Of Carrousel Horses and Claws

By Michael Walsh

Ever since Richard Wagner first staged his Der Ring des Nibelungen at Bayreuth in 1876, producers, directors and set designers have been trying to figure out how best to present his sweeping 16-hour cycle. Wagner set the first production in timeless, mythic German prehistory. In his revolutionary postwