Wagner's "Ring' cycle (Part 2)

Second of a series of articles on Wagner's Ring cycle.

I and many others are following the Metropolitan Opera's current cycle of Wagner's Ring because it's the end of a breed, a twilight of the composer's vision. Even when this production was new, in the late 1980s, it was considered old-fashioned.

Richard Wagner wanted naturalistic sets that evoked the Rhine River and German forests and mountains. He emphasized a connection between his story and the emergence of a united Germany under the leadership of Otto van Bismarck.

Wagner compared his hero, Siegfried, to Bismarck, and he approved an 1871 publication by the Wagner Society that proclaimed: "Today, the leadership of this completed undertaking lies in the hands of a powerful man; the burning desire for national unity has been fulfilled... The resurrection of the German Empire should be accompanied by a massive artistic monument to the German intellect. In the field of politics, the German mission in the history of the world has recently enjoyed its second triumph; now its spiritual victory is to be celebrated through the German Festival in Bayreuth."

In the aftermath of World War II— which exposed a few, shall we say, flaws in Wagner's concept of German superiority— Bayreuth's productions of the Ring avoided his triumphalist approach. The composer's grandson, Wieland Wagner, directed the operas using stages that were mostly empty and dark with simple costumes not connected to German history. This abstract style became the norm for Ring productions worldwide.

Jung's archetypes

For almost all of the past half-century, producers of the Ring have focused on the characters' psychology, much more than on the telling of a story. They tapped in to the collective unconscious as represented by Wagner's use of what Jung called "archetypes," or primordial images. Fear of death and loss of control became principal subjects. To be sure, these themes are part of what Wagner has to offer. But they shouldn't exclude a clear narrative.

One exception to the abstract movement was the 1976 Bayreuth production directed by Patrice Chéreau, which portrayed the Nibelungs as exploited factory workers and the operators of power companies as the villains. It's easy to see this approach as a logical extension of Wagner's story, where nature is exploited by those who lust after power and gold.

The critics snickered

The Met Ring, directed by Otto Schenk with sets designed by Günther Schneider-Siemssen, returned to Wagner's original, explicit intent. In this version, once again, we see forests and caves and fires springing up to surround a rock. There's a bear and a dragon, and the production includes some high-tech lightning flashes. Many opera buffs love this style, but some critics dismiss it as a relic of the past, lacking sociological, political and psychological context.

"If you want things old-fashioned, pretty-pretty and let's-pretend literal," writes the distinguished critic Martin Bernheimer (with whom I often agree), "this version should be up your Wagnerian alley...One tries not to laugh."

My wife looked forward to seeing the flying Valkyries and the Magic Fire— and indeed she is enjoying it even as I write this. But now she's ready to see a re-imagining of the Ring by Robert LePage, of Cirque du Soleil fame, due at the Met during the 2010-2011 season. And much as I adore the traditional Schenk approach, even I am ready to move on to something more inventive.

The case for traditional revivals

A current production in Copenhagen directed by Kasper Bech Holten imagines the Ring as Brünnhilde's quest to discover her past. The four music dramas are interpreted from the viewpoint of a modern woman who defied her father. This production has just been issued on DGG video discs. Director Francesca Zambello is planning an "American Ring" for the Washington (D.C.) National Opera that's based on American myths, with Western landscapes and trailer parks. "Siegfried is like James Dean when you meet him," Zambello says. "He's an obnoxious teenager." I'd like to see both of these versions.

But I wish that the old production didn't have to disappear. I regret that no museum-like theater exists where one can see the classics of opera and Broadway in their original conceptions— or at least in an approximation, such as Schenk's Ring or Harold Prince's 1994 revival of Show Boat. At such revivals, new generations could experience what the authors and composers intended and use that as a reference point when they see new productions.

Wagner's changing world

To be sure, Wagner's intent is inconsistent. After all, he wrote the Ring over a 28-year span, during which political conditions shifted, not to mention his personal experiences. He was 35 years old when he started writing the libretto in 1848 and 63 years old at its premiere in 1876. So we shouldn't be surprised to find contradictions in his themes.

Although Wagner extolled the formation of the German Empire, he also warned against the use of power. The first opera in the Ring preaches that materialism is destructive and love is all-important. Here Wagner almost sounds like a 1960s flower child. But this revolutionary impulse wanes as the operas progress, just as Wagner the man metamorphosed from a political radical to a man of means who hobnobbed with royalty. Somewhere in the middle of Die Walküre, he begins focusing more on family conflicts and on the importance of the rule of law. The lesson in the last act of Siegfried and in Gotterdammerung is that we all die, and men and women must learn how to deal with that.

To me, these shifting perspectives add greater fascination to the Ring. â—†




Second article in a series on Wagner's Ring cycle. Next: Das Rheingold.
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