Contrariamente à presse française – em especial, a que se dedica à música erudita (por demais narcísica e petulante) -, a cobertura do The New York Times refere o percalço da première de O Ouro do Reno (do Met), sem o enfatizar. This things do happen!
At the new Metropolitan Opera production, the divine ones are supposed to traverse a section of a giant set that tilts into a passageway toward the back of the stage.
But let me start with Mr. Levine and the splendid performance he drew from the superb Met orchestra, which played brilliantly, and the excellent cast, as strong a lineup of vocal artists for a Wagner opera as I have heard in years. The formidable bass-baritone Bryn Terfel sang his first Wotan at the Met, a chilling, brutal portrayal; the powerhouse mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe was a vocally sumptuous, magisterial yet movingly vulnerable Fricka. And the bass-baritone Eric Owens had a triumphant night as Alberich.
Still, the state of Mr. Levine’s health and music making were major concerns going into this evening. When he took his bow during the curtain calls he looked a little wobbly and needed support. He seems to have lost weight. But there was nothing frail about his conducting.
And the machine worked. Well, almost worked. There was one serious glitch at the end. The “machine” is what the cast and crew have taken to calling the 45-ton gizmo that dominates Mr. Lepage’s complex staging, the work of the set designer Carl Fillion. It consists of a series of 24 planks on a crossbar that rise and sink like seesaws, singly, in tandem or in patterns. To evoke the churning currents of the river where the Rhinemaidens protect the magic gold, the planks, bathed in greenish lights, undulate slowly. As in many traditional productions, the three aquatic sisters (Lisette Oropesa, Jennifer Johnson, Tamara Mumford) first appear dangling from cables. But when planks rise to create a wall of water for the maidens to rest on, there are video images of stones and pebbles on the river floor tumbling downward as the sisters rustle them.
Otto Schenk’s Romantic “Ring” production, which was retired in 2009, had passionate defenders. In talking up the Lepage “Ring,” Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, tried to assure everyone that this was not going to be some high-concept, Eurotrash staging. Mr. Lepage uses the latest in staging technology to “tell the story,” Mr. Gelb said repeatedly in interviews.
Actually, in many ways, even with all the high-tech elements, Mr. Lepage’s production is fairly traditional. François St-Aubin’s costumes are like glitzier, quirkier riffs on old-fashioned Wagnerian “Ring” outfits. Mr. Terfel’s Wotan has stringy hair that falls over the god’s blind left eye, and a rustic shirt missing an arm. Yet he sports a bronze breastplate right out of a storybook “Ring.” The giants, Fasolt and Fafner (the booming basses Franz-Josef Selig and Hans-Peter König) are like rugged bushmen, with scraggly hair and beards, and leggings covered with fur. Loge has a Peter Sellars hairdo (an inside joke from one director to another?), a ragtag outfit and hands that emit a fiery glow on command.
Ora bem! Dissoluto
ResponderEliminarE não é por aí que o gato vai à filhós.
Que é como quem diz, neste caso, não é por aí que temos uma encenação e espectáculo menores.
LG
Lol. Oh, well, é a velha história do pano e da nódoa. De qualquer modo, as imagens da produção são fantásticas e a persona de Wotan, com o cabelo a tapar-lhe o olho cego, é um achado. Vamos ter de esperar pelo DVD.
ResponderEliminarFelizes os que têm uma Gulbenkian por perto.