Ring
OMG OMG Ring!!! It seemed like quite a lot of money when I ordered the tickets back in whenever, and furthermore, I took two precious days PTO (Wednesday and Friday), so I could make the 6pm start. I couldn't help wondering whether it was worth it. Oh but it was...
I attended the third of three cycles for this year. Each cycle consists of four operas, Das Rheingold ("The Rhine-gold", one act, about two and a half hours, Tuesday), Die Walküre ("The Valkyrie", three acts, about three and half hours plus two half-hour intermissions, Wednesday), Siegfried (three acts, about three and half hours plus two half-hour intermissions, Friday), Götterdämmerung ("The Twilight of the Gods", about four and half hours plus two half-hour intermissions, Sunday). All singing is in German, with English text projected above the stage. This production is to be done four times at four-year intervals, 2001, 2005, 2009, 2013. The only other complete Ring I've been to was the 1995 Seattle Opera production, which was considerably different, as I remember.
My seat was in the "gallery" section, which is actually down on the main floor, one row away from the very front, way out to the side. Being at an angle was not too bad, and it was nice to be up close. It was interesting to see what people were wearing. Paying more attention to the men, I saw mostly suits and ties, or bow-ties, occasionally with a little flair. A fair number dressed down from that somewhat, and I even saw the occasional T-shirt. And I saw a few men in black tie. Myself, the four evenings saw various combinations of my black velvet jacket, the scarf hesperide gave me, grey and white shirts, brown trousers. For this last one I did "not quite black tie" (softer trousers, velvet jacket, yellow patterned waistcoat).
Down where I was at it was mostly couples in their 40s, 50s, 60s. During the intermissions I saw younger folk up on the top circle, for the cheaper seats. The young'uns tended to be more likely to dress up, and more likely to dress down, and more likely to dress better.
I really felt the theatre of it. I know that sounds an odd thing to say, but I've had recordings of the ring: I used to have the Solti, which I listened to a lot in my university days, and I currently have the Böhm. Since I don't speak German, I can really only appreciate them for the music. It's great music, and a lot of it can stand alone, but I was amazed by the degree that it comes alive when the story is acted out. The Ring, of course, does the "opera" thing, of characters speaking out their thoughts and motivations in full, so that all impulses are given musical voice, and all arguments are made. If this sort of thing annoys you, you'll find the operas terribly slow. For me, what I like is... if some thought or some point occurs to you from some character's perspective, they will express it, and you can see the response to it. There's a completeness to it that makes opera particularly good for carrying mythology.
By all accounts I overheard, this was a great cycle of a great year of a great production. For me, Greer Grimsley's Wotan really stood out. Also Sumegi's Hagen, Stephanie Blythe as Waltraute and especially Fricka, and also perhaps Fink's Alberich. I was a bit disappointed in Baird's Brünnhilde, though. Her singing was fairly strong (perhaps a bit too much vibrato?), but her acting lacked weight. She just overdoes it a bit, I think.
The music was flawless, at least to my inexpert ears. I made a point of listening to nothing classical before and between operas, which paid off when I heard that music stir my blood like it's supposed to. It's odd, because having been so used to the Solti recording, all the differences in the Böhm recording stand out. But I noticed nothing like that actually at the production.
The sets were at every point amazing. The production deliberately re-uses sets in subsequent operas as a kind of motif (said Jenkins in Q&A afterwards), so for instance the spot where Hunding kills Siegmund is the spot where Siegfried kills Fafner is the spot where Hagen kills Siegfried. Certain props beyond the text were also given meaning: Sieglinde's red hair-ribbon, Wotan carrying the poppies from where Fasolt died. The Rhine-maidens (the singers themselves, not stand-ins) were suspended on wires, and swam up and around, and did flips (it worked, trust me). Most spectacular of all was the immolation scene at the end, with projections of fire switching to water for the Rhine-maidens and back to fire for the gods standing together within Valhalla as it is consumed. And finally, the very last image, the nature scene. And all this done perfectly within about four minutes.
I went to the Q&A with Seattle Opera general director Speight Jenkins after Siegfried and Götterdämmerung. He answered questions on both the Wagner's operas and his production of them, which was fascinating and acted as a kind of decompression from the intensity.
So yeah, I'll probably do 2013. But it had better have Grimsley.