmitri Tcherniakov, Andreas Schager, Stephan Rügamer, Michael Volle, Anja Kampe, Johannes Martin Kränzle, Peter Rose, Anna Kissjudit, Victoria Randem

ARTE Concert - October 2022

Up to this point, with Das Rheingold and Die Walküre, Dmitri Tcherniakov hasn't really revealed any compelling new insights or themes in his Berlin Staatsoper production of Der Ring des Nibelungen, which makes the prospect of what is to come in the remaining two parts feel something of a chore. Aside from the music, which can always reveal new facets and colour - and I have to say is well worth listening to under the musical direction of Christian Thielemann - it takes something creative to draw me into Siegfried. Heck, even Wagner decided he needed a break in the middle and embark on a couple of new projects before he could face going back to it. There are a few compensations in this production to make it worthwhile then, but as far as seeking to find a purpose to the cycle as a whole, there's not a great deal to grasp onto here.

Tcherniakov appears to struggle to find any way to make the exposition in the first act of Siegfried a little less tedious. If anything he makes it even more pedestrian. We remain in the same open framework of a room that is seen in the first two operas, where events/experiments are being observed by the watchful eye of Wotan, the Wanderer. Tcherniakov seems to just over-emphasise the rather heavy-handed exposition, already composed in this state by Wagner before he went back and wrote the operas for the backstory, by making Siegfried even more of a child, wearing a tracksuit in a room that is a playpen of colourful building blocks. By way of contrast, Mime and Wanderer look even more doddery old men in old man clothing, with whispy strands of remaining white hair. All of them have little to do but pace up and down.

Michael Volle of course puts heart and soul into it, but it's not enough. Andreas Schager sounds fine as Siegfried, but you get the impression that he is either pacing himself for the long haul or is not really engaged with the depiction of Siegfried he has been saddled with here. There is no forge, nothing to spark and enliven the scene, Siegfried taking a teddy bear and setting fire to the contents of a table top, before taking a sledgehammer to it and anything else within reach. It's almost like Tcherniakov is mocking the heroic fantasy of the work, but doesn't have anything useful to offer as a meaningful commentary on the content of this opera or its deeper purpose. Unless it's a willful expression of destruction of the old with the intent of building something new, including destroying old Wagnerian tropes and mannerisms in order to forge it anew, not unlike Katharina Wagner's controversial 2008 Bayreuth Die Meistersinger von Nürnburg.

That would also seem to be the intention, what little you can make of it, of his approach to the second act of Siegfried, where - reminding us that this is not reality taking place in a laboratory of some sort - we are advised that the next experiment is soon to commence. Siegfried is the subject of the experiment this time, the defeat of the 'dragon' Fafner (a demented inmate of the institution) which permits him to gain an insight into the secret hidden intentions and corruption of the older generation. (The Wanderer looks even more decrepit in this act, but still more stable than Alberich with his walking frame). He is given the opportunity to deal with them in a "realisation of unconscious desire", and clearly, he rejects their greed. Presumably though, from what we know of how events play out, he doesn't have the substance to make a better world.

Whatever you want to make of this, the second act is at least considerably more entertaining and engaging than the first act. It has a solid performance from Schager, and lovely singing from Victoria Randem as the Waldvogel, able to actually grace the stage thanks to this production's overturning of Wagner's stage directions, presumably as one of the lab assistants leading him through the path of the experiment. There is also excellent sparring between Michael Volle and Johannes Martin Kränzle as the doddery old Wanderer and Alberich. I also enjoyed what Stephan Rügamer brought to the second act as Mime, the combined singing performances along with Thielemann's musical direction ensuring that it was a livelier act than the previous one.

The third Act also gets off to a good start with a powerful scene between the aged Wanderer and Anna Kissjudit's Erda, which in the context here might be another behind-the-scenes image of Wotan discussing the project with the Erda as Project Manager. Who knows? Any desire to make an effort to make sense of this disappears when the Wanderer leads a laughing and joking Brünnhilde into a Sleep Laboratory as if to carry on the experiment between her and Siegfried. Bringing her cuddly toy Grane with her she draws flames on the glass walls with a marker. Siegfried soon gets in on the joke and he and Brünnhilde then break into laughter at the pomposity of it all, try to compose themselves and then act out the heroic romantic declamation with a twinkle in the eye and a wink.

