A Wagner opera has at last been staged in Moscow –
for the first time since World War Two clouded Russo-German cultural
relations so thoroughly. The production is not new in Russia, however
– this is the Mariinsky production (sponsored by Daimler-Benz) first
seen in St Petersburg in the summer of 2001. The capital has been slower
at warming to Wagner, although the enterprising Virtuosi of Moscow under
Spivakov’s baton delivered an apparently excellent "Liebestod"
last summer to those Nouveau-Russes who could afford the $200+ asking
price to hear Jessye Norman. Unlike other countries who have singled-out
composers whose music was forced into the service of the Third Reich,
Russia has until now had a more general aversion to German music overall
– even Fidelio, with its potent rejection of tyranny, doesn’t
currently feature in the repertoire of any of Moscow’s six houses.
As is so often the case with new Ring cycles, the projected
Gergiev Ring has been kicked into touch with Die Walküre
- presumably because a stage-sword that falls to pieces and a curtain
(ehem) of "fire" present fewer technical challenges than Bass-Baritones
who turn into toads, roaming dwarves, bears, giants or hydraulic dragons,
or the End Of The World As We Know It. Over and above that, it’s the
only one of the tetralogy to deal in non-oblique terms with emotions
like love, sorrow, grief, separation, and empathy, and Opera Managements
believe that audiences find such feelings a more persuasive reason to
stay cooped-up for five hours in a seat that makes Economy Class Syndrome
seem like Valhalla by comparison.
But if these were the reasons for breaking Mary Poppins’
rule of starting at the very beginning, they were well and truly scuppered
by the emotionally detached and uninvolved production of Gottfried Pilz.
Herr Pilz commenced his career as a set-designer, a long-term collaborator
of his controversial countryman Joachim Herz. The experience of working
with the famed iconoclast has presumably sparked a contrary desire to
introduce no elements of interpretation or concept into his productions
at all. Herr Pilz is not only the "producer" of Walküre.
Oh no, he’s the set-designer, costume-designer and lighting-designer
too. Gergiev seems to fall into this trap repeatedly and learn nothing
from it - he invites famous international collaborators and then encourages
them to extend vastly beyond their capabilities. Infamously in 2001
he invited the famous Russian émigré artist Shemyakin
(he is, at any rate, highly-regarded by a few in Russia, even if his
fame hasn’t got beyond Brighton Beach elsewhere) to design a Nutcracker
to be choreographed by enfant-terrible and star-pupil of Plisetskaya,
Alexei Ratmansky (now with the Danish Royal Ballet). Ratmansky arrived
on schedule for rehearsals, to find them already in progress under another
choreographer. This choreographer was being briefed on what to teach
the dancers by, errr, Shemyakin – who knows nothing about ballet at
all. The result was a Nutcracker that was so critically panned from
all sides that it’s been withdrawn. This Pilz Walküre is
more of the same – characters stalk the stage like human props in some
"great design", devoid of motive or emotion, like mechanised
singing-machines. Minimalist and Feng-Shui as the designs may be, they
add nothing to our understanding of this piece that we couldn’t have
gained from merely hearing a concert performance. Yet a "neutral"
staged performance is in some ways worse than a concert performance,
because our expectations of drama and emotional involvement are frustrated
– sometimes in very negative ways.
The costumes of this Walküre are horrible,
and appear to have come from a jumblesale. Sieglinde is a waitress in
a black skirt and a white blouse – they might have at least got one
to fit her? The Valkyries have white party-frocks with navy-blue blazers
(presumably sourced from the Russian Navy – since none of them fitted
properly). Fricka has come as Jemima Puddle-Duck, and worst of all,
the Lord and Master of the Upper World has a pastel blue shirt and tweedy
paunch-hugging waistcoat that turns him into Laughing Uncle Albert in
Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang. And now everyone has a costume, then please
come into Hunding’s Parlour – where it gets worse.
To call Gottfried Pilz a set-designer is rather stretching
things in this production – unless arranging four standard hotel-type
conference-tables into a square pattern and surrounding them with rehearsal-room
chairs constitutes a "design". The optimists amongst you may
be hoping that this simply makes an easily strikable first scene to
enable quick-changes into Valhalla, and some spectacular special effects
for the Ride Of The Valkyries. So did I, but unlike you, I then had
to sit and watch the same four tables for five hours – that’s more than
one hour per table – and they didn’t move, although as a concession
for the Ride Of The Valkyries they were covered with a white sheet.
The rest of the set remains bare black throughout, although it must
be said that there are some spiffy lighting effects, and more dry ice
than The Hound Of The Baskervilles. Indeed there was so much
dry ice in the immolation that the brass and woodwind sections disappeared
entirely from view.
