Seattle Ring Cycle 2005

Seattle Opera - McCaw Hall
Wagner
DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN G.Grimsley, S.Blythe, RP Fink, M.Plette, S. Milling, G. Saks, P.Kazaras, T. Harper, E.Podles, R. Berkeley-Steele, MJ Wray, J. Eaglen, A. Woodrow. Dir: R.Spano. Dir.esc: S. Wadsworth. 7,8,10, 12, 15, 16,18,20, 23, 24,26,28 August

Seattle loves Wagner and has been presenting Ring cycles in the city of Boeing and Microsoft since 1976. Director Stephen Wadsworth has repaid that love with a green and loving Ring. Green in the realistic sets – the gods dwell in a forest glade based on a local beauty spot. And loving in the relationships between these oh-so-human deities – Wotan and Fricka exchange frequent embraces between marital arguments. Conducting his first Ring, Robert Spano brings finely judged pacing, sparkle and weight to an orchestra that benefits from the excellent acoustic in the renovated McCaw Hall. The other major debut is Greer Grimsley in his first Wotan. He has an oaky, tireless bass- baritone that occasionally echoes the sublime George London. His Wotan remains a work in progress, lacking a little in presence as if Grimsley does not yet believe that he is the god of all the gods.

Richard Paul Fink’s powerful, assured Alberich commands the stage in Rhinegold. In the opening scenes he has to compete with the production’s stunning Rhinemaidens – suspended on harnesses, swooping, soaring and somersaulting as they sing. Stephanie Blythe’s glorious mezzo brings warmth and compassion to Fricka but the most dramatic moment belongs to Ewa Podles’s Erda who emerges out of the mossy forest floor to bring her own brand of velvet-brown, sexy contralto comfort to the troubled Wotan.

In Die Walkure, Margaret Jane Wray’s thrilling, laser-like soprano lacks the doomed Sieglinde’s vulnerability. Wray is surely just passing through Hunding’s hut on the way to Brunnhilde’s summits. Siegmund on the other hand, as sung by Richard Berkeley-Steele is lyrical and tender but lacks the heroics necessary for Die Walkure’s great sword declamations. The immense Stephen Milling is a stentorian, menacing Hunding. Seattle loves Jane Eaglen’s Brunnhilde. And when she is singing full throttle this reviewer loves her too but there is a worrying gap in the middle range of her voice that renders it almost inaudible at times. Alan Woodrow’s Siegfried acts with jaunty confidence and humour, singing heroically if not always beautifully but growing in vocal stature to deliver a moving death scene in Gotterdammerung. In the revised (since 2001) immolation scene, the cavorting Rhinemaidens reclaim their Ring as the grey, ageing gods rise on a pedestal amidst the smoke of Valhalla’s ruins. Wotan and Fricka embrace - recalling bad Hollywood films where family values must survive but by now we don’t care for the rapturous love theme brings with it the pristine forest of Rhinegold. Now fresh shoots grow on the logs. In Seattle’s green Ring, beyond the destruction caused by gods and man nature returns, nature endures.