That's all very well. We know that Tcherniakov can't possibly take the Wagnerian heroic fantasy elements seriously, as we've seen in his previous Wagner operas (Parsifal, Tristan und Isolde, Der fliegende Holländer), but this time it feels like he is mocking it without being able to offer any deeper insight into the underlying meaning in the work or find some human element worth drawing out. Admittedly Parsifal and Tristan und Isolde have far more intriguing philosophical and spiritual levels that present more opportunities for ideas to be explored, but it's as if the director is not really making any effort to make sense or provide consistency here. The silliness of the direction doesn't do Anja Kampe or Andreas Schager any favours as they struggle to make the high-flown sentiments sound meaningful, but it's still a vocal challenge that Kampe can't quite measure up to. Schager does well enough, but he is certainly tested.

Yet as absurd as it gets there are moments of sublimity to be found there, not least in the work's regretful, fearful moments, mainly between Wotan and Brünnhilde, and in the ever-intriguing score that Thielemann conducts, finding that deep seam of human feeling and impending tragedy that lies within. Dmitri Tcherniakov could surely be expected to do more with Siegfried and the Ring as a whole than merely subvert it, but perhaps in some way he is also finding or attempting to find a way to express the heart of the work without all the heroic and mythological embellishments. While there are good moments here, I'm not sure he really succeeds in whatever it is he is trying to achieve.

Links: Staatsoper unter den Linden, ARTE Concert

Wagner - Tristan und Isolde (Berlin, 2018)

Richard Wagner - Tristan und Isolde (Berlin)

Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Berlin - 2018

Daniel Barenboim, Dmitri Tcherniakov, Andreas Schager, Stephen Milling, Anja Kampe, Boaz Daniel, Stephan Rügamer, Ekaterina Gubanova, Adam Kutny, Linard Vrielink

Culturebox - February 2018
 
Even if the setting is very different from what you might expect, and there are one or two interpolations or diversions from the script, Dmitri Tcherniakov's production of Tristan und Isolde adheres fairly closely to the original specifications in the libretto, much like his last production of a Wagner opera at the Berlin Staastoper Under den Linden, Parsifal. There's always a case to be made for a more abstract setting for both works, which operate more on a spiritual level than a geographical one, and that was certainly the case with Harry Kupfer's production which this new one replaces. Tcherniakov however seems to reject this high-flown abstraction and throw out the Schopenhauerian philosophical elements that one would think an essential element of the opera, attempting rather to bring the work firmly down to earth and see it in purely human terms.  Surely this is a mistake with a work like Tristan und Isolde?

Well, you would think so, but Tcherniakov nonetheless managed to introduce other ideas and ways of looking at Parsifal into that production, and if not quite reach the heady heights that the work can aspire to (although Daniel Barenboim, with Anja Kampe and Andreas Schager certainly helped the reach the mystical dimension of the work in the music), he did at least find an alternative and perhaps more relatably human way to address some of the questions that this work poses. The same team of Barenboim, Tcherniakov, Kampe and Schager apply a similar approach with this new Tristan und Isolde.

Act I takes place here in a wood-panelled lounge of a luxury liner, where a group of businessmen in suits sit around enjoying a few post-meeting drinks. They seem to be happy to have conducted a successful deal in Ireland, bringing back a Queen for King Marke of Cornwall. A screen shows voyage updates and video cam footage around the ship, Isolde becoming increasingly irritated as they approach the English shores. Other than the obvious modernisation of the set however, there is little that deviates (and there's little room to deviate one would think) from the original stage directions.

The one area where there is opportunity to establish a character on the work in Act I is obviously the drinking of the love potion and here Brangäne, visibly distressed at Isolde's desire to use a death potion, obviously doesn't add it to the drink, but neither does she switch it for a love potion. Sharing a hefty glass of vodka, you are left with the impression that it's just the alcohol that breaks down Tristan and Isolde inhibitions and reveals their true feelings for each other. It's hardly the most romantic depiction of the love potion scene, but there are other musical and dramatic elements at play here and Tcherniakov superimposes a brief green-tinted projection of Isolde nursing the wounded Tristan from their encounter in Ireland over the proceedings. It's not much but it does achieve the necessary background for the deep shift of overwhelming and uncontrollable desire that defies normal human boundaries.

