Review: 'The Ring' begins

“The adventure,” Los Angeles Opera promises in its ads for “Das Rheingold,” “begins.”  And so Saturday night at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, the first opera in Los Angeles’ first complete staging of Wagner’s epic tetralogy, “Der Ring des Nibelung,” began.

So did the weirdness.  And the discussion.

Achim Freyer -- the visionary, Brechtian, Postmodern if you will but ultimately unclassifiable German painter and theater artist –- is at the helm as director and designer.  We’ll be in the grip (whether gratefully or argumentatively) of Wagnerian and Freyerian extravagance for a long time, what with the three remaining operas to be spread out over the rest of this season and next, culminating in three “Ring” cycles and a citywide festival in spring 2010.

This “Ring” has been a decade in the planning.  In the making is a production with a degree of imagination and daring not unheard of in Europe but previously unknown in America, where “Rings” tend to be tame and, too often, lame.  A lot would have been riding on the rise of the curtain Saturday had there been a curtain to rise.

At the start, neon at the top of the proscenium and the bottom framed a huge expanse of darkness.  What happened within, for the 145 uninterrupted minutes of “Rheingold,” which is a mere prologue to the “Ring,” was a theatrical cabinet of wonders. 

The first challenge in what is ultimately 15 hours’ worth of challenges is reproducing Wagner’s concept of the Rhine, which has been variously described as a symbol of primordial consciousness, of the womb and of unmolested nature.  At the bottom of the river rests a pile of gold. Leave it alone, and the world hums along in elemental bliss.  Forswear love, fashion a gold ring (the wearer of which rules the world) and all manner of disruption will occur.

Gods contest with dwarfs and giants.  Families fall apart.  Incest engenders a hero.  Undifferentiated time and space take on meaning.  Free will and determinism are questioned, as are the philosophical issues of good and evil.

Using a scrim, on which there were occasional projections, Freyer made the Chandler stage appear enormous.  The orchestra remained hidden, deep in its pit like a dragon in its lair, covered by dark fabric.  Conductor James Conlon, the company’s music director, remained unseen.

Freyer uses technologies modern and ancient.  A huge disk in the center of the stage, rife with computerized, hydraulic functions that make it as malleable as a microorganism, will be a constant throughout the cycle.  The Rhine, however, was fabric set flowing by human hands.  There are many hands available for many tasks, since Freyer has  created an acting company of 12 to join in the bedlam.

The Rhinemaidens didn’t frolic but stayed put, their heads popping out of the fabric.  The effect, brilliantly lighted, was unbelievably beautiful, and it is but one of hundreds of anti-Wagnerian, even anti-operatic, devices that Freyer adopts throughout the evening.  His mission is to create a dissonance to Wagner that enhances rather than disrupts the drama and the music.

What that means is that characters are bizarre creatures that have recognizable elements in fanciful disarray.  Wotan, the king of the gods, gave up his eye to win Fricka.  That is an eyeball that glows on occasion downstage.  The Nibelung, the dwarfs who live underground, wear large masks, which means all expression has to come exclusively from their singing.  The costumes, co-designed by the director and his daughter, Amanda Freyer, are hand-painted, flamboyant art objects in their own right.  Puppetry is used, in an ever-fluid concept.  Characters might be doubled by puppets, replaced by puppets, even attached to them.

There are elements of burlesque and circus (Freyer famously staged Mozart’s “Magic Flute” at the Salzburg Festival as a clown show).  Loge, the god of fire, is a kind of carny devil, with two extra hands.  At big moments when special effects might be used, Freyer relies on corny carnival tricks of curtains and mirrors.

Fricka has doll-like, long floppy arms and hands that light up, Robert Wilson-style.  The giants are a couple of construction goons who put magnifiers in front of their heads.

The production looks amazing, but there were acoustical problems Saturday.  The orchestra lacked presence, and the stage was booby-trapped with dead spots.

The singers coped well but are still clearly learning to live in Freyerland.  Vitalij Kowaljow was a refined Wotan, expressive and subtle if not especially commanding.  Michelle DeYoung’s Fricka also probably needs more time to find a sensible center in an eerie environment, but she too was expressive.

