United Kingdom Wagner, Walküre: Soloists, Orchestra of the Royal Opera Home / Sir Antonio Pappano (conductor). Broadcast stay (directed by Peter Jones) from the Royal Opera Home, London, to Cineworld Basildon, Essex, 14.5.2025. (JPr)
The headline of my Das Rheingold overview (right here) in September 2023 known as it a ‘miscast, misconceived, mishmash of concepts’. That was the start of the brand new season, and this leisurely follow-up Die Walküre from Barrie Kosky comes close to the top of the next season. For the viewers watching at Cineworld Basildon (not that there have been many people) some negatives remained however there have been many positives. Kosky’s concepts for his battle between nature and science seems of have coalesced and now – as he defined – focusses on the ecological disaster of the Australian bushfires of 2019-20 and Erda as the traditional Mom Earth determine reliving her previous.
In comparison with Rheingold most of Walküre is sort of a costumed semi-staging, and The Royal Opera’s Director of Opera, Oliver Mears, described Kosky’s want for his mise-en-scène was to ‘not muddle it with … an excessive amount of set’ and I muttered (to myself) ‘means low cost’ and certainly – with one main exception – I used to be proved proper. The primary act is performed out in opposition to a stage deep wall of burnt wood planks with a few doorways and a really apparent hilt of a sword embedded in it. A desk and chairs of burnt wooden is introduced on and brought off in some unspecified time in the future and that’s about it aside from the actual fact Hunding and Siegmund appeared to tear into their meal of rooster and potatoes with relish. Once more the bare, aged Erda is there firstly and Siegmund is fleeing via the storm by circling her on the entrance of the stage. The costumes for Siegmund (a few hoodies) and Sieglinde (initially in a floral costume) appear sourced from a charity store while a vengeful Hunding is a gun-toting safety guard, if oddly as an alternative of simply taking pictures Siegmund on the finish of the second act he chases him round with a big axe!
It’s clear from the beginning that Kosky won’t permit anybody to face nonetheless – and even upright – for any size of time it appears; the injured, bloodied Siegmund clearly has PTSD from his latest experiences and the bodily intimidated and abused Sieglinde is on the sting of the nervous breakdown she’s going to finally have in the direction of the top of the second act. Later neither Hunding (briefly), Wotan, Fricka, nor – the significantly hyperactive – Brünnhilde and her sister Valkyries ever cease dashing about. For the beginning of Act II there’s a largely naked stage, 5 tall streetlamps and Wotan is in a enterprise go well with, Brünnhilde wears a easy blue costume lined by a darkish coat, Fricka flounces round in fake (I hope!) fur and is dressed as if on her technique to a gala. She arrived in a classic Rolls Royce with the Spirit of Ecstasy changed by a ram’s head!
Later a scene change wants a curtain to descend earlier than we see the felled World Ash Tree from Rheingold with the knot holes for characters to vanish into and emerge from; and dry ice and at last blood, to return out of them. Sieglinde particularly clambers everywhere in the large, blackened trunk and enters it and I couldn’t think about Lise Davidsen (the unique singer solid) doing a lot of that, and so – fortuitously due to Davidsen’s being pregnant – Kosky obtained a keen alternative in Natalya Romaniw (who learnt the position in two months apparently).
The final act has a single giant tree on an in any other case naked and darkish stage once more. Based on Kosky ‘the twigs and branches all signify human our bodies, fingers and fingers, there’s a human component to those timber’. There are seven added silent Valkyries (or are they mortuary attendants?) who wheel in on trolleys the charred stays of useless heroes for the jubilant, cavorting, bloodied Valkyries. (Earlier in the course of the Act II Todesverkündigung or ‘Annunciation of Demise’ Siegmund embraces and finally rips aside a kind of corpses.) Brünnhilde will get consigned to that single tree and the interpretation is modified from her sleeping on a rock to ‘this mighty tree’! Lastly, we see the place most of any cash was spent as (spoiler alert!) the tree magically (!) catches alight in a real coup de théâtre.
I used to be aggravated earlier than in regards to the bare Erda determine and am once more particularly as Peter Jones’s camerawork lingered a little bit too voyeuristically on her when it wasn’t completely essential. I’ve no subject with nudity on the stage however with longer hair Erda – this time a valiant Illona Linthwaite – might seem extra discreetly bare, although with out making her seem like The Addams Household’s Cousin Itt in fact. Sure, be bare originally and on the finish however in between if Erda does reappear then why not do extra than simply have her within the Rolls Royce as Fricka’s uniformed chauffeur. Erda doesn’t must deliver on a basket of flowers throughout Siegmund’s ‘Spring Track’ nor be on the different finish of Nothung when it will get withdrawn from the wall. Over the last act Erda sits (bare in fact) throughout the trunk of the tree for a very long time and all I might assume was please give her a puzzle guide to maintain her occupied.
