Dmitri Tcherniakov experiments with Das Rheingold at Berlin’s Staatsoper – Seen and Heard International

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Dmitri Tcherniakov experiments with Das Rheingold at Berlin’s Staatsoper – Seen and Heard International


Dmitri Tcherniakov experiments with Das Rheingold at Berlin’s Staatsoper – Seen and Heard InternationalGermany Wagner, Das Rheingold: Soloists, Staatskapelle Berlin / Christian Thielemann (conductor). Filmed (directed by Andy Sommer) on 29.10.2022 at Staatsoper Unter den Linden however out there till 17.2.2023 on ARTE Concert. (JPr)

Rolando Villazón (Loge), Johannes Martin Kränzle (Alberich) and Michael Volle (Wotan) © Monika Rittershaus

Production:
Director, Set Design – Dmitri Tcherniakov
Costumes – Elena Zaytseva
Light – Gleb Filshtinsky
Video – Alexey Poluboyarinov
Dramaturgy – Tatiana Werestchagina, Christoph Lang

Cast:
Wotan – Michael Volle
Donner – Lauri Vasar
Froh – Siyabonga Maqungo
Loge – Rolando Villazón
Fricka – Claudia Mahnke
Freia – Anett Fritsch
Erda – Anna Kissjudit
Alberich – Johannes Martin Kränzle
Mime – Stephan Rügamer
Fasolt – Mika Kares
Fafner – Peter Rose
Woglinde – Evelin Novak
Wellgunde – Natalia Skrycka
Flosshilde – Anna Lapkovskaja

This new Ring cycle by Dmitri Tcherniakov – unusually accomplished in a single go fairly than created over a number of years – ought to have been part of the prolonged eightieth birthday celebrations at Berlin’s Staatsoper for his or her long-serving music director Daniel Barenboim who was as a result of conduct its three cycles. Sadly, Barenboim has withdrawn from all performances as a result of sickness and I’m certain everybody would hope that is solely short-term and needs him a swift restoration. What was Berlin’s loss additionally turned Berlin’s acquire as a result of Christian Thielemann was out there to interchange him in two of the three cycles.

Barenboim however, Thielemann is probably the Wagner conductor of his technology with many memorable performances on the Berlin’s Deutsche Oper, Dresden’s Semper Oper and the Bayreuth Festival. Thielemann doesn’t have the connection with these three firms that he as soon as did and it was questioned what could be subsequent for him. One manner or one other his future appears to be brilliant and if the reception – from each the viewers and the orchestra – to this Das Rheingold is replicated in all his performances then he should be favorite to succeed Barenboim when the time comes {that a} success is sought. This is all of the extra outstanding if you realise – because the hearsay mill has it – that Barenboim and Thielemann haven’t all the time been the most effective of pals, and that is the primary time he has carried out on the Staatsoper.

Tcherniakov – performing as his personal set designer – has created an incredible multifloored and multiroomed set and it appears to be like to me that there’s more cash on stage than Covent Garden in all probability will get for a whole season of latest productions. It seems to be a single constructing that may cross the stage or stand up and down by its totally different flooring proven related by a elevate. Essentially, we see a analysis facility conducting experiments on human behaviour and it’s named ESCHE; standing for Experimental Scientific Centre for Human Evolution or – for individuals who know their Wagner – German for (the world) ash tree. The tree which is so important to the libretto of the Ring.

First, we see black and white video of mind cells being injected and its subsequent results. It is being protected in an auditorium to many we are going to subsequently see inhabiting this Rheingold. We quickly transfer to the blindfolded Alberich who’s confined to a stress laboratory and being monitored by the white-coated Rhinemaidens with their clipboards and studied by some observers. A volunteer or not, he’s surrounded by a battery of kit a few of which he’s wired as much as with a cap of electrodes on his head. He is stimulated initially into sexual frenzy and subsequently a want for the riches and the facility to rule the world the Rhinegold provides. It finally turns into an excessive amount of for the enraged Alberich and after wreaking havoc he breaks out of the lab taking a number of the gear with him.

