Götterdämmerung in Bayreuth 2022: Some potential, but sometimes quite confused

The conclusion of Schwarz’s Ring was the least convincing one in the installment. Michael Kupfer-Radecky (Gunther), Elisabeth Teige (Gutrune), Iréne Theorin (Brünnhilde), and Christa Mayer (Waltraute) were impressive, but Stephen Gould (Siegfried) and Albert Dohmen (Hagen) left to be desired. 

 

Compared to the other staging in the installment, the last one was surprisingly conventional (were it not for the properties and the ambiance of the decors). The drama started in Brünnhilde and Siegfried’s house. Siegfried’s Rheinfahrt showed the disgruntled husband leaving home, and the supposed-to-be love duet was a full-blown fight filled with irony and contempt from both sides. The Gibichs’ house was another nouveau-riche villa, and Gutrune was a photo-snapping socialite-slash-influencer. There was no river in the last act, but a dried out and abandoned swimming pool where Siegfried met his end. 

Siegfried and Brünnhilde were a bourgeois, middle-class pair in the brink of a breakup. A far cry, indeed, from the idealized heroic pair we had in mind. Stephen Gould’s Siegfried sang without a doubt beautifully, his timbre rich and warm, at times capable of delivering the most brilliant edges, although he was generally quite strained. His stage presence was rather inconspicuous, which would have been fine were some of the colleagues were not so imposing. Sadly, it was not the case, because Iréne Theorin’s Brünnhilde stole the attention whenever she was on scene. It was the specific tone and temperature of her timbre, at the same time capable of being fiery and piercingly chilling, and she genuinely tried to show what was to be shown according to her role's purpose in the context of the staging. Theorin was intense, and her rage in the second act was honest and scathing without being overly histrionic. It could have not been easy to sing the not-immolation scene with an observable lack of scenic and dramatic intention. (Fortunately, the lighting concluding the drama was fantastically done.) 

In the enemy camp, I could not get enough of Elisabeth Teige’s Gutrune and Michael Kupfer-Radecky’s Gunther. I need to see Teige’s Senta and quick! She had impressed me in her brief moment as Freia in Das Rheingold, and she was a spicy, bon-vivant Gutrune with sense of humor. The intensity and the crystalline quality of her timbre was capable of sending shivers down the spine. Her counterpart, Kupfer-Radecky’s ever-drunk Gunther had a timbre of a charming dark and slight metallic texture. His character was the joker of the play, but when he filled the entire hall with his powerful and exact singing, one would wonder whether Drunken Gunther did not, in fact, have a double personality. 

"Willkommen, Gast, in Gibichs' Haus!". L to R: Albert Dohmen (Hagen), Elisabeth Teige (Gutrune), Michael Kupfer-Radecky (Gunther).

Sadly, not the same could be said about Albert Dohmen’s Hagen, who was supposed to be the gravity core of the entire drama. While his imposing, slightly rough-textured timbre shone at times, the most remarkable moment being him calling the army, most of the times he seemed faded into the background. Perhaps it was because of that ridiculous, delivery-guy-type costume Hagen was assigned to, and indeed it was not fair; perhaps it was the deeply anchored desire to see a plotting, evil, ambitious Hagen as once incarnated perfectly by Falk Struckmann in Vienna in the reprise of Sven-Eric Bechtolf’s production in 2018. To come back from the short digression, this Hagen did not quite hold a candle to Olafur Sigurdarson’s Alberich in the nightmare scene as well, whose strong vocal performance and stage presence did not cease to impress since Rheingold. Christa Mayer sang Waltraute brilliantly, although the unclear scenic intention cost the dramatic intensity of the scene. (I read somewhere that Mayer explained that Waltraute wanted the child for herself, which Brünnhilde did not quite realize.) Finally, the Norns, in glittery clothes, came as a part of the child’s dream, which was at the same time haunted by Alberich. Okka von der Damerau (first Norn) returned with her intense, velvety timbres, which was also capable to thunder in the climaxing moments. It was a solid anchor for the singing of her colleagues, Stéphanie Müther (second Norn) and Kelly God (third Norn). 

Götterdämmerung in Bayreuth 2022. Frontmost row, cast from L to R: Michael Kupfer-Radecky (Gunther), Elisabeth Teige (Gutrune), Stephen Gould (Siegfried), Iréne Theorin (Brünnhilde), Cornelius Meister, Albert Dohmen (Hagen), Lea-ann Dunbar (Woglinde), Stephanie Houtzeel (Wellgunde), Katie Stevenson (Floßhilde).

Cornelius Meister, as in the previous days, served his part well as the motor of the drama. He was effective and clear in his intentions.The moments of tensions were well captured, especially in the clash and the merging between the brass and the bass. Despite the confused immolation scene, the music still managed to convey the right darkness and intensity. In regards of Meister’s overall performance in the one week of the Cycle, it annoyed me to see backhanded compliments about how he was impressive, considering his last-minute takeover. Thanking him for this specific matter and giving him backhanded compliments discounted the description of how his performance actually was. It was thought through and impressive, and the (very young!) musicians deserved much more credit than halfhearted praises. 

The mostly young musicians of this year's Ring Cycle.

To conclude my one week of this year’s Ring Cycle, I would not say that the production was a flop. In fact, there were actually moments where I appreciated the creativity or the creative intention behind it, even those with some trial-and-error aspect. Perhaps this year’s Bayreuth is a challenge for us to not expect something that we usually accept as “finished” and “well-packaged”, but something that is “unusual” and “open for developments”. I am not saying that one approach is better than the other, but the latter is certainly a better way to argue against the arguments insisting that “opera is dead” or “opera is for old people”. I also ran onto some arguments online that said that Schwarz vulgarized the Ring. I would also bet that some of these arguments came from those who were not really there or who were there with a fixed expectation. Because, to judge the work fairly, Schwarz did not vulgarize the Ring, and what he did was not “Regietheater” (I meant it in the term’s most pejorative sense), but an honest attempt to capture the humanity of the mythical characters and to project the myth in our time. There were lots of efforts and creativity involved, and it deserves some respect.