Gordon Hawkins as Alberich, the dwarf who steals the ring and hopes to run things, puffed his cigar like a big-shot plutocrat behind his big mask, still in search of a character.  But Graham Clark, as Mime, Alberich’s beleaguered dwarf brother, was a vibrant, colorful voice behind his mask.  Arnold Bezuyen was an athletic, confident Loge.  Ellie Dehn wailed loudly, as she should, as Freia, the goddess the giants demand as payment for building Wotan his castle, Valhalla.

Those giants (Morris Robinson and Eric Halfvarson), as well as the gods Froh (Beau Gibson) and Donner (Wayne Tigges) and the Rhinemaidens (Stacey Tappan, Lauren McNeese and Beth Clayton) all had the misfortune to be placed upstage and were at a major acoustic disadvantage.

Conlon conducted a respectful, sweeping performance.  He got lush and lovely textures from the orchestra, but the deep pit was his enemy, making the players sound as though they were in another room.

But the adventure has, indeed, begun.  The ambitions and promise of this “Ring” are immense.  With a $32-million budget, it could break L.A. Opera.  But the production could also prove an incredible artistic stimulus for Los Angeles.  To be continued …

"Das Rheingold," Los Angeles Opera at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave., L.A. 7:30 p.m. Wednesday; 2 p.m. Sunday; 7:30 p.m. March 5; 2 p.m. March 8; 7:30 p.m. March 11; 2 p.m. March 15. $20 to $238. (213) 972-8001 or www.laopera.com.

-- Mark Swed

Photo: "Das Rheingold" onstage at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Credit: Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[Ecuiram LeVar]

Admiration all around for Mr. Swed's attempt to give a shape to what did not have one. Not that we should be anything but grateful that LA Opera has had the courage to mount the RING. One can only hope that the subsequent operas offer what Saturday evening's performance did not: an artistic center. Yes, Mr. Freyer might say, but the disc at center stage is the center you seek.....well, no it wasn't. And Mr. Freyer's lack of staging skills caused crucial, linchpin moments of the dramatic action to take place in places (far upstage and almost hidden) or in ways (static, or obscured or uncertain in intent) that robbed the audience of the thing this RING prelude must have: the moments when you catch your breath with awful recognition that neither we nor they have changed, and that what seems timeless is, as it always has been, as timely as this morning's paper.

[Jason Thomas]

I understand that the Times reviewer may be hesitant to puncture a two-year, $32 million investment that may break the LA Opera, but this Ring concept, as unveiled Saturday night, was abominable. Los Angeles, the creative capital of the world, deserves a semblance of an acceptable Ring, one of Western civilization's great achievements. But this was an incomprehensible, pretentious, idiotic, undramatic affair - just tired "postmodernist" schlock that insulted the audience's intelligence. Better had LA Opera not staged this than mislead a generation about Wagner and the power of his opera. The recent European practice of "updating" or "interpreting" opera for the modern age is, as exemplified here, a largely lame and futile exercise. The "Brechtianism" of this director apparently means resorting to 60's agitprop resembling the San Francisco Mime Troupe in a "circus/carnival" motif involving puppets and, yes, cute mimes and clowns all staged Robert Wilson-like with trite art cliches like neon and tecno spirals and minimalist to zero movement or dramatic action - resembling nothing less than a second-rate Cirque de Soleil production crossed with The Yellow Submarine and Blue Meanies.

I kept wondering what James Conlon was thinking, conducting the score beautifully from the pit, voluntarily accompanying this insanity. Los Angeles can do better than to be sucked in by this misguided, embarassing Europeanism. Los Angeles deserves a Ring that is staged with drama, clarity, passion, and above all meaning.

[Scott]

These sets could use some music from Tom Waits! Is he available to write an opera?

[Madison Arnold]

Why isn't a 13 year old allowed to comment on a Ring which looks as if it was staged as a kiddie show for 10 year olds?

[Argonaut]

Having seen both the dress rehearsal and opening night, I can only say that on opening night I was better able to ignore the staging. I doubt that it will be worth ponying up the double-price to see the whole Ring next year just to further reduce this annoyance.

Freyer's inventions are shallow, his allusions obvious, and his stagecraft non-existent. Alberich beating up Mime from 50 feet away - brilliantly dramatic. Fafner's mime-double ripping the head off of Fasolt's mime-double as the timpani play several loud drumbeats indicating death by repeated blows from a heavy blunt object - a great improvement (perhaps next time Freyer can re-write the score too). A small multi-colored accordion representing the Rainbow Bridge - my God, does this man's creativity have any limits? Towards the end I was half-expecting a man in a black body stocking to come forward and announce, "Now is the time on Sprockets vhen ve dance!"

