Met orchestra amazes as company retires production of Wagner’s “Ring” cycle after 20 years

Review: Curtain falls on Met’s “Ring” production

NEW YORK — The Rhine overflowed its banks, Valhalla went up in flames, and the world according to Otto Schenk came crashing down one final time as the Metropolitan Opera retired its venerable production of Wagner’s “Ring” cycle.

Saturday night’s performance of “Goetterdaemmerung” (”Twilight of the Gods”), the last of the four operas that make up the epic music drama, won a tumultuous ovation that lasted a full 15 minutes — rare in these days of quick audience exits.

The loudest cheers were for the Met orchestra and conductor James Levine, who surpassed themselves with a majestic reading of the score. From the lilting strains of Siegfried’s Rhine Journey, to the tragic grandeur of the Funeral March, to the apocalypse of the closing pages, this was an overwhelming performance. The capacity crowd of 3,800, aware it was hearing something special, gave Levine and the players a standing ovation BEFORE the final act.

Though Schenk himself had taken curtain calls during some earlier performances, he was not in the house Saturday night. The Austrian actor and director created the production that premiered 20 seasons ago and received 21 performances over the years — all of them conducted by Levine.

The evening, which ended the Met’s 125th season, would not have been such a success without major contributions from the singers, even though neither of the lead roles was ideally cast. As Bruennhilde, the betrayed heroine, soprano Linda Watson largely rose to the occasion, doing some lovely singing at low volume and curbing the tendency in her voice toward harshness on all but the highest notes. Showing no sign of fatigue at the end of the nearly six-hour performance, she brought pathos and dignity to the closing Immolation Scene.

On the other hand, tenor Jon Fredric West, as the guileless hero Siegfried, did flag noticeably by the time his nemesis Hagen stabbed him in the back and he had to sing his dying monologue. Earlier, he gave an honest, rough and ready performance of a daunting role.

Bass John Tomlinson was exuberantly malevolent as Hagen, though the extended scene with chorus in Act 2 taxed him to the breaking point. His weak-willed Gibichung half-brother and sister, Gunther and Gutrune, were worth paying attention to for once thanks to excellent singing by baritone Iain Paterson and soprano Margaret Jane Wray. Mezzo-soprano Yvonne Naef and baritone Richard Paul Fink etched memorable cameos as, respectively, Bruennhilde’s anguished sister Waltraute and Hagen’s father, Alberich. Good contributions came as well from the three Norns (Wendy White, Elizabeth Bishop and Wendy Bryn Harmer) and especially the three Rhinemaidens (Lisette Oropesa, Kate Lindsey and Tamara Mumford.)

It’s a wonder the Met was able to assemble so creditable a cast, since this season’s “Ring” was plagued by cancellations, starting with the withdrawals of Lisa Gasteen and Christine Brewer, who were to have sung all the Bruennhildes. Then the tenor cast in the role of Mime bowed out, as did the mezzo hired for the role of Erda. Even the indefatigable Placido Domingo, singing what may have been his last-ever Siegmund in the house on Tuesday night, withdrew in midperformance because of illness and was replaced by tenor Gary Lehman.

Over the years, the Met presented many memorable singers in key roles, most of all bass James Morris, who virtually owned the role of Wotan, doomed king of the gods, with his booming bass voice and commanding presence. Soprano Hildegard Behrens was the original Bruennhilde, a role later taken by Gwyneth Jones and Jane Eaglen. Jessye Norman portrayed Sieglinde when the production was new, and Matti Salminen was an unforgettable Hagen for several cycles.

From the start, the production itself drew widely varied reactions. Working with sets and projections by Guenther Schneider-Siemssen, costumes by Rolf Langenfass and lighting by Gil Wechsler, Schenk set out to create a traditional, even literal-minded staging of the epic. A tree was a tree, a rock was a rock, and swords, shields, helmets and spears all were as Wagner might have envisioned. Some audiences and critics loved the production’s old-fashioned look; others complained it lacked interpretive power or psychological insight and found the story-book stage pictures cloying.

Perhaps the most successful set was the Hall of the Gibichungs, the massive castle where much of “Goetterdaemmerung” takes place. Watching its stone columns and wooden cross-beams break apart and topple onto the stage during the final cataclysm was always a chilling experience — especially on the night in 1990 when a piece fell prematurely and injured Behrens.

During most revivals, Schenk left the stage direction to others, but this season he returned to guide the singers, and the results showed in greater dramatic tension and interplay among the characters.

Now, all the acres of sets and costumes will be packed up and stored in cargo containers in New Jersey for the foreseeable future, something the Met says is typical when it retires a successful production.

A new “Ring” has been entrusted to Canadian director Robert Lepage, known for his adventurous use of new technologies, including lighting and projections. The company says it is fully funded with a gift from a board member and is already taking shape in a studio in Quebec. Recently the Met posted on its Web site two photos of the new project, showing a wall made up of half-a-dozen rectangular panels that swing back and forth, but then withdrew the photos, saying they were released prematurely.

When the production premieres, starting with “Das Rheingold” on opening night in September 2010, the cast will include a new generation of Wagnerian singers. Current plans call for Bryn Terfel to appear as Wotan, Deborah Voigt as Bruennhilde and Ben Heppner and Stephen Gould sharing the role of Siegfried.

But Levine and his wonderful orchestra will still be there.

On the Net:

www.metopera.org

(This version CORRECTS that Schenk did not that a curtain call.)