Götterdämmerung

Last Friday, the 3^rd of February, I ventured into NYC to see Gotterdammerung, the final installment of Wagner’s Ring Cycle at the Metropolitan Opera.

With this opera ends a production that has been equal parts glorious, terrifying, amazing and hideous. I have seen all four operas in the cycle and I must make my confession: I didn’t completely hate it.

For those who don’t know, the current Ring production directed by Robert Lepage has been the source of controversy among opera buffs. The set is a 45-ton, abstract unit known as “the Machine,” consisting of a central spine around which 24 triangular planks rotate. The Machine spins into many different arrangements which, supported by video projections, become the set for each scene.

The Machine as seen in Act III

The production is extremely love-it-or-hate-it. Critics either rant about the bizarre abstractness of the scenery or praise the Met for taking such a bold new step. It is true that some operas make better use of it than others; the Ring is a four-opera endeavor, and the production team was clearly trying new things with each one (Siegfried, for example, used full video projections to convey a forest, while Die Walkure had had Siegmund running through vertical planks representing tree trunks).

I will say that I think Gotterdammerung made the best use of the set out of all four. By that I mean it interacted with the scenes, rather than moving into one position and staying there the whole time (a major fault of Die Walkure). While the Norns sang, for example, ropes suspended from the planks formed the threads of fate; when the threads snapped, the ropes fell and the planks spun freely on their axis before finally coming to a halt, actually making the audience feel the shock of the Norns.

(A note: the Machine has a history of malfunctioning during some performances, with the result that when the first plank let go and spun, I wasn’t sure if it was intentional or not. It took a few moments to realize it was and get back into the scene.)

The video projections were also most effective here. In Siegfried, a backdrop of a forest was all we got for one scene. Here, the planks were given a wooden texture in the Hall of the Gibichungs, which charred and burnt when the world was ending.

Some of the other choices were…questionable at best. The destruction of the world, in my opinion, was far too quick. The hall burns, we see the Gibichungs fleeing the fire, Valhalla is destroyed, and then suddenly the Rhine rises and it’s all over (why did the Rhinemaidens suddenly have legs? They were mermaids in Das Rheingold). It gave the sense that the hall was the destroyed, but definitely not the entire world. Although I must say, the fire effects on Siegfried’s pyre were very effective.

About Valhalla: the death of the gods is shown in perhaps the silliest way possible. And I do mean that: it was absolutely ridiculous and ruined the whole sequence for me. Here’s how it goes: five statues, representing the gods, appear after the hall burns. Then they explode. No lie: the gods explode and arms and heads fall off left and right. And don’t quote me on this, but I’m pretty sure I saw confetti. It was awful.

Also, if we may go back to the set for a minute: I get that Wagner wrote lots of time for scene changes. In his day they actually moved things on and off. But if you’re going to have an instant change in the form of rotating planks, we need more than 15 seconds of movement. Because then the audience is left staring at this configuration for 3 minutes and yes, it’s very pretty, but nothing is happening.

Nor does it move quietly. If the set changes during a quiet piece of music, there’s clanking and groaning coming from the stage.

I will say this about the stars themselves: Wonderful people, all of them. Gutrune might be the only sympathetic character of the lot. Gunther and Brunnhilde plot murder, Hagen carries out the murder, Siegfried (basically) rapes Brunnhilde, but Gutrune only gave Siegfried a love potion, because she did not know he was married.

Jay Hunter Morris returns as Siegfried, which is considered to be one of the most difficult roles to sing. In Siegfried, I loved him. In Gotterdammerung…he failed to impress. He’d put on some weight and just wasn’t convincing as the dashing young hero. The second act was slightly better about that, but in the first and third he was just sort of there. (I can’t be sure, but I think I may have heard his voice do something weird at the top of a high note. But I don’t know). This makes me a sad panda, because Jay Hunter Morris is my homeboy.

Waltraute is my favorite character (forgive me, she’s the most sympathetic. Gutrune pulls in second behind Waltraute). Waltraute is a Valkyrie who comes to find Brunnhilde, saying that Wotan’s gone crazy and Brunnhilde needs to talk some sense into him. Brunnhilde, by this point, is full-on human, with all the emotional irrationality that entails. So when Waltraute pleads for her to return the ring to the Rhinemaidens and end their suffering, Brunnhilde refuses because the ring was given to her as a symbol of Siegfried’s love. And Waltraute can only stare at her in bewilderment.

There were definite pacing problems. Act I dragged, partially because there was a prologue which was in no way differentiated form the rest of the act, causing it to seem like it took forever. Act III was full of what I consider a quintessential opera problem: slow, somber music between each line made it take forever for anything to happen.

Alright, I have to come clean: I’m a little biased. Das Rheingold, the first of the Cycle, was my first opera. Gotterdammerung was my first time seeing anything live at the Met itself. So as flawed as the production was (and it was flawed, deeply) I can’t bring myself to hate it. Opera is an experience. I can’t hate this production for introducing me to it, nor can I be too mad at Gotterdammerung after having seen it live. People have legitimate complaints with the Cycle, and I totally understand that, but if you can get past all that and appreciate the grandiosity, the spectacle, the wonder of two people belting their hearts out in German to a sweeping orchestral score, it’s an amazing phenomenon. I thoroughly enjoyed myself the whole time.

Gotterdammerung plays in theatres on February 11. I definitely recommend it to anyone interested. At the very least, you’ll see some cool imagery.