Studying up to now you may be anticipating a too unfavorable overview however let me state now there was presumably a few of the greatest performing I’ve ever seen in additional than 50 years of going to opera, and Wagner significantly. As Kosky mentioned, ‘When you’ve got the best individuals that may work like actors … it is best to finally neglect you might be watching opera and expertise real music theatre the place the motivations and emotional panorama is plausible and complicated.’
That it actually was when watching his Walküre in closeup on the display screen, although whether or not that radiated to the again rows of the amphitheatre of the Royal Opera Home, maybe anyone might let me know? While the performing was uniformly very good – properly, maybe Fricka was a little bit too histrionic – the singing was crucially let down within the title position. This was the fifth Walküre in two weeks and I hope it was simply tiredness that prompted Elisabet Strid’s pitch points and her incapability to precisely hit a few of the highest notes of Brünnhilde’s opening ‘Hojotohos’ (which she tried to cowl up by bounding across the stage). Alternatively, her Act III ‘Warfare es so schmählich’ – mendacity extra in a mezzo vary – was deeply affecting. Elsewhere there was nice singing and performing: Christopher Maltman was a revelation as Wotan together with his excellence as a lieder singer making his Wotan exceptionally nuanced and multifaceted. There’s, to start with, a sure crafty, then vulnerability, anger, remorse and the sense of loss. Maltman’s singing of Wotan’s farewell to his errant daughter was three-dimensional, involving and heartbreaking and recalled the great Michael Volle within the position (there will be no larger reward).
In roles debuts because the reuniting twins, Siegmund and Sieglinde, Stanislas de Barbeyrac and Natalya Romaniw positively had all of the youthfulness and power Kosky needed. Romaniw – although solely new to Sieglinde – has large Wagner potential and is clearly a future Brünnhilde. Hers was a fascinating efficiency, and Romaniw’s consummate performing revealed with nice nuance her fearfulness over an abusive marriage, as properly her burgeoning recognition of a long-lost twin brother. Romaniw’s singing had energy, radiance and tonal magnificence and culminated in an emotionally expressive ‘O hehrstes Wunder!’ From de Barbeyrac as Siegmund we heard a method of Wagner singing which I believed had been just about misplaced. Some commentators have reminisced in regards to the legendary Alberto Remedios within the position for Sir Reginald Goodall and English Nationwide Opera. While Remedios was a one-off as a Wagner singer due to the Italianate nature of his voice, de Barbeyrac undoubtably has an eloquently lyrical heldentenor sound. I might sit up for seeing and listening to him once more when such an angst-ridden efficiency wasn’t demanded of him by the director. I had loved (overview right here) his Siegmund in live performance for Yannick Nézet-Séguin which had the entire admirable qualities his voice displayed right here.
Within the smaller roles Soloman Howard glowered menacingly as Hunding and sang together with his common sepulchral bass which matched his character’s malevolent physicality. Maybe Marina Prudenskaya’s Fricka was fairly too overwrought – typically much less is extra – however she commanded consideration along with her vocal depth and statuesque look. Final however not least, the Valkyries sang spiritedly and have been an unusually bodily fearsome octet.
As for Sir Antonio Pappano and the Royal Opera Home Orchestra, Walküre sounded splendid via the cinema loudspeakers. His account was scrupulously detailed, had nice sensitivity and a heightened sense of drama however not sufficient – a minimum of for me – ahead momentum. I didn’t file any timings (assist anybody?) however it appeared lengthy, although conversely with a delayed transmission within the cinema – the place we didn’t have the ridiculous 80-minute second interval – 5 hours glided by shortly due to the fascinating solid.
Jim Pritchard
Featured Picture: Elisabet Strid (Brünnhilde), Christopher Maltman (Wotan) and Valkyries © RBO/Monika Rittershaus
Creatives:
Director – Barrie Kosky
Set designer – Rufus Didwiszus
Costume designer – Victoria Behr
Lighting designer – Alessandro Carletti
Combat director – Philip D’Orléans
Intimacy co-ordinator – Anna Morrissey
Forged:
Wotan – Christopher Maltman
Brünnhilde – Elisabet Strid
Sieglinde – Natalya Romaniw
Siegmund – Stanislas de Barbeyrac
Fricka – Marina Prudenskaya
Hunding – Soloman Howard
Helmwige – Maida Hundeling
Ortlinde – Katie Lowe
Gerhilde – Lee Bisset
Waltraute – Claire Barnett-Jones
Siegrune – Catherine Carby
Rossweisse – Alison Kettlewell
Grimgerde – Monika-Evelin Liiv
Schwertleite – Rhonda Browne
Erda – Illona Linthwaite (silent)
Actors: Clare Almond, Lucy Brenchley, Clea Godsill, Maria Leon, Virginia Poli, Nadia Sadiq, Jay Yuletide
