Italy Wagner, Das Rheingold: Soloists, Orchestra of La Scala, Milan / Simone Young (conductor). Broadcast live (directed by Anna Gettel) from La Scala, Milan, 3.11.2024. (JPr)
Ten years after mounting their last Ring cycle, Milan’s La Scala are setting off down a new Ring road which will be completed in 2026. There are new productions of Wagner’s tetralogy seemingly everywhere at the moment, indeed Munich began their one (review here) just a day before the first night of David McVicar’s new Das Rheingold in Milan. You would think there is an over-abundance of Wagnerian singing talent – but I don’t think there is – and in Milan, yes there are some new names, but also some very familiar faces, whose best days, vocally (and physically?) maybe behind them.
In younger days McVicar was opera’s enfant terrible, a veritable provocateur if you will, but in the more recent times (the last decade or so) he seems, from what I have seen, to have settled into more of a Jonathan Miller last act cosiness. Nevertheless, at the end of this Rheingold memories returned to some of McVicar’s blood-soaked early productions as a figure – looking as if he had been flailed within an inch of his life – writhed at the bottom of the monumental Escher-like steps leading up to Valhalla. The gods were arranged on these having crossed an (unseen) bridge which thanks to Katy Tucker’s videography (impressive throughout this Rheingold) was less rainbow and more northern lights. I assume the naked man who was covered in blood was the same one who at the start of the opera had embodied the Rheingold and wore the gold mask which Alberich subsequently stole from the Rhinemaidens.
There is so much that is puzzling about this Das Rheingold (isn’t that always the case at the start of a new Ring?) and will we get answers to all our questions by 2026, only time will tell. Hands and masks are important apparently to McVicar. I know there is a cast of Wagner’s right hand and on the front curtain that disappointingly descends between scenes there is a hand shown within a sort-of ring and on the floor of the Rhine (all atmospherically lit by David Finn) are three huge hands, a mix of right and left ones.
We begin to see a suggestion of a traditional production but with some head-scratching oddities. The Rhinemaidens look like Rhinemaidens though there is no sense of them swimming. Alberich – Ólafur Sigurdarson in a fat suit – waddles unconvincingly about the wet-looking floor though looks every bit the ‘swarthy, scaly, sulphurous dwarf’ (as described as in the subtitles) albeit with a curved horned helmet. That mostly naked Rheingold figure performs some contemporary ballet contortions before losing his golden mask.
We meet the gods in and around their revolving steps, they are mostly masked too, and this may signify the youth and immortality conferred on them by Freia’s golden apples. The masks are taken away when she is and returned when Freia comes back and is released by the giants. The cast are relatively static and most of the work for them is done by four bald, bare-chested figures in black skirts (looking a bit like Egyptian servants from antiquity). In general, along with the masks, there is a hint of Venetian carnival to Emma Kingsbury’s costumes, though Fricka, interestingly, has her hair styled like ram’s horns. Goodness knows what or who Loge is supposed to be, a solid red wig, ruff, and a big skirt he swished give him more than a hint, for me, of Queen Elizabeth I. There were accompanying arch facial expressions and fay gestures and aided by two of the ‘servants’ behind him some Ganesh-like semaphoring. Even worse was the supersized giants, Fasolt and Fafner, performed by the singers on stilts, given large heads and hands making them look like stringless puppets (Google the Aquaphibians from Gerry Anderson’s Stingray).
Nibelheim was a huge golden skull under construction and surrounded by scaffolding. Just like Wotan actually has a spear, Alberich has a reasonably proper chain mail Tarnhelm and his transfiguration into a giant snake or small toad finds these creatures in skeletal form ‘brought to life’ by puppeteers. The Nibelung horde when brought up from the depths to ransom Freia is sections of a golden mask though the Ring is only a tiny one which Wotan puts on his right little finger. The stairway to Valhalla turns and in an alcove within it we see Erda who holds a blue globe but has long white hair making her look like the Addams Family’s Cousin Itt. Fafner’s slaying of Fasolt was incredibly poorly staged and he just wanders away. Donner wields a hammer to conjures up a storm aided by some dramatic thunder and lightning effects before Froh summons a rainbow bridge, or as mentioned above, the aurora borealis.
Singing-wise Michael Volle is still a great Wotan and has the role ever been sung by someone who imparts so much meaning to nearly every word he sings. Physically however Volle has apparently not recovered from the leg injury which made him cancel some performances in Bayreuth in the summer and was clearly limping. Wotan is not that world-weary at this point in the Ring and Volle obviously needed the spear possibly as a walking aid and was struggling going up the steps at the end. Hopefully Volle can return to full fitness soon.
The Rhinemaidens acted well and were a harmonious trio (Andrea Carroll, Svetlina Stoyanova, Virginie Verrez), though I find Ólafur Sigurdarson’s Alberich too severe and rather ‘one-note’; lacking any vocal splendour and real expression, even if his curse was suitably chilling. Making the most of what little they get to sing: Okka von der Damerau was an imperious and regal Fricka, Olga Bezsmertna an affecting Freia; Andrè Schuen sang Donner’s ‘Heda! Heda! Hedo!’ in a fine declamatory way; Siyabonga Maqungo was a fresh-voiced Froh; Christa Mayer’s Erda was resonantly sung; Jongmin Park was the suitably infatuated Fasolt while Ain Anger the more venal Fafner; Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke was the downtrodden Mime who relishes the comeuppance of his brother Alberich; finally, and letting the side down, Norbert Ernst’s Loge was as poorly sung as I have ever heard it on such a prestigious occasion.
This developing Ring cycle was to have been conducted by Christian Thielemann and he withdrew from this Rheingold – and subsequently the entire Ring – after tendon surgery; though I wonder how much McVicar’s proposed production might have had to do with it. Thielemann has been replaced by Simone Young and Alexander Soddy. Young’s always self-evident Wagnerian credentials have finally been more widely recognised thanks to her conducting at Bayreuth where this summer she became the first woman to conduct the Ring cycle there. From what I heard through loudspeakers, it was a well-balanced, fairly conversational Rheingold allowing all the singers to enunciate the text whilst her fine orchestra was let off the leash for highlights such as the Descent and Ascent from Nibelheim and Entry of the Gods into Valhalla.
So is the lack of an apparent Konzept a bad thing, only time will tell?
Jim Pritchard
Featured Image: David McVicar’s new Das Rheingold for La Scala © Brescia e Amisano
Creatives:
Staging – Sir David McVicar
Sets – Sir David McVicar and Hannah Postlethwaite
Costumes – Emma Kingsbury
Lighting – David Finn
Video – Katy Tucker
Choreography – Gareth Mole
Master martial arts / circus performance – David Greeves
Cast:
Wotan – Michael Volle
Donner – Andrè Schuen
Froh – Siyabonga Maqungo
Loge – Norbert Ernst
Alberich – Ólafur Sigurdarson
Mime – Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke
Fasolt – Jongmin Park
Fafner – Ain Anger
Fricka – Okka von der Damerau
Freia – Olga Bezsmertna
Erda – Christa Mayer
Woglinde – Andrea Carroll
Wellgunde – Svetlina Stoyanova
Flosshilde – Virginie Verrez