There is a strong case that Wagner’s Die Walküre is the greatest opera ever written. It has everything, from the broad sweep of the Ring cycle as a whole (it’s the second of the four) to the intimate passion, family drama (that’s putting it mildly!) and soaring music that expresses both the epochal themes of the Ring cycle and the personal elation – and anguish – of the characters.
But for every production that works, there are half a dozen that don’t. It’s rare to find a director who doesn’t have some half-baked political point to make, a conductor and orchestra who can do justice to the music and, crucially, singers who not only sound wonderful but can act. Thrillingly, this new Royal Opera production by Australian Jewish director Barrie Kosky hits every bullseye. In more than 40 years of seeing Wagner on stage, this new production is one of the very greatest. The sets are minimalist and grey; there are ashes everywhere. Kosky says the Australian bush fires were on his mind (and subsequently, doubtless, those in California). Earth is a character in this production, with the silent goddess Earth Mother, Erda, on stage almost throughout – naked. It sounds like a gimmick but it works.
What an orchestra! It is quite something hearing Wagner played with such elan and sweep
Act one, in which Siegmund (Stanislas de Barbeyrac) and Sieglinde discover their love (and that they are siblings) is ecstatic. Many Siegmunds bark their music, whereas de Barbeyrac has real ardour in his tone. But Welsh-Ukrainian soprano Natalya Romaniw’s Sieglinde is sensational; I’ve never heard the role sung with such pure beauty before. Romaniw was superb in the Royal Opera’s Festen and in Tosca before that. She is fast becoming one of the world’s leading sopranos. And it’s mind-blowing that she was only cast in March, as a replacement for the pregnant Lise Davidsen.
Christopher Maltman’s excellence as a Lieder singer gives him the advantage of characterising every phrase with nuance and meaning. His Wotan has grown a beard since we first encountered him in the opening production of this cycle, Das Rheingold, last year. Maltman plays him as a gangland villain – smart suited, with menace lurking should you cross him. And when his daughter Brunnhilde does just that, ignoring his order to ensure that her brother, Siegmund, is killed by Sieglinde’s husband (Wotan’s wife, Fricka, is the goddess of marriage and she demands that he punish his son for his affair with Sieglinde; I hope you’re following), his rage is unleashed.
Maltman’s act two monologue – essentially the core of the entire Ring cycle – is riveting, with a more nihilistic take than usual. Wotan bemoans to Brunnhilde how it is all going wrong and that the gods are doomed. This is usually seen as more a resigned sense of fate than anger. When he creates agents of his Will, he creates slaves. His power actually makes him powerless. And he is done with it. He not only accepts his End – his Death – he wills it. Everything else in the cycle flows from this. But in Kosky’s production, Wotan’s attitude is more “to hell with all of you, I’ll blow up everything”.
Elisabet Strid’s Brünnhilde changes between acts two and three from tomboyish excitement at her role in carrying out her father’s wishes to the realisation that in defying him she has sealed her fate – and the act three farewell sees Strid at her best. It will be fascinating to come back to her later in the cycle; she has the rare ability to soar over the orchestra whilst still sounding delicate.
And what an orchestra! It’s easy to take the Royal Opera orchestra for granted, but Sir Antonio Pappano has them sounding like a combination of the Berlin and Vienna Philhamonics. It’s quite something hearing Wagner played with such elan and sweep.
This is one of those performances that you know will live with you for ever. It is not just five stars. It is perfect.
Die Walküre
Royal Opera House
★★★★★
