Norse and Germanic mythology is often described as a series of cycles—each a collection of stories about a particular character, object, or event. In the case of Wagner’s operas, the series depicts the Götterdämmerung, or the fall of the gods. It begins with the construction of Wotan’s hall, Valhalla, which he pays for with gold stolen from three river goddesses and fashioned into a ring of power by malevolent sorcerer. For two operas, various figures scheme to gain control of it, a lengthy saga of blood and betrayal that ends only when the trinket is cast into the hero’s funeral pyre, with the gold to be taken from the ashes and returned to the Rhine.
The cycle itself is an epic undertaking. Composed of four operas—The Rhinegold, The Valkyrie, Siegfried, and The Twilight of the Gods—the Ring of the Nibelung, as the story in entirely is called, includes over 16 hours of music and, as the Washington National Opera’s recent production shows, involves a cast of dozens of singers.
This season is the first year that Washington National Opera is presenting the entirety of the cycle, a milestone representing a decade of work. Listening, one has the sense that it was worth the wait.
Alan Held, the bass-baritone playing Wotan, says that he has had a 37-year relationship with the cycle. This personal familiarity shows in the depth of emotion he brings to the role, which help to illuminate the hopeless ennui lying underneath the gods’ immortality. Bound by the rules and laws of his own creation, the god himself becomes a puppet to forces and desires that he can no longer control.
As presented here, the story is less that of a will to power and more of the power of love, which compels Brunnhilde to disobey her father, the giants to build a hall for the gods, and Siegmund and Sieglinde to disobey even natural law in their incestuous love. The desire for power comes only when the quest for love is thwarted.
Much of this exposition was masterfully handled in The Valkyrie by Christine Goerke and Catherine Foster, two sopranos who sang the role of Brunnhilde on different nights. While Foster was an emergency replacement, stepping in after an injury, her performance was beautiful, highlighting the strength of the Valkyrie goddess. Foster, in her American debut, sang Brunnhilde in love, with all the intimacy this conveys. To hear both gave the operas a new depth.
Outside of the music, the opera seemed less certain of itself when it came to the setting. The playbill describes director Francesca Zambello’s vision of “a production using American landscapes and urban imagery…highlighting the very Wagnerian theme of mankind’s violation of nature and destruction of the environment.”
Some of her choices, such as her depiction of Valhalla, highlighted themes of the opera in new and interesting ways. In The Valkerie, the Valkyries conduct heroes into Valhalla and hang their portraits on the back of the stage. Their faces provide a backdrop for the following action. It’s a quiet witness to the idea of valour, the weight of the heroic memory that lingers, unspoken in the minds of Sieglinde, Wotan, Brunnhilde, Siegfried, and Siegmund. When Valhalla burns in the final moments of the opera, the faces of the heroes drift down to the stage, fallen lives like falling leaves.
Unfortunately, many of her other choices were less effective. For the most part, the settings feel thematically disjointed. At the beginning of the cycle, Wotan, his wife Fricka, Mime, and the other gods appear in a world reminiscent of an aristocratic 1930s, with long skirts, hats, and a vaguely military air. By the end of the production, the opera has not only left Valhalla behind, but has visited highway underpasses, forest cabins, and a sleek living room fit for the set of Mad Men. By the end of Twilight of the Gods, the environmental theme has returned, leaving the Rhine maidens to sing while surrounded by bags of trash. The prophetic Norns appear in acid-green rubber aprons, gloves, and goggles reminiscent of a chemical waste spill.
Somehow this feels like it sells the opera short. While Wagner’s characters sing of the weight of fate and destiny, love, and obligation, the director’s attempted message about the sickness of the earth seems at best like a superficial addition and at worst like a distraction.
No matter what the dragon looks like, though, what matters is that the hero slays it and that the song is written to remember his deed. This production masterfully presents both: the hero and the song.
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly referred to Alan Held as Alan Field.
