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Germany Berlin Festtage [4] – Wagner, Siegfried: Soloists, Staatskapelle Berlin / Thomas Guggeis (conductor). Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Berlin, 8.4.2023. (MB)
Production:
Director, Designs – Dmitri Tcherniakov
Costumes – Elena Zaytseva
Lighting – Gleb Filshtinsky
Video – Alexey Polubpoyarinov
Dramaturgy – Tatiana Werestchagina, Christoph Lang
Cast:
Siegfried – Andreas Schager
Mime – Stephan Rügamer
The Wanderer – Michael Volle
Alberich – Jochen Schmeckenbecher
Fafner – Peter Rose
Erda – Anna Kissjudit
Brünnhilde – Anja Kampe
Woodbird – Victoria Randem
Experiments resume, proceed — and, in a number of respects, come into sharper focus. Film footage of a depressing, traumatised little one whose play has gone improper accompanies the primary Prelude to Siegfried. Siegfried, his emotional development stunted at the least partially intentionally by Mime, presents himself. He remains to be a toddler, actually, because the toys within the nook of Mime’s home counsel. He doesn’t know his mother and father, concern, and fairly just a few different issues; the analysis centre, which is at the least partially to say Wagner, will later put him via a sequence of experiments with the intention to educate him concern: a doubtful challenge, one may say, as celebrated scientists – Darwin, Humboldt, Mendel, et al. – look down or gaze impassively. Nothing or every thing to do with them? The selection could also be yours.
A Woodbird in lab coat, paper-bird experimental support handy, types a part of Siegfried’s schooling and additional exploitation. An aged Wotan sporadically watches; such, in any case, is the Wanderer’s method, although he has been doing this, courtesy of one-way mirrors, because the first scene of Die Walküre. Brünnhilde and Siegfried disconcertingly chuckle at their activity, but once we take into account how emotionally – and bodily – abused each of them have been, is their infantilism remotely stunning? Whatever future awaits them in Götterdämmerung, it’s unlikely to be shiny. Norns, usually unflustered, proceed to do their enterprise, no matter it might be. Maybe we will discover out subsequent time.
At least till the third act, Dmitri Tcherniakov and/or his solid’s dedication to detailed characterisation continues to impress. The third act, not fully in contrast to the ultimate scene of Die Walküre, sparkles extra intermittently with scenic inspiration; exploration-cum-confrontations resembling these of Brünnhilde with Wotan and Siegfried respectively, appear not fully to be Tcherniakov’s factor. By the identical token, the reunion of Wotan and Alberich, like cantankerous foes in an previous folks’s house, is richly noticed and more and more sharply differentiated. There is greater than a touch of Beckett, although which will come – it hardly issues – straight from Michael Volle and Jochen Schmeckenbecher, the previous increasing on his unforgettable Bayreuth interactions with Johannes Martin Kränzle as Hans Sachs and Beckmesser. Both artists right here stand on the very prime of their recreation, phrases, music, and gesture combining to supply a masterclass in what Wagner calls for theoretically in Opera and Drama and virtually as each a person of the theatre and a supreme musical dramatist.
Andreas Schager’s Siegfried, by now fairly a widely known amount, stays an astonishing, tireless tour de pressure. It is straightforward to overlook how, not so a few years in the past, we despaired of ever listening to somebody able to singing roles resembling Siegfried and Tristan. A sequence of catastrophes at Covent Garden, as an example, all however derailed performances; Bayreuth appeared little higher. Not solely can Schager sing the function, he can act too — and did, getting into with enthusiasm into Tcherniakov’s world, simply as he had as Parsifal within the director’s manufacturing for this identical home (evaluation click on right here). Boundless power is, in fact, simply the factor for the younger Siegfried particularly; that and extra are what he obtained. Anja Kampe’s Brünnhilde picked up the place she left off final time and duly impressed. Coming chilly to that ultimate scene is a tough factor to ask, but one would by no means have recognized. I hope Tcherniakov will give them each extra to take care of dramatically subsequent time.
The remainder of the solid was wonderful too. Stephan Rügamer’s Mime led us skilfully via the distress of what it’s to be Mime, but additionally the malice and distress that can’t solely be attributed to exterior misfortune. Peter Rose made a stronger impression as Fafner than he maybe had in Das Rheingold. Anna Kissjudit’s Erda, although not given a lot to do by way of theatre – maybe I’m nonetheless hankering after Frank Castorf’s unforgettable portrayal of her (Al)exanderplatz farewell – was fantastically sung as soon as extra. Victoria Randem gave a full of life, ideally projected efficiency of the Woodbird, extremely convincing within the uncommon requests manufactured from her by this specific manufacturing.
Perhaps the best star of all stays the astonishing Staatskapelle Berlin. The orchestra by no means put a foot improper, responding with simply as a lot ability and enthusiasm for Thomas Guggeis as they’d have achieved for Daniel Barenboim. (I do know I ought to cease mentioning him, however…) It leads and feedback on the motion as few can, and albeit can’t be bettered by any orchestra on this repertoire in the present day. Guggeis’s work is equally astonishing, when one considers it. For one so younger, with so little rehearsal time, to take over a Ring and get via it in a single piece could be no imply achievement. Yet he has achieved excess of that, bringing a lot that’s completely different from both Barenboim or Christian Thielemann (earlier this season) with out ever imposing himself upon the rating or the motion. The musical motion flows as if it have been probably the most pure factor on the earth; possibly it’s, nevertheless it doesn’t simply ‘happen’. And there are intriguing indicators of how Guggeis’s interpretation might develop: a steely, wind-led harshness that at occasions remembers the Wagner (and Beethoven) of Karajan, particularly apt on this ‘scherzo’ of the Ring, will stability heady, Romantic, but at all times firmly directed outpourings of nice emotional intelligence. Wagner, one may say, continues to impress and experiment upon us all.
Mark Berry