This exhibition was on show at theTate Liverpool from 11 December 2004 - 2 May 2005. sof 71 May 2005 Andy Kemp reviews Seeing is Believing: Faith in the Tate Collection at the Tate Liverpool reviews Missionary Position II by Sonia Boyce sof 71 May 2005 20 My first Ring Cycle was in 1960 when, as a musically unschooled usherette I stood through all four operas, occasionally popping out for a cup of tea and a chat.
Whenever I returned to the drama, (whether after five minutes or an hour) the same two white-robed singers always seemed to be standing in the same position, and singing the same phrase of music as when I’d left. In those days the audience was elderly and smelled of mothballs. With no surtitles to help, I had not the slightest idea of what was going on, but, I remember, I never slept well after Wagner nights, aware of a pounding heart and a restless longing brought on by the power of the music.
What a long way productions have come since those days. In the latest offering of Die Walküre at the Royal Opera House, the young cast sang and acted superbly: climbed perilous ladders, walked down almost vertical slopes, and literally played with fire. At the climax of the thrilling five hour drama I rose to my feet screaming with a wild excitement, quite carried away and elated.
Alarmed by such a strong reaction, I realised later that the performance had provided me with access to a latent knowledge that any boundary can be broken – all the forbidden sins, murder, rape, incestuous love, anything is possible in Wagner’s land of the Gods.
The controversial set for this new production, a futuristic metallic structure designed by Stefanos Lazaridis, had its moments but perhaps worked better for the first opera in the cycle, the watery Rheingold. I found the strobe lighting at the beginning of each act literally unwatchable, but these are minor carpings about an overall triumphant project. Less bombastic than is usual in Wagner, under the baton of whizz-kid Antonio Pappano the orchestra played superbly and was largely responsible for the tremendous energy engendered by the performance as a whole. All the cast looked great, especially the vibrant Valkyries, and sang and acted as well as one might dare hope for in The Ring. The central great love scene between the incestuous siblings, Siegmund and Sieglinde, each an aspect of the other, was stunning. The shadow of Sieglinde’s abusive husband Hunding loomed over their final ecstatic declaration of physical longing for each other. Above all, Bryn Terfel has the makings of a truly great Wotan. His singing could hardly be bettered and the farewell kiss with Brunnhilde, the much-loved wayward daughter, must be one of the most erotic moments ever enacted on stage.
Wagner was famously the favourite composer of Hitler who responded to the music as to ‘an energising drug.’ In his book Music and the Mind the psychiatrist Anthony Storr makes a connection between the way Wagner constructed his music, piling on layer upon layer of sounds, and Hitler’s oratorical style, which had the quality of an hypnotic incantation or chant in which the voice became an instrument to rouse and heighten the emotions of the crowd.
Wagner was deeply concerned with the ideas and writings of the great philosophers of his time – in particular of Schopenhauer, whose book Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung (The World as Will and Representation), he claimed to have read several times, and with Nietzsche, who was at one time a close friend.
The music critic Barry Millington has written that it was almost certainly not those two philosophers who most influenced Wagner, but Ludwig Feuerbach – whose name, appropriately, translates as ‘stream of fire’.
Feuerbach believed that, contrary to the conventional belief that God created man, it was actually mankind that created God or the gods. ‘All the attributes of the divine nature are, therefore, attributes of the human nature.’ In other words, ‘we have created God in our own image.’ Feuerbach believed that Love is the source of all joys, but also of all sorrows.
The Ring is finally and triumphantly about love and transformation. Millington ends his essay by writing: ‘In this interpretation of the true meaning of Wagner’s Ring, Brunnhilde’s all-embracing and transforming love is the force it is hoped will bring one cycle of the world’s existence to an end and usher in a glorious new future – one not beholden to superstition and irrationality but dependent on ordinary men and women taking responsibility for their own actions.’ A parable for our own troubled times?
RichardWagner’s The Ring: DieWalküre,new production by KeithWarner,is on at the Royal Opera House,Covent Garden on 8th,12th and 15th July 2005.Lower price standby tickets are available from 10 am on the day of performance to personal callers at the box office.
Cicely Herbert reviews Die Walküre from Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Richard Wagner's The Ring: Die Walküre, new production by Keith Warner, was on at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden on 8th, 12th and 15th July 2005.