January Meme: Favorite Opera
cahn asked me about my favourite opera. Now there are not a few I love, but I would be cheating if I didn't admit to my absolute favourite, which is: Die Walküre (The Valkyrie), the second opera in Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle.
(Obligatory disclaimer: not only was Richard Wagner a terrible human being, he left a awful ideological legacy. I remember when one of my professors at Uni who had written a lot about Wagner with a sigh of relief turned over to writing about Verdi. Not that Verdi was perfect, he said, but good god, what a relief not having to deal with antisemitic rants and the worst fanboys anymore.) That said, he - my professor - never doubted for a moment Wagner had been one of the all time great and innovative composers. The Ring of the Nibelung in totem can be one of those magical theatre experiences, or it can be a marathon torture on your backside, if the production isn't good. I've seen some recordings and some live performances, among these two complete Ring cycles in the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, the opera house Wagner specifically designed and built to host the Ring, and it's true, the acoustics there are unique from the moment you hear the Es major as the first note of Rhinegold from beneath the stage, because in Bayreuth, the orchestra pit is located beneath the stage, with only the conductor visible for the audience.
(This means since the Bayreuth Festival takes place in summer that most musicians come in t-shirts and shorts. I'ts incredibly hot there.
shezan didn't believe me when I told her about this until I demonstrated when I brought her along for a performance.)
If you have only a vague idea what The Ring of the Nibelung is all about, and which of the four operas contains which content, here's a Ring in 15 Minutes written by yours truly. The reason why The Valkyrie is my favourite of the four: firstly, it lacks that most obnoxious of heroes, Siegfried. Secondly, all the relationships it does feature are intensely moving. The (incesteous) twins, Siegmund and Sieglinde, are possibly the most sympathetic lovers Wagner ever created. The reason why Siegmund is a fugitive at the start of the opera is because he championed a woman who didn't want to marry her family's choice, not because he himself was in love with her but because she asked for his help and he gave it. Finding Sieglinde as another woman in a forced marriage, he sympathizes even before he loves, let alone before he recognizes her as his sister. Unlike his son - and not a few other Wagner characters - there's no cruelty in him, or boastfulness, or megalomania. Unlike his father, he's not looking for power. When he's offered eternal glory as a hero in Valhalla, he declines because this would mean being without Sieglinde. As for Sieglinde, here you have a woman who was kidnapped and enslaved as a child, and forced into a marriage, but who still is sympathetic to distressed strangers, determined to help them, again even before the big mutual declaration and identity reveal. (It's significant and psychologically astute that in act 2, the shame Sieglinde feels isn't about the (consensual and joyful) incest, it's about the marriage forced on her earlier.) The big love declaration/recognition/escape scene that concludes the first act has some of the most swoonworthy music ever composed. (Also, it's worth pointing out that this was staged in the 19th century when censorship still prevailed on opera and theatre stages - hence Verdi having to change all those Kings into dukes or American governors if they got assassinated or were threatened to, for example -, yet Wagner got his contemporary audience to cheer for the incesteous lovers as much as today's.) Here is the ending of Act 1 from the big centennary 1976 Ring cycle production in Bayreuth, directed by Patrice Chereau, conducted by Pierre Boulex. Sieglinde: Jeanine Althmeyer. Siegmund: Peter Hoffmann.
Click to viewThen Act 2 reintroduces Wotan (having graduated from power corrupted jerk in the previous opera to brooding existentialist) and most importantly Brünnhilde, the titular Valkyrie, his favourite daughter who ends the act rebelling against him not out of anger but love. Act 2 also features an extented recitative dialogue scene which usually is the test to a production's worth, because it doesn't contain any big musical set pieces, it's a marital argument (between Frigga and Wotan), and yet it's the pivotal scene around which the opera revolves as Frigga with relentless reasoning destroys Wotan's self delusions and forces him to face the philosophical and legal bind he finds himself in. Yet unlike, say, Ortrud in Lohengrin (another female Wagner character who gets the better in several arguments, but who is the clear villain of her opera), Frigga isn't villainized for it, and when Brünnhilde later tries to blame her for Wotan's change of mind, he rejects that excuse as he himself has created the situation which Frigga only pointed out.
The most moving scene of Act 2, though, is when Brünnhilde - who as a Valkyrie is a goddess of death, after all - brings Siegmund the news of his impending demise in battle and subsequent reward (to be taken to Valhalla), and his reaction - not panicked about death but refusing an afterlife which his beloved Sieglinde cannot share - stuns and touches her so that she decides to help her half siblings. This makes Brünnhilde the first being from the world of the gods (in this cycle) who turns against it and its values for the sake of the humans, and it sets her up for the big conflict with her father which is what act 3 is all about. But before we get there, the "death announcement" scene (Brünnhilde: Gwynneth Jones, Siegmund: Peter Hoffmann, from the 1981 Bayreuth production):
Act 3 opens with one of the most famous Wagner compositions, the Ride of the Valkyries. For a time known even to Wagner haters via Coppola using it in Apocalypse Now as athe soundtrack of the US helicopters Napalm bombing Vietnam, which is blackest humor but not inaccurate. In the opera, these are death goddesses arriving with the corpses they've collected, after all. For all the zillions of parodies and performances, though, it's impossible for me not be somewhat swept away when I hear it. In the original Valkyrie score manuscript, Wagner has written, feeling justly proud: This is how you ride through the air. If someone wants a reminder, here's the Ride of the Valkyries from a Met production.
Act 3 though, as I said, emotionally is all about a bariton/soprano clash and reconciliation, err, a father and daughter relationship, containing all the fury, passion and in the end tenderness imaginable. (And then a nifty reprise of the previous opera's Loge (aka Loki) signature tune as Wotan conjures up the fire to guard Brünnhilde in her sleep.) Wotan's farewell from Brünnhilde in which he takes her divinity from her and leaves her human (when she will wake up again) is at the same time a passionate love declaration, and another scene which, in the right production, can move me to tears. Here it's James Morris doing the singing (Brünnhilde: Hildegard Behrens):
(For an older classic recording, check out Hans Hotter as Wotan, conducted by Herberts Knappertsbusch: here.
Now, one of the most amazing things is that while in summary all of this sounds really dark and depressing (by the time the opera ends, Siegmund is dead, so's Sieglinde's husband, Sieglinde is alive but pregnant and alone, and Wotan has lost all three children he cared most about through his own fault), it doesn't feel like this when you see and hear it performed. You - well, I - instead feel that love still wins (Brünnhilde has at least managed to save Sieglinde and given her hope again, and she and Wotan part not in hate but in love) . That the most obnoxious hero of them all is about to debut and the fall of Gods and men alike is inevitable, well, that's another opera.
The other days This entry was originally posted at https://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1429491.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.