BWW Reviews: GOTTERDAMMERUNG Brings Another Twilight to the Met's RING

Katarina Dalayman is one of a handful of top Wagnerian sopranos in the world, but for the first act of the Met's GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG, the climax of the Met's second "Ring" cycle of the season, she didn't seem very heroic. Neither, for that matter, did tenor Jay Hunter Morris, who caused quite a stir when he jumped into GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG's premiere season a year ago. What went wrong? Who knows? In any case, they recovered vocally for Act 2 and excitingly sailed through the rest of the mammoth, exhausting work.

While Dalayman doesn't have the steel in her voice of legendary Wagnerian Birgit Nilsson--who does?--she made a strong impression and, if anything seemed to grow in power as the opera progressed in its more than 5-½ hour journey. If only the production had given her a stronger exit! In this day when the stage production of "War Horse" brought prop steeds magically to life, it's a pity that Brünnhilde's horse, Grane, looks like it belongs in a child's playroom, and she rides into the pyre for her Immolation scene that is as threatening as an electric fireplace. Set designer Carl Fillion certainly let her down.

I wish that Morris--where was director Robert Lepage?--had worked out a way to seem more naïve and less goofy after taking the potion that makes him forget his relationship to Brünnhilde and fall in love with Gutrune (soprano Wendy Bryn Harmer, who made some beautiful contributions). But he had resources to spare in getting through the challenging role and used them ably.

As usual, the Met Orchestra, under Fabio Luisi, was amazing--without them, there is no magic to the "Ring". (Amazing, too, was that Luisi finished exactly on schedule.) Perhaps the loudest bravos during curtain calls went to Eric Owens as Alberich, and he deserved them, despite his short time on stage during this opera. (His showcase outing as Alberich, the evil dwarf who sets the tetralogy in motion, is in DAS RHEINGOLD.) Appearing in a vision, he thrillingly urges his son, Hagen, the excellent bass Han-Peter Konig, to kill Siegfried and retrieve the Ring, which has been forged from gold stolen from the Rhine.

Mezzo Karen Cargill sings with urgency and skill in her scene as Brünnhilde's sister, Waltraute, begging her sister to save Valhalla, the home of the gods. To do so, she must return the Ring to the Rhinemaidens (the charming Disella Larusdottir, Jennifer Johnson Cano and Renee Tatum, as Woglinde, Wellgunde, and Flosshilde, respectively), but Brünnhilde refuses.

There's been more than enough carping about "the Machine"--the nickname for director Lepage's 45-ton (literally) concept for the four operas that make up Wagner's "Ring" cycle, formally "Der Ring des Nibelungen". But it's such an easy target, creaking and wheezing as it does--and sometimes refusing to move at all, as it did the first time I saw this production--even though it does succeed at being exciting from time to time.

It's at its best when used as a backdrop for the dramatically brilliant projections by Lionel Arnould, or when used as a slide by the Rhinemaidens or as the Valkyries' horses--but that's a lot of technology behind a fairly simple purpose. Sometimes, however, it's downright distracting. When the Norns recapitulate the story of the first three operas and tell of the future, the Machine's planks suddenly seem to be swinging out of control. We're not sure if these effective and game singers (Elizabeth DeShong, Michaela Martens and Heidi Melton) will be beheaded or simply bludgeoned to death. Luckily, they were neither.

There's no Wagner at the Met next season, a rare event. Is this just a break--or does this mean twilight for the "Machine"? Stay tuned.

Photo credit: Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera

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