Gotterdammerung
Music and libretto by Richard Wagner. Conducted by Johannes Debus. Directed by Tim Albery. Until Feb. 25 at the Four Seasons Centre, 145 Queen St. W. coc.ca or 416-363-8231
To get the most from Gotterdammerung, the final and longest instalment of Richard Wagner’s apocalyptic and enigmatic Ring Cycle, accept that you are entering an alternative reality, almost an alternative universe, where epic emotion and magic reign, and seeming incongruities must be willingly accepted.
It is more than worth the effort. As much as scholars may debate the Ring’s ultimate meaning, director Tim Albery’s reading of both music and text in the current revival of his 2006 production for the Canadian Opera Company makes clear that the myths and legends that Wagner distilled into his masterwork, 140 years after its premiere, still speak directly to the human condition.
Greed, envy, lust for power and disdain for the harmonies of nature remain an existential threat. The twilight of Wagner’s gods could also be our own.
The plot, by Wagner standards, is fairly straightforward. There’s enough built-in exposition of what’s gone before that you’re at no particular disadvantage if this is your first plunge into Wagner’s Rhine with its maidens, dwarfs, giants and forces of good, evil and everything in between, all intent on possessing its gold.
Valhalla is already falling apart by the time Siegfried arrives among the Gibichungs, here presented as a modern corporate empire intent on world domination. Their stratagems and Siegfried’s unwitting complicity are what, over five and a half hours, lead us to the end of existence and, perhaps, the chance of a fresh beginning; though don’t hold your breath on that count.
To make such mighty themes plausible and compelling is a daunting task, admirably accomplished in this spare, taut, dramatically sharp production; although, of course, beyond decoration and directorial slant, it’s the music and singing that must do the heavy lifting.
There were moments when voices — and overall it’s a fine cast — seemed overwhelmed by the great waves of Wagner’s richly textured, emotionally potent score. Yet, for the most part, under the disciplined guidance of COC music director Johannes Debus’ baton, a satisfying balance was achieved.
And, when the stage action halted to allow for a scene change, as following Siegfried’s death, Debus let the orchestra gloriously take full flight. Meanwhile, amidst the almost brutalist austerity of designer Michael Levine’s set, there were moments of goose-bump-inducing vocal splendour.
Brunnhilde, more perhaps than Siegfried, is the dramatic and emotional linchpin of Gotterdammerung, indeed of the Ring Cycle itself, and for American soprano Christine Goerke Thursday night’s opening was a personal triumph, the culmination of her trilogy of Brunnhilde appearances with the COC.
Her voice is supple, well supported through its entire range and infused with a spectrum of emotions that in this case carries Goerke’s character from the heights of romantic ecstasy to nihilistic despair. Yet she never let those emotions get out of hand or become a substitute for magnificent singing. The drama was all in the voice.
Siegfried, from the perspective of audience sympathy, is at a disadvantage. He’s the noble hero who, in the opera that bears his name, has braved the ring of fire within which Wotan has condemned the disobedient Brunnhilde to pass her days. Yet here in Gotterdammerung the bravery, innocence and purity of spirit that make Siegfried otherwise appealing are thoroughly compromised by his sheer, blind stupidity in falling into the traps set for him by the scheming amoral Gibichungs.
Austrian tenor Andreas Schager, in a welcome COC debut, embraces this contradiction with an almost puppyish Siegfried characterization that is at once endearing and heartbreaking. His voice can soar with appropriately heroic tenor incisiveness but possesses a silvery, lyrical quality that, as in Siegfried’s discourse with Brunnhilde during the prelude or in the character’s final moments, serves him well.
In contrast, Hagen, the Gibichung henchman, is almost a stock villain whose blood, as the character admits, runs cold in his veins. It is a huge credit to Estonian bass Ain Anger — another COC debut — that he imbued Hagen with a measure of complexity verging on the psychopathic.
And the voice! So rich, so strong and so chillingly calibrated to send shivers down the spine. And if one gesture aptly symbolized the collapse at the heart of the Ring’s moral dysfunction it was the way Anger crumpled like a deflated balloon after his final, futile attempt to grasp the cursed ring.
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