After a video of some architects’ plans, we’re again in that opening lecture corridor. We realise from Elena Zaytseva’s costumes – largely browns or different muted colors – that it’s in all probability the Seventies (the massive computer systems seen earlier additionally recommended that). Wotan is clearly in control of ESCHE and the contracts we hear talked about are represented by the paperwork he’s proven trying by within the marble lined convention room we now have moved to with cameo plaques (of well-known scientists?) on the wall. It shall be clear by now that nothing – nicely, virtually nothing as we do finally get a hoop – Tcherniakov reveals us could be recognised by Wagner. Loge is proven exterior the door ready to be invited in. Fasolt and Fafner are the not-so-giant gangster-like giants who’re accompanied by 4 henchmen and are coming for his or her cash having maybe not acquired from Wotan what they have been anticipating for all their development work. From a walkway above, Erda (one other ESCHE worker?) watches on.

Dmitri Tcherniakov’s Das Rheingold © Monika Rittershaus

This higher stage is related by the elevate through a ground of caged rabbits (which has proved controversial) to the basement (Nibelheim) and in between we see the slogan Untersuchung menschlicher Verhaltensmodelle in einer Testgruppe (Studying human behaviour fashions in a check group). Mime and others (probably members of that check group) try to get Alberich’s stolen equipment working. Alberich has a hoop that completely no one is scared of and the Tarnhelm is simply his cap of electrodes, and he should nonetheless be affected by delusions as a result of it does nothing magical when he places it on. He is ridiculed by Wotan and Loge and two attendants reply to Wotan’s telephone name and are available and take Alberich away.

It is obvious that Alberich has misplaced the plot (in additional methods than one!) and everybody now will truly recognise the wrestle for his ring, however what’s the level of gaining it? Naturally there isn’t any gold as such, and this may occasionally simply be merely the handover of shares and shares. Fricka treats Erda as Wotan’s ‘other woman’. After Wotan settles his money owed, Fafner photographs Fasolt who will get dragged away. The closing scene takes place in a curved lobby with a central ash tree and Donner and Froh carry out magic methods – as their celebration items – for these seated round it. Donner’s ‘mists and vapours’ come out of his sleeves, flames are produced from Wotan’s pockets, and there are different flashes and flames, together with from a sword Donner brandishes, while Froh produces a rainbow streamer from a flower. At the top Loge simply lights a cigarette earlier than the set descends earlier than returning as much as present Wotan alone with the tree.

ARTE Concert present this complete cycle from 19 November, so I’ll see the way it develops and the best way this Rheingold suits into it so it will not be proper to supply ‘summary judgement’ after simply this ‘preliminary evening’. Clearly Tcherniakov will horrify traditionalists however with my lengthy expertise of human rats (Lohengrin) and animatronic crocodiles (Siegfried) at Bayreuth what’s the problem with actual rabbits in a Berlin Rheingold?

It is a provided that – as heard by loudspeakers – this was a perfectly carried out Rheingold and peerlessly performed by the Staatskapelle Berlin. It took a grip on me from the primary, barely audible, rumbling E-flat on the backside of the Rhine to the brass blazing gloriously because the gods cross the rainbow bridge into Valhalla (no less than in our creativeness, if not on stage).

The forged was Barenboim’s and never Thielemann’s however was comprised of a number of tremendous singing-actors capable of not solely act however react with dramatic credibility onstage. Michael Volle is maybe the main baritone of his technology given the variety of performances he offers and the breath of the roles he undertakes. As anticipated, he proves to be an distinctive Wotan, much less autocratic god and extra harassed CEO, and his singing was fantastically phrased with a transparent supply of the textual content. Equally good in their very own methods have been Johannes Martin Kränzle (Alberich), Stephan Rügamer (Mime), Claudia Mahnke (Fricka) and Peter Rose (Fafner) who will reappear later within the cycle together with Anna Kissjudit’s Erda and the trio of Rhinemaidens (Evelin Novak, Natalia Skrycka and Anna Lapkovskaja). (I’ll remark extra on all these singers in additional evaluations.) Mika Kares introduced uncommon poignancy to Fasolt’s romantic yearnings for Anett Fritsch’s radiant Freia, while Siyabonga Maqungo sang Froh with a lovely, candy sound, though Lauri Vasar’s efficiency might have suffered from Tcherniakov’s interpretation of Donner as a geek. Dividing opinion has been Rolando Villazón’s casting as Loge, it was clear that his character was pulling the strings and had a sardonic perspective to all occurring round him. Villazón all the time appears a fidgety, excitable and irrepressible character and that’s what he delivered to Loge. Of course, his voice is a shadow of what it as soon as was and – if he’s to proceed as a Wagner character tenor – sounded extra suited to Mime.

Jim Pritchard

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