Goetterdaemmerung at the ROH

This completed the new Covent Garden Ring cycle, with full cycles promised for the autumn of 2007.

At the centre of this performance lay the magnificent playing of the orchestra: some of the most complete Wagner playing I have heard. From the warmth and depth of tone in the lower strings to the brilliance of the brass, every facet of this amazing score was revealed.

Antonio Pappano has a very clear grasp of what I regard as the essentials of great Wagner conducting: control of tempo and control of dynamics. At times he was as slow as Goodall; at others faster than Boehm - but every speed that is chosen fits the music - so the slow music neverdrags ('ohne zu schleppen' as Wagner wrote in the score) and the faster passages never seem rushed ('ziemlich rasch'). His control of dynamics means that the singers are always clearly audible and also that the quiet passages draw the audience in, almost holding our breath; and the loud passages (and surely this opera should produce some of the loudest music ever heard) just about blow you out of your seat.

With one exception, this was a first class cast. Lisa Gasteen(Bruennhilde) started a little tentatively and the top of the voice is not the most glorious. But this is a proper Bruennhilde voice and by the immolation scene it was really flying into the house. She also acts well - literally throwing herself about the stage in the second act.

John Tomlinson gave another outstanding performance as Hagen. Vocally secure and dramatically spot-on, this was vintage Wagner performing.

All the other parts were very well played, with particular mentions of Mihoko Fujimara as Waltraute and of the male chorus in Act II.

The exception, sadly, was John Treleaven's Siegfried. I say sadly because I so much wanted to like and admire his performance but the bestI can give him, honestly, is 'tries hard'. And he does try hard: he has all the notes, he does everything required of him and he looks and sounds as if he is doing his very best. For that reason I thought those who booed him at the end were unkind. But the voice is unattractive, his acting is of school play standard and he looks ungainly and awkward.

What of the production?

Well, this was not nearly as bad as I had been led to expect and a lot of it I liked. People have criticized Keith Warner for lack of a 'grand vision' of the Ring. But is that such a bad thing? What we had instead was mainly straight-forward story-telling, albeit in a modern setting. He tries to find answers to some of the difficulties that Wagner throws up (what do you do about Grane? How do you deal with the scene of Siegfried's return to the Valkyrie Rock disguised as Gunther?). The one idea that jarred heavily with me was that that that scene (and theWaltraute Scene) seemed to be taking place in a corner of the GibichungHall. That looked just like a bit of sloppiness.

Otherwise everything required was there: huge pyrotechnics at the end,with a spectacular fall from Gasteen (Tosca eat your heart out) and even a burning Valhalla and a dying Loge - as the fires also died and theRhine-maidens resumed their inheritance.

Finally, I greatly enjoyed this criticism of a production of Goetterdaemmerung, quoted in the programme (I have paraphrased it slightly):-
'The Director has no regard for Wagner's stage directions. He might have given the poor Norns a thread to wind and no boat could ever have arrived where Siegfried's did. The collapse of the Gibichung hall was unnecessary and unconvincing and considerable dramatic effect is lost if we do not see Siegfried's funeral pyre blazing and Bruennhilde throwing herself into it on her horse.'

Criticism of a piece of 'Euro-trash' or some way-out modern production? No. A review of the Covent Garden production from 1924!