October 02 2011

Siegfried

After two successful productions, Twente’s Ring des Nibelungen has achieved true cult status. Without huge budgets, without overwhelming scenery, without soloists whose names put a strain on the box office, the National Reisopera has demonstrated for several seasons in a row that Richard Wagner’s colossal tetralogy can also flourish through inventive simplicity. Last Sunday another chapter was added to the fifteen-hour-long epic about gods and giants, Nibelungen and Valkyries.

For part three, Siegfried, almost six hours (including intervals) must be allotted. The production will not be going on tour but the true opera-lover will be pleased to add the journey time from Amsterdam, Maastricht or Cologne to those six hours.

In return he will get a performance that kicks many a hallowed ‘Wagner house’ into touch. Anthony McDonald, director and also scenery- and costume designer, keeps the staging simple, sometimes even domestic. A children’s pram and a standard lamp, conversations at the kitchen table – he suggests much but let his audience fill in the rest. In one scene he really lets fly: when the intrepid Siegfried begins his fight with the dragon, the entrance to the dragon’s cave turns into a monstrous head, and one wall is shattered by dragons’ claws.

There is no empty violence from the orchestra pit, either. Conductor Ed Spanjaard once again proves himself a Wagnerian conductor of international class. He creates a Ring that supports the singers instead of sapping them, and which is able to jack up the tension without allowing the volume to explode. At the same time, the musicians of the Orkest van het Oosten demonstrate that they are capable of producing chamber-music-style whispers as well as thoroughly intimidating, hyper-powerful eruptions.

The production stands or falls by the performance of the hero, Siegfried. In his lederhosen, tenor Mati Turi, who hails from Estonia, looks young, big and blond – like a man who can take on the world. And that is exactly how he sounds. His voice has the stamina of a decathlete and a blistering intensity that captivates the attention until the final minute.

The Wanderer, who in a previous life as the half-blind Wotan still ruled over gods, giants and Nibelungen, has lost his power. Yet the bass Harry Peeters gives him the authority befitting a ruler. The moment when Siegfried laughs him down is beautifully done: we see a man breaking up – a man whose world is collapsing – and we recognise there the signature of director McDonald, who time and again brings the personal, vulnerable sides of his characters to the fore.

In Adrian Thompson’s excellent interpretation, Mime (the smith who has raised Siegfried) is given villainous traits, but Thompson avoids making a caricature of the role.

The Hungarian mezzo-soprano Judith Németh delivers a roaring Brünnhilde and the other roles are splendidly filled, from the Waldvogel (Machteld Baumans) to Alberich (Nicholas Folwell), Erda (Ceri Williams) and the giant, Fafner (Mika Kares).

Next season signals the completion of this Ring cycle. Götterdämmerung – the twilight of the gods – has also been announced as the last-ever new production – as the gods’ twilight – of the National Reisopera.