Yet Pilz’s worst fault of all is directing credible
dramatic action. I’ve never ever seen a Walküre before where
Wotan didn’t look at Brunnhilde at all during his Farewell to her, and
instead of hugging her during "Leb’ wohl..." was striding
somewhere the other side of the stage whilst poor Larissa Gogolevskaya
as Brunnhilde stood like "Exhibit A" on the set of tables.
She finally got a hug out of Vladimir Vaneev’s Wotan by falling forwards
off the table into his arms, although even then it seemed only 50-50
whether this unbothered Wotan would actually catch her. Frankly it would
be churlish to blame the performers – either they were not given proper
direction, or perhaps they were even instructed to behave in this absurd
fashion. Gogolevskaya is not a natural actress, and her gait hardly
suggests a winged avenger. However, the full Wagnerian tessitura is
there, and if she could be encouraged to use it a little more lyrically
and not chop the vocal line up, this could develop into a reliable Brunnhilde
for the full cycle. In no need of any such assistance was Mlada Khudolei
as Sieglinde – who combined superlative vocal technique with the only
acting of the evening that went beyond the level of cornflake commercials.
"O heilge Wonne" suddenly showed how fantastic it can be when
a great voice, great acting and superb musical performance meet as equals.
Sadly such moments were too rare in this production.
Gennadi Bezzubenkov produced the best of the male vocal
performances as Hunding – an obvious for Fafner once the cycle gets
going. His retinue of eight black-hooded joggers - who run in perpetual
circles around Sieglinde - made him hard to take seriously. Equally
undermined by his producer is Vaneev as Wotan – a stupid costume that
doesn’t even fit him created a credibility gap which he failed to bridge,
especially as he’d obviously had little or no direction. The voice is
lyrical and warm, but he comes across as too avuncular, and a little
under-powered for the role – it’s hard to imagine him sustaining a Rheingold
too, although he would shine as Hans Sachs. Viktor Lutsiuk faced the
unpleasant task of singing a role which was, according to the program,
being sung by Placido Domingo. It even said so in upper-case letters
of thanks to sponsors Daimler-Benz. However, these were reprinted programs
from last summer’s performances in St Petersburg, and a cast-list in
Russian-only corrected the error. Lutsiuk is not a natural for the high-lying
role of Siegmund – he seems better fitted to Siegfried, and would probably
make a good job of the part. However, he covered the role intelligently
and made a noble, if brooding hero. Svetlana Volkova made the best of
the unrewarding role of Fricka, despite staging directions designed
to cure chronic insomnia (sitting facing Wotan without either one moving
for ten full minutes).
This poor direction descended into lamentable farce
for the arrival of the Valkyries themselves. With a breathtaking pace
set by Gergiev for the Ride, expectation ran high. Enter nine fat ladies
in white tutu’s stage right, scampering in highly self-conscious circles
around four conference tables, now covered with a sheet. The scene is
mysteriously set in the Arctic. All peaks and shock-chords in the orchestra
are, of course, ignored, although obviously something is clearly intended
to happen. The only special effect is that three Valkyries climb onto
the tables to form two lines with the five below, at which point it
stepped up from the Accounts Dept Christmas Panto to an amateur performance
of The Gondoliers. Worse still, once Brunnhilde had been cursed, they
performed a silent fly-past in memoriam, by running in two opposite-movement
chubby lines, waving their hands as children do to simulate flying -
when they are about six or seven, that is. Low-level tittering and murmurs
of "gospodi!" and "yolki-palki!" ("gawd!"
and "jeepers!") filled the auditorium.
It’s almost unbelievable that such first-rate codswallop
on-stage was accompanied in the pit by some of the most stunning Wagnerian
conducting to be heard in the world – rather as though the wrong band
had turned-up for the gig. It was probably doubly galling for the Bolshoi
Theatre, since this performance was a "qualifier" for the
Golden Mask Awards – in which the Bolshoi don’t have a single nominated
opera production, yet they were obliged to let-out their theatre to
other nominees like the Mariinsky. Gergiev takes a very non-traditionalist
view of Wagner, and rolls it out with a light touch that highlights
indebtedness to Weber and Beethoven – no stodgy academic hunt-the-leitmotif
here. Amazingly, the hopeless Bolshoi pit (which is no such thing in
reality, merely a railed-off part of the stalls) did not create the
balance problems which might have been expected, and if we’d been wearing
hats, they would have come off to the brass section, for subtle flawless
delivery and gorgeous warm supporting chording. It was, in fact, an
object lesson in what has gone wrong at the Bolshoi itself – to hear
an orchestra which has been trained by and works regularly with a permanent
Musical Director who is in control of his own operations. As this Ring
develops and the singers bed into their roles, there is every chance
of this becoming a "greatest ever" reading of the tetralogy
that you might want to have on disk. And at least on disk you would
be spared actually having to look at the stage.
Neil McGowan
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