Two heartfelt views of Berlin’s misguided new Ring
NewsFiona Maddocks in the Observer:
Tcherniakov has done away with fire, water, magic helmet, dragon, kiss, gold. The most serious misjudgment was in the cycle’s climactic, world-ending closing bars. Here, words flashed up – Wagner’s own Schopenhauer-inspired text, not set to music – precisely when all you wanted to do was listen to the orchestra. This Ring has been seriously conceived, but in its rebuttal of so many key elements, Wagner’s poetry has turned to prose.
Hugh Kerr in Edinburgh Music Review:
I spoke to an elderly Berliner who had been attending Berlin’s state opera house ever since it was rebuilt after the war. She said “it is an insult to the people of Berlin – I have tickets for all the other operas but I won’t be coming to them.” I had a certain sympathy for that point of view… From the outset let me be clear – musically this was a very decent Ring. The orchestra under the young conductor Thomas Guggeis was excellent. The singers were consistently good, despite the nonsense they had to do in this production. Last week Slipped Disc reported on an animal rights campaign to save the rabbits on display in the laboratories on stage. I feel we should start a campaign to save opera singers from the indignities of opera directors who want to “modernise” operas.
I’m very happy to read the words of the old Berlinerin who suggests a society to protect opera singers from the desecration imposed by directors. I’ve thought that for decades.
Self promoting cleverness is no substitute for attempts at reanimating a page with words and music.
It’s was my pleasure to help prepare a production of Prince Igor directed by Mitya Tcherniakov. It really was a thrilling period of a long career. But, like so many directors nowadays, he can occasionally go too far. His Pelleas I thought excellent as well.
After 40 plus years of watching travesties of great works on the stage, I simply still don’t get how it’s allowed.
Once there was a society for the protection of the works of Wagner in Bayreuth, I don’t know if it still exists.
It is quite ridiculous to ask someone who must be at least 80 about modern opera productions.
What a disgusting “ageist” comment !
It’s “allowed” because Western Civilization is in a terminal decline.
I read that certain former employees of Meghan Markle described her as a “narcissistic sociopath.” Meanwhile, earlier this year, look at the on-stage antics of actor Will Smith.
The world is full of narcissistic sociopaths, including in opera-orchestras, the sciences, businesses, religion, etc.
I am utterly uninterested in the opinion of a Berlinerin who wants everything to stay exactly like she has always known. I’m writing this in the foyer of the Staatsoper, during the second break of the strongest of the dozens of Walküres I have seen in the past decades. There is no “nonsense” here, only superb and totally credible acting, fantastic singing and a magnificent orchestra surpassing even itself.
The DOB is a third-rate opera company : Runnicles a boring “stick waver” and these “concept” productions are cheap – a few panels , “costumes” from the Salvation Army ….. the singers ? Worn out screechers and the Germans love to show their ugly bodies on stage in their underwear . By the way – the DOB uses amplification and the building looks like a bus terminal . …
Here’s a hint on how to approach works of art that offend you. Written by Wagner himself for the wisest of all his artist characters, Hans Sachs.
” “Wollt Ihr nach Regeln messen,
was nicht nach Eurer Regeln Lauf,
der eig’nen Spur vergessen,
sucht davon erst die Regeln auf!”
In other words: if you want to judge a work of art that offends your sensibilities, forget your own rules and norms and try to find out the rules the work sets for itself.
This production is far from perfect, but Tcherniakov has a clear vision that in many respects is very close to Wagner’s message. He doesn’t succeed in getting every scene and element right, but in a huge monster such as the Ring, no director ever has.
Let him return to Mother Russia and he can stage his insightful productions in a Siberian prison camp …there are enough producers in Germany who foist thir silly concepts on audiences that do not want to see their Dreck …Perhaps Wagner should be put to rest – until singers appear who can actually sing the music – not screech, , bark, and whisper -like Mullet Man Voigt !…
We were there through all the 4 premieres, and would like to go back to the cycle starting Oct 29 if we can get return tickets online. After years of the Ring cycle attendencies, the things really we mortals can choose and matter are the conductor, singers, orchestra and venue. Thielemann and his singers and orchestra were excellent (did anyone mentioned the whole orchestra took a curtain call?), even the usual Volle, Kampe sounded not as usual. An old saying that an experienced butcher doesn’t see the carcasses, just joints, bones and cuts. So do we.
Quite simply I do not go to opera any more. I just don’t see why we should pay exorbitant prices to have our intelligence insulted by idiots who pose as directors when we can listen at home on the Hi Fi.
Like wise – Rigoletto set in Las Vegas….
EgREGIEous stuff.
A shame that PETA prevented Berlin from having the rabbits and guinea pigs that Wagner so clearly calls for in his libretto.
Konwitschny in Stuttgart in 2000 put Wagner’s stage directions on a screen at the end of Götterdämmerung. He implied that there was no way to match the music with scenic/dramatic action, and his was a humble but brilliant solution to this issue. It sounds like Tcherniakov has attempted something similar, proving that there really is nothing original any longer. But the music plays on…
Then why bother ? Cop – out from a no- talent taking tax payers` money …go stage musicals instead…
It’s the cult of Wagner. What else needs to be said?
Err I thought Thielemann was conducting the Ring having replaced Barenboim?
Not saying much of substance in the review, but probably enough to trigger a slew of bickering slush from all sorts of know-it-alls….Can’t wait!
I long for an enterprising opera company somewhere, anywhere, to commit to excellent productions faithful to a libretto’s images and symbols. It has always seemed a strange dichotomy that audiences insist on hearing the composer’s intentions for the score but tolerate somebody else’s intentions for the stage, and I would guess many people would go to great lengths to attend, if they could just be reasonably sure that what they’d see would be as authentic as what they’d hear.
Can one imagine a Neo-realistic production in Germany – the critics will have heart attacks …They love productions with the stage cluttered with junk …and “singers” in their underwear…if one considers the screechers, barkers, and whisperers “singers “….
On one hand i do accept that one has to take a fresh look at the Ring cycle. But i do find that these very over-acted, over-detailed, very specific updates are too distracting from the libretto and music. To follow the developing leitmotifs, and the orchestration which is telling its own story and then to reflect on the philosophical ideas in the libretto is absorbing enough without trying to work out what ideas the latest production is wanting to convey. The pure magic of Wagner doesn’t need it, so it is minimalism for me.