Die Walkure
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Photo by Monika Rittershaus
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By Michael Van Duzer
Wagner’s Die Walkure, is arguably the most popular of the Ring Operas. It contains the big hits: “Ride of the Valkyries,””Magic Fire Music,””Wintersturme”, and its themes of forbidden love and the power struggle between parent and child resonate with audiences who have never had an incestuous thought in their heads.
It is LA Opera's second premiere in a series that will culminate in three complete Ring Cycles next year. February’s Rheingold introduced Director/Designer Achim Freyer’s individual and idiosyncratic vision of Wagner’s mammoth tetralogy. Individual elements have changed since Rheingold. There is less dependence on puppets and masks as humans enter the story; which is not to say that the humans on the stage are any less stylized than the gods who preceded them.
The landscape retains the major design elements—the omnipresent scrim, the hydraulic turntable, and Wotan’s missing eye still dominate the mis en scene. But the scope and shape of Freyer’s overall concept is becoming clearer. Humanity’s entrance has focused elements that tended to overwhelm the characters in the earlier opera, and their interaction has created an intimacy that Rheingold lacked.
Staging remains ritualized so that the storm that opens Walkure is left to the orchestra and the projections on the scrim. On stage, a figure in black guides the neon hands on a clock while Siegmund and Sieglinde, the long-separated siblings, remain on opposite sides of the stage. They discover love while remaining trapped behind their outer shells. Painted as white and blue mirror images of each other, they handily personify the idea that one is incomplete with the other.
The Valkyries are powerful, dark, and unearthly, wielding neon swords and riding spindly half-cycles with Equus-like sculpted horse heads. Their terrain is littered with the remains of battle, and when they ride, the turntable becomes a carousel of carnage.
For over a decade I have been writing about the astonishing longevity of Placido Domingo and his undiminished vocal power. It has become a cliché. As Siegmund he sings with unflagging vigor and copious musicality. One has the feeling that, as with the Robert Wilson Parsifal, he is more comfortable in naturalistic productions but, at 68, his commitment to the production (both on and off stage) is his gift to the community as Artist and Artistic Director.
Anja Kampe is a sumptuous, passionate, and nuanced Sieglinde. Linda Watson’s Brunhilde takes some time to warm up to, but she brings steel and conviction to the role. Vitalij Kowaljow, who had impressed in the previous outing, is even more centered this time, and his farewell to Brunhilde is exquisite and moving. Michelle DeYoung brings more force and a real sense of canniness to Fricka, while Eric Halfvarson is an appropriately loathsome Hunding. In the pit, Maestro Conlon oversees a multi-hued and laudably driven performance of the opera.
Audiences are reacting viscerally to the production in a way that I have never encountered in Los Angeles. Passionate discussions, pro and con, take place in every corner of the theatre during the intermissions. And it truly seems that everyone has an opinion. It will be months before we find out what surprises Freyer has in store for us with Sigfried (though I’m hoping our hero won’t look like the blue Hulk that appeared on cue in a vision). But love it or hate it, this Ring Cycle is a rare and valuable artistic event for the Southland. It deserves our attention and support.
Dorothy Chandler Pavilion April 4 – 25, 2009 213 972-8001 or www.laopera.com
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