Those boundaries however in Tcherniakov's vision remain the rather more mundane ones of middle class morality and social convention. In Act II we're in an elegant drawing room, the walls again decorated with wood panelling and images of trees and a lamp to update the original stage directions. It's the same kind of society that we see in Tcherniakov's productions of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, but here Isolde is an outsider in a world of her own, enraptured by the Goddess of Love. I don't know about Tcherniakov, but Barenboim and Kampe raise the game considerably in Act II, peaking to a fury and a force as Tristan not so much slips in to meet Isolde as practically dances in. Tcherniakov shows two people unbridled and enraptured by something greater, dancing with joy, oblivious to the world outside, giving no thought to social niceties that would restrict and bear down heavily on their illicit union.

It may take some of the spirituality and philosophical musing out of the opera, but as a reflection of how it relates to Wagner's inspiration and desires and his attempts to elevate them into something more meaningful, Tcherniakov's approach has validity and, whether you find it appropriate or not, it strips away the work's metaphysical pretensions. Tristan and Isolde's love is not some transcendence of human desire, but a defiant challenge to any kind of social convention or middle-class morality that might seek to disapprove of it or refuse to recognise the purity of feeling within it. And yet, as the green projections reappear and the "O sink hernieder" Night of Love duet establishes an otherworldly setting,you still get a sense of being in the midst of something that surpasses the mundanity of everyday existence, of something that we would all strive to be able to reach. An impossible height? Of course, but if anyone can persuade you that such a state can exist, it's in how Wagner makes the impossible possible in his music.

At the stage in Act II however the tragic crash between the ideal and reality is not yet on the radar of Tristan and Isolde or Wagner, so it's still possible to believe in the impossible and there's no need for faux-solemnity and gravity that is customary in this opera, but rather the evocation of a state of supreme sublime bliss. That element of danger crashes in by the end of Act II however, and when it does it ought to be felt viscerally. No matter what else you make of the Berlin production as a whole, it's in the musical expression and performance of those states under the direction of Daniel Barenboim that the work just soars. Barenboim's pacing and drive is superb, the score measured in mournfulness, ecstatically driven where necessary without ever being aggressive, shifting from lyrical to dramatic, from a roar to a whimper. With emphasis (at least in the mix of the streamed recording) on brass and woodwind rather than the darker strings, there is more colour given to those moods, shifting emphasis in ways I've never heard before.

Barenboim also takes care in the conducting to allow space for and support of the singing voices. Accordingly, Act III of this Tristan und Isolde is one of the most complete and impressive I've ever seen. Andreas Schager almost makes Act III look effortless, drawing on inexhaustible reserves. You might think that he is perhaps too lively for a mortally wounded man - although there is no obvious wound struck in Act II - but it's clear that if he's going to expire it's won't be from a sword wound but rather exploding with ecstasy, which indeed is more true to Tristan's fate. It's here that the director interpolates somewhat, showing Tristan lost in memories of his mother and father, or reveries even since his mother is pregnant with him in the acted-out domestic scenes that share the stage with him (and a cor anglais player) in his room on Kareol. Tcherniakov at least attempts to make something more of the words and it's certainly more thoughtful than playing the scene with him just writhing in delirium.

Whether you can rationalise it as being something to do with death and rebirth, somehow the simple image of an alarm clock and the drawing of a curtain over the little back room where the prostrate lifeless form of Tristan has been carried creates an extraordinarily effective and moving finale. I don't know if it's really within Wagner's intentions, whether it just finds another way to approach what Wagner intended, but aligned to that remarkable music, with Barenboim's conducting and Anja Kampe reaching those incredible heights, Dmitri Tcherniakov's production does seem to find its own way to capture the indescribable beauty of the sentiments of the final scene. Whatever else you might think about the production, if it gets you there and makes that kind of impact, it's done something right.

Links: Berlin Staatsoper, Culturebox

Wagner - Das Rheingold

Richard Wagner - Das Rheingold

Teatro alla Scala, 2010

Daniel Barenboim, Guy Cassiers, René Pape, Johannes Martin Kränzle, Doris Soffel, Kwang Chulyoun, Timo Riihouen, Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke, Stephan Rügamer, Jan Buchwald, Marco Jentzch, Anna Samuil, Anna Larsson, Aga Mikolaj, Maria Gortsevskaya, Marina Prudenskaya

Arthaus Musik - Blu-ray

The true musical merit and the importance of Das Rheingold is often underestimated or at least overlooked on account of its designation as merely the Prologue to the three parts proper of Wagner's epic Ring saga. For the public certainly it at least sets the tone for the grandeur and the admittedly greater dramatic and musical richness that can be found in the Die Walküre that follows, but I suspect it's treated with no less musical and conceptual rigour by the conductor and the director who embark on any new Ring cycle. Perhaps even more so, since it's important to establish from the outset what distinctive approach is going to be taken, and whether it can settle on the precise balance required that will propel the audience compellingly into this unique musical journey.

The first part of the new Teatro alla Scala Ring, created in 2010, fulfils that remit well, with Daniel Barenboim managing proceedings with precision and drive from the orchestra pit and director Guy Cassiers fulfilling all the requirements to establish a suitable tone that fully supports the work. With the assistance of choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, there may even be something of a distinct vision that offers a sense of the shape the subsequent parts of the tetralogy might take. I don't know what Wagner would have made of ballet being incorporated into Das Rheingold, but the Prologue of the Ring - the ultimate expression of the Gesamtkunstwerk - can use a little bit of extra spectacle and stage innovation to draw out those deeper premonitory resonances within the work.

The combination of the music interacting with the staging is at least superb during the opening scene. In the beginning there is nothing, just darkness, then there's the sense of water and life as the Rhinemaidens drift in an out of the shadows in response to the attentions of the Alberich. The sun eventually rises to bath the stage in shimmering gold at the same time as it dawns on the Niebelung goblin that he has something greater within his grasp more covetable than the three bathing beauties. The resonances of the gold, the power that it confers on the person who wields the ring made from it (the "ring" incidentally a shimmering glove here) and the outcome that it eventually holds for the gods is all there in the music and the force of it comes through in Barenboim's meticulous account of the work and in the performance of Johannes Martin Kränzle as Alberich.

It's also there in the background projections and in the contribution of the dancers in this production. In addition to the fine performance of the work on the surface level of the stage direction and the singing, the greater significance of what is being played out here is projected in abstract shimmering colours, textures and shadows on the background and in the movements of the dancers. On a straightforward level that means that there are giant-sized shadow counterparts for the giants Fasolt and Fafner, while the dancers meld together to form the Tarnhelm and its transformations, but the use of lighting, colours and abstract shimmering projections of water, rocks and gold also manage to convey a brooding mythological quality to the locations with premonitions of the dark consequences to the epic events that are about to unfold.

In Das Rheingold the more active roles in determining the direction of the drama are in the likes of Alberich, Loge and Fasolt, and these are indeed the performances that shine here. I wasn't sure that Johannes Martin Kränzle benevolent slightly comical appearance could carry off Alberich, even with the disturbing disfigurement of a "permanent smile" scar at the edges of his mouth, but he not only sings the role well, he also manages to convey the right impression and tone for each scene, from his achieving enlightenment in his renouncing love for power, through his tyranny over Mime, his pride in his invulnerability, to the agony of his loss of the ring to Wotan and Loge. Stephan Rügamer is a sprightly Loge, clever but cautious, a spring in his step and in his voice. Even though small in stature Kwang Chul Youn is nonetheless impressively capable of sounding much larger as the giant Fasolt. The use of shadowplay helps visualise the size and actions of the giants, but it's all there already in Kwang's performance.

The capabilities of Wotan and Fricke aren't tested here to the same extent that they are in Die Walküre, so both René Pape and Doris Soffel were fine if not quite outstanding in these roles. Pape doesn't always appear to be as comfortable or authoritative in the role of Wotan as he probably ought to be, but how well he eventually manages to fulfils the role and whether that uncertainty is part of his character's make-up should become apparent in the subsequent parts of the Ring. The remaining roles were also adequately performed, Timo Riihouen's Fafner in particular working well with Kwang's Fasolt and Anna Larsson making a suitably dramatic entrance and impact as Erda.

A BD25 disc might seem a little tight to cover an opera that is close to three hours long, but I detected no issues at all with the image or the sound. The transfer is stable and clear, handling dark scenes and all the textures and colouration of the background projections without any shimmer or flickering. The audio tracks are LPCM Stereo and DTS HD-Master Audio 5.1. There's no great benefit to the surround mix, which might even be a little bit too echoing even if it is mainly front-speaker based, but the stereo mix is strong, particularly when listened to through headphones. There are no extras on the disc, just an essay in the booklet that seems to have some rather high-flown ideas about the production. Subtitles are in German, English, French, Spanish, Italian and Korean.