United Kingdom Wagner, The Rhinegold: Soloists, Orchestra of English National Opera / Martyn Brabbins (conductor). London Coliseum, 18.2.2023. (CC)
Production:
Director – Richard Jones
Designer – Stewart Laing
Lighting – Adam Silverman
Video – Akhila Krishnan
Movement – Sarah Fahie
Translation – John Deathridge
Cast:
Woglinde – Eleanor Dennis
Wellgunde – Idunnu Münch
Flosshilde – Katie Stevenson
Alberich – Leigh Melrose
Mime – John Findon
Wotan – John Relyea
Fricka – Madeleine Shaw
Loge – Frederick Ballentine
Freia – Katie Lowe
Froh – Julian Hubbard
Donner – Blake Denson
Erda – Christine Rice
Fasolt – Simon Bailey
Fafner – James Creswell
After presenting the primary day of the Ring, Die Walküre (or, in English National Opera’s fingers, The Valkyrie, Mark Berry’s overview right here), we have now the Vorabend. Das Rheingold, a ‘preludial evening’ which, in its 4 scenes – no interval right here – units the stall for the three ‘days’ that comply with. An odd inversion in itself, however we ought to be grateful that ENO’s Rhinegold is right here in any respect. And it was so heart-warming to see such a full theatre, and to listen to the cheers on the finish, significantly (and deservedly) for the orchestra and its conductor, Martyn Brabbins.
But first, the staging. There is a lot to deconstruct right here. It is an entertaining night – a chap within the row behind us thought a lot of it hilarious judging by the guffaws – however is the deliberate cheapness in Richard Jones’s staging a cheapening of Wagner? The nice Meister (that’s Wagner) is mining the traditional Edda, in spite of everything, historical tales that talk extra to our unconscious, to mankind’s collective reminiscence. They are timeless for a cause, as is Wagner’s take. The political shenanigans and greed appear all too related at present. Wagner’s scores have been the gas of a large number of directorial approaches, and this one is especially rife with concepts, virtually an excessive amount of so.
Here, the gold is initially proven as a Golden Baby Bunraku puppet – shades, certainly, of Stephen Langridge’s Gothenburg eco-Ring, the place a Golden Child (there truly performed by an actual individual tightly clad all in gold) was a significant a part of his conception? Here, we see the gold decreased to a hoop in a course of that appears the inverse of what we see on the opening – a gap the place a unadorned man drags a chunk of tree (the World Ash, presumably) on and off stage, showing initially stark bare and regularly including layers. Only then can we hear the chthonic opening – certainly the start of time itself? So is that this pre-temporal?
There is little doubt concepts tumble over each other on this staging. Clouds appear like fashions of molecules (or a reference to genetics, maybe?); a reflective, glittery taffeta-like curtain speaks of Soho strip golf equipment of previous (so I’m informed …). We see Norns, a untimely shock, dressed as schoolgirls, Rhinemaidens as health club bunnies, Erda in pink pyjamas, Freia in a scarily yellow costume and boiler-suited near-identical giants (Fasolt and Fafner). A troupe of black clad figures appear to look at and even direct characters’ actions. Mime is crushed not by Alberich, however by Alberichs, very a lot within the plural, in a brutal gang beating that invokes The Matrix movies. A remaining shock – the shimmering curtain permits the Gods and Goddesses to enter right into a Valhalla that’s extra jail than heavenly stronghold. A door with an enormous lock retains out the Rhinemaidens, who pound on the home windows, that are closed one after the other. Wotan and his troupe’s arrival feels (rightly) hole.
It is, although, a stroke of genius to have Fasolt and Fafner as near-doubles, each initially wearing workmen’s boiler fits after their labour; later, a truck is pushed onto the stage to obtain the gold. However, the transformations effected within the story by way of the Tarnhelm (which seems to be mouldable chainmail) are once more certainly intentionally comedian ebook, significantly the dragon costume Alberich wears. One wonders how Siegfried will emerge; and whether or not the golden child will return in ‘human/doll’ type in Götterdämmerung? We should wait and see, after all: although it may very well be an extended wait.
There are video parts right here (Akhila Krishnan) however they’re few and underwhelming – bars that transfer throughout the stage, ribbons of color. All of which may make one surprise whether it is value going. It is, however for (most of) the singing and definitely for the glowing ENO orchestra. Brabbins paces the work brilliantly, with few drops in stress. The orchestra is big – harps seem in an viewers field to the left (there was a pleasant pre-show rehearsal for these of us who took our seats early), percussion in a single to the proper. From the quietest pianissimo to probably the most horrifying of shrieks in Nibelheim, the ENO band is on hearth. Watching Brabbins, it’s clear he is aware of each observe of the rating intimately and communicates his interpretation viscerally to his gamers. Some woodwind solos had been ravishing (the oboe particularly, when the gods fade with the lack of the facility of the Golden Apples after Freia’s abduction by the giants), the brass ringing and resplendent, whereas the strings performed with a unanimity I bear in mind solely hardly ever encountering at St Martin’s Lane. How palpably the orchestra slithered as Wotan and Loge descended into Nibelheim; how powerfully they acclaimed Valhalla, how brilliantly they invoked the Rhine.
So to the singers. Who ought to I start with? The Wotan? The Fricka? No: credit score the place credit score is due, Blake Denson’s Donner was magnificent. He took a personality who actually has just one massive second (on the very finish) and gave him depth and energy. Power, actually, in vocal phrases, however Denson has actual stage presence too. The Canadian bass-baritone John Relyea, making his ENO debut, was a fantastic, robust Wotan, authoritative and assured. Wonderful to see Christine Rice as an all-knowing Erda, deeply sensible regardless of her pyjamas (!), and in addition deeply resonant of voice. The pairing of Alberich and Mime was, like that of the giants, finely judged, with John Findon sensible because the put-upon Mine and Leigh Melrose as a deliciously crazed Alberich. Melrose was completely convincing as the facility mad Alberich. We believed his lust for the Rhinemaidens as a lot as we believed his denunciation of affection and, later, his curse, his C-major arpeggiation powerfully delivered in opposition to the timpani’s tritonally distant pedal F sharp.
While Frederick Ballentine was a properly un-clichéd Loge, the demi-god who accompanies Wotan to Nibelheim and who feedback on the gods’ foolhardiness on the night’s shut, he had massive footwear to fill after James Schouten’s awe-inspiring assumption of the position for Regents Opera over on the Grand Temple of Freemasons Hall lately (November 2022): within the remaining evaluation, Schouten’s studying was extra compelling. If Madeleine Shaw’s Fricka was generally a contact shrill, her query to Wotan on the shut (asking what the title Valhalla means) made its mark straight and true, Katie Lowe made a fantastic fist of the intentionally girlish Freia. Both of the giants, Simon Bailey and James Creswell, had been impeccable of their personification of greed and lust (on this staging, Freia appears unwilling to go away them), whereas Julian Hubbard was a fantastic, fresh-voiced, robust Froh.
Two of the three Rhinemaidens are ex-ENO Harewood Artists (previously often known as the ENO Jerwood Young Singers Programme): Eleanor Dennis and Katie Stevenson, and the remaining maiden (Idunnu Münch) is a present ENO Harewood Artist. They had been a riot, humorous of their taunting of Alberich and well-matched vocally.
Adam Silverman’s lighting is especially properly accomplished, and one can not fault the excellent nature of Stewart Laing’s designs, at the same time as one questions the general fundamental conception.
Musically, this can be a improbable night to not be missed. My private jury, nonetheless, stays out as regards the manufacturing.
Colin Clarke