The most Spanish Wagner’s ‘gold’ does not shine in Paris | Culture

Richard Wagner’s relationship with Paris was tense and unsatisfactory. He always sought to succeed in this city, which he considered “the heart of modern civilization,” but harvested disappointments and failures, such as the scandalous French premiere of Tannhäuser In 1861. The building where that unfortunate vital moment lived, at number 3 of the Rue d’Aumale, where you can see a commemorative plaque is still preserved. Interestingly, from that fiasco the powerful French Wagnerism emerged, driven by Charles Baudelaire, but its great tetralogy would not be represented in the Paris Opera until 1909, when the first production of the cycle with its prologue with its prologue was culminated Rin’s gold. That production was reviewed before and after World War II and in 1976 another new cycle began with stage director Peter Stein, who continued Klaus Michael Grüber always with a musical direction of Georg Soli, although he was interrupted in half. Günter Krämer made the second complete production of the Ring In the Paris Opera between 2010 and 2013, with Philippe Jordan as musical head.

In 2017, Stéphane Lissner announced a third production in the French institution of Wagnerian tetralogy, with Calixto Bieito as a scenic responsible. However, this project, which finally began on Wednesday, January 29 at the Bastille Opera stage, has suffered multiple incidents. The most important was the pandemic, which canceled the premiere of Rin’s gold In April 2020 and forced to resume the project at the end of that year, but in concert version. In between, Alexander Neef replaced Lissner and, shortly after, Gustavo Dudamel became a musical director. However, the Venezuelan chose to abruptly leave in May 2023 and the musical direction of the cycle was entrusted to Granada Pablo Heras-Casado, which he had successfully debuted at the Bayreuth Festival. To top it off, earlier this year, the French baritone Ludovic Tézier canceled his debut like Wotan for a flu and IAin Paterson had to recover, which was part of the 2020 cast.

All this accumulated delay has allowed the new Bieito production to be linked to the 150th anniversary of the premiere of THE NIBELUNGO RINGwhich will be held in 2026. An ephemeris that has fired the competition between opera theaters with new productions of Wagnerian tetralogy in process: Barrie Kosky in the Covent Garden in London, Tobias Kratzer in the opera of Baviera and David Mcvicar in the Scala from Milan. However, Bieito has reviewed his scenic proposal without altering the scenery of Rebecca Ringst, which includes a monumental multifunctional metal cage and full of compartments, next to different gigantic curtains that will appear in each of the parts of the cycle. He manager Burgos has incorporated the ideas of philosophers James Bridle and Byung-Chul about the impact of technology and macrodatos in our society. As he clarifies in the hand program, he has designed a discontinuous narrative that intertwines the past and the future: Rin’s gold It begins “in the dark light of total information and surveillance in our private life”; La Valquiria “Jump an emotional apocalypse, to war at all levels”; with Siegfried “The poisoning of original forests” and in The twilight of the gods “We end with the loss of memory and the future.”

In Rin’s goldposes the division of the world into two parts: on the one hand, that of the rich and powerful who believe Gods, and on the other, the lower world of the Nibelungos, who dream of ascending by manufacturing biped humanoids that work with artificial intelligence. However, the idea that Wagner poses from the universe does not end up adjusting well to this story or its execution is convincing. The rhine daughters are three divers who violently abuse Alberich until it is deranged and gold is a curtain that Nibelungo starts to achieve the necessary technology for their humanoids. Then we will see that gold are also coins, a kind of ritual mask (similar to Agamemnon’s mycenae of the cage, the cubes or the wote spear.

Ringst’s scenery, together with the projections of images of faces, statues and humanoids made by Sarah Derendinger, is quite poor and, in addition, is exploited little at the dramatic level. Bieito focuses more on giving a capricious profile to each character, with the help of the Ingo Krügler costumes: Froh looks like Jesus Christ Superstar, Donner combines the operator’s cap in a suit, Fasolt is more elegant than Wotan himself, Fafner is a cowboy And Logy with sunglasses looks like Elon Musk’s Sosia. He gets more out of the two female characters: Fricka becomes a modern woman mistreated by her husband and the frightened Freia, dressed in a German Dirndl, vomits before the possibility of being delivered to the giants. But everything is very static; The dramatic tension of other Bieito productions is not appreciated, with the exception of the final incomprehensible, in which Loge, who wants to recover his form of fire, approaches with a giant zippo to Freia, which has been sprayed from oil.

The vocal cast included some interesting debut and combines young singers with voices with enough solera. But this did not compensate for the scenic deficiencies. The Scottish bass-baritone Iain Paterson was a tired and aged wotan, with a noble and well-nuanced bell, but with little vocal weight and a vibrato excessive. The ambiguous vocal personality of LOGE that the neozyleandés Simon O’Neill tenor, halfway between the tenor of character and the heroic, despite its excessive nasality, was much better. Among them the versatile stood out mezzo-soprano Ève-maud hubeaux, who composed an interesting fricka, although it started with somewhat tense acute. The Canadian contralto Marie-Nicole Lemieux was a convincing ERDA, although she lacked magnetism. The young soprano Eliza Boom also highlighted as Freia next to the Rhine daughters trio.

The best vocal performance of the night was that of the Mime Mime of Gerhard Siegel. The German tenor interpreted all the musical elements created by Wagner to characterize this pathetic character. He was followed by the veteran under South Kinean Kwangchul You, who endowed packaging and musicality to the giant lover Fasolt, unlike his evil brother Fafner, a role that sang the low Finnish Mika Kares with correction, but without depth. The American baritone Brian Mulligan was the best at the acting level and also offered an interesting host, despite not having the necessary vocal mordacity. The two young Donner and Froh, Florent Mbia and Matthew Cairns also highlighted, respectively, in their solos of the fourth scene.

The musical direction of Pablo Heras-Casado also did not manage to give this disappointing brightness Oro Parisian. The Granada sounds as a successor to Dudamel in the musical direction of the Opera of Paris, which would mean a real milestone in his career. And, judging by the applause of the end, he successfully exceeded the evidence. However, its flexible and fluid gesture was more effective in maintaining the volume of the orchestra at the service of singers than to create moments of tension and emotion. The direction had some flashes, but did not relaunch the interludes. And its two and a half hours duration passed without we could appreciate the admirable organic development that Wagner poses, from the famous chord displayed of my major bol with the entrance of the gods into the Walhalla.

There are still the three days of this Ring Parisino, which will be seen in the next season as a commemoration of the aforementioned sesquicentennial of the magna tetralogía Wagneriana. In fact, the absence of Calixto Bieito’s scenic team among the final applause. Will they perhaps wait to culminate The twilight of the gods To receive the public’s verdict?