It's really a shame, and I blame the brilliant people at LA Opera for buying his Mud People version of Bach's B-minor Mass and then coming back for more. May they all return as Fricka's slaves in their next lives.

[Stacy]

Apparently this reviewer was not at the same performance that the rest of us attended. The set and the costumes were a massive distraction from an otherwise beautiful performance. How bad was it? It took our party of five 10 minutes to mention one word about the music or the story post-performance. In the car on the way home, we were singing cartoon theme songs. Somebody should have had the guts to say "No!" to Freyer long before he wasted so much of the LA Opera's money.

So given the scope of this production and the years in the planning, I would imagine that if it was a remotely successful production Mr. Swed would have given it a glorious review. But that is not the case. As others here have noted it is much more of a non-review. The AP review seems to be closer to other firsthand accounts:

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/02/22/arts/AP-Opera-LA-Ring.html?_r=2

Here the AP actually outlines what Freyer was attempting to do rather than placing him on a pedestal:

"Freyer's idea is to present each of the gods, dwarves, giants and Rhinemaidens who populate ''Das Rheingold'' in multiple forms to reveal their split personalities -- the disparity between what they say and what they really desire"

Wagner ALREADY DOES THIS with the music. That is the beauty and genius of the Ring - the music tell you things you wouldn't otherwise know. Why would Freyer need to be so clumsy and heavyhanded as to try to do this with the production too?

I happened to be in Munich for his production of Alice in Wonderland and it really was the same thing. Clumsy, awkward costumes and staging got in the way of the music. The monotonous heavy costumes and dark lighting made what could have been a remarkably colorful and fantastic score by Unsuk Chin come across as dark, humorless, flat and heavy.

[busytimmy]

Here's Alan Rich's review:

http://www.soiveheard.com/blogs_Rheingold.aspx

Some Rings you will like, some you won't. Find something about the production you like and enjoy. Repeat in 2010.

[kjw]

As a fan of postmodern drama and a teacher of Old Norse, I really like this production and have been promoting it among my students at UCLA. The violence of the reactions (I have never before heard a director booed by an audience) would seem to show the production's strength in challenging expectations. Verfremdung can still alienate after all these years.

[Adriana Burger]

Opening Night: I was very impressed with the audio/vocals. However, the set design and costumes were in poor taste. It seemed surrealistic that the people who run the opera would allow this to happen. I think the set design and costumes did such a disservice to the beauty of the vocals and the wonderful orchestra. It seems that the performers, musicians and customers were hijacked by silly "visionaries". How sad.

[James]

I couldn't even bare to look at the image in the program - a full color photograph of the second act in all its childish pantomime glory. I tried closing my eyes and ignoring the horrific staging, but so muted were the sounds of the orchestra coming from the basement, so weak the voices placed as far back on the stage as possible, that even that failed to satisfy. Where was the other-worldly beauty of the Rheinmaidens? the vicious brutality of Alberich? the glowing vitality of Freia? the sense of excitement as we descend into the underworld to the pounding of hammers of anvils? the awe inspiring vision of Valhalla? None of it was here. Freyer has produced a high school musical version of Wagner, and it promises to continue for another year. An embarrassment for all concerned.

[Mary Jane]

Hopefully, sinking $32 million into this disaster won't be the Twilight of the LA Opera! What were they thinking??? (I drove over from Arizona to see Rheingold Wednesday night but I won't see the others. I will, however, happily go back to see Seattle's Ring cycle again this summer.)

[Richard]

The set design, i.e., the projections on screens and the tilted stage, reminded me of Mr. Sirlin's two productions in the mid-80's for George Coates' San Francisco Performance Ensemble, "SeeHear" and "Rare Area". Those where magnificent and beautiful, but here the stage appeared to be a grotesque and rather unpleasant attempt at mimicry.

[Marilyn Luneberg]

I was bored to death--totally distracted and appalled by the set. We left halfway through and felt numb all the way back to l000 Oaks. I have been trying to get my daughter interested in opera and this has set me back years. If this is what is going to be on for the ring, in '10 I hope the opera will allow me to return the tickets I have unfortunately purchased. DUMP this staging and start all over, please.

[victoria]

I have never taken acid but I am sure that this production would be similar to an acid trip. It was so bizarre that it reached a point of being insulting. My husband describes it as like a Monty Python scene. I took my 5 year old and she was laughing because it was so silly. What is with everyone having so many arms, the dancing lady with the naked big boobs, the lame rainbow accordion, the plane in the sky, the character who took off its head and threw it in the air and caught it - the list could go on and on. It is a shame that something so great as the Das Rheingold could be made into this joke of a production.

[Leslie Brown]

While many opera goers may be content to drink up the comfortable swill of Zefferelli Bohèmes or whatever the current version of Elisir may be, I was stimulated, uncomfortable and exhilarated by this production. Thank the old Norse gods that Los Angeles Opera is (occasionally) willing to present something that is neither comforting nor swill. I'm reminded of past productions of Wozzeck and Incoronazione as well as the presentation of the Kirov's Lady Macbeth. These productions seem to inform the music by their dialogue with our world rather than merely update with the audacity and intelligence of their directors. As I was leaving the theater, I turned to a stranger and said "After that, the real world seems so strange." He gestured back at the theater and said somewhat bitterly, "That's the real world." And is that not the essence of the Ring? It shows us with some bitterness, the real world.

[Mark Johnson]

Hopefully all the lovers of tacky experimental theater will fill the gap in LA Opera Company fundraising that results from the disgust of opera lovers when they finally refuse to fund the childish ego gratifications of the Robert Wilsons and Achim Freyers of the world. Having been a season ticket subscriber to the LA Opera since its inception, I am just happy that I delayed sending in my subscription (and contribution) for the Ring series scheduled for summer of 2010. Having to sit through these childish gimmicky productions once as part of the regular opera series will be quite enough, thank you very much. Oh well, we've still got Seattle and Seattle still has my financial support.

[Mark Rudio]

Are they still using horned helmets in Seattle? Is that really what you want to see in 2009? Good grief people!

The number of unfavorable comments here astounds me. This is the fourth production I have seen of Das Rheingold and not only was this the most inventive and mesmerizing I have seen so far, it was one of the best productions of any opera I've ever attended, even though I agree not everything works.

This promises to be not only a great Ring, but it will have a lasting impact similar to that of Chereau's- to which so far, it can be favorably compared. Brilliant!

I'll be returning for each production and look forward to it.

L.A. Opera is probably the most exciting company around right now. I wish we had this kind of opera here in San Francisco.

[Dio]

After studying almost every classical composer, I studied Wagner last - because so much negative has been written about him as a person. Imagine my surprise - Wagner's music became my favorite of all.

I study his operas, and admire them, as I feel all lovers of great music must. There are intricate stories in many of these operas. The story in Das Rheingold is somewhat straightforward in comparison to latter parts of the Ring.

Nevertheless, I would have had absolutely no clue as to what the story was all about, or even who the characters were if I had only the LA Opera's current depiction of Das Rheingold to go on. Virtually every character was lost in a Peter Max like costume that hardly moved about.

I had been so very excited to see this production. I am wanting to tell all that it was great. But the portrayal of Wotan, Fricka, and Freia were such as to leave one with no idea as to who they were, or what the story was even about. Eddie Murphy playing Gumby comes to mind, and this is Wotan, the top God. I can tell you that those with out prior knowledge as to what Das Rheingold is about - left with little idea as to what they just saw.

I was crushed. Now I am wondering if I should even go to see Die Walkure, even though I already bought my tickets to see it.

[Paul Larsen]

I was very disappointed in this production. I have been a subscriber for 18 seasons, most of the time waiting and hoping for more Wagner. I tried hard to keep an open mind, but the sets and the costumes were so distracting that I was reduced at one point to simply take off my glasses -- being very nearsighted, this allowed me to see only a few colors moving about while I listened to the music.

I really have no interest in this comic book Kabuki of a production and seriously question whether I would be willing to sit through any more. I am not alone, apparently, because the performance I saw was not well attended. I fear that if attendance is not good overall, the LA Opera will decide that Los Angeles simply does not like Wagner instead of accepting responsibility for the consequences of this type of production.

What makes all of this so tragic is that the singing and orchestra were very good. I would happily buy a recording and imagine what might have been. Instead, I am forced to try hard to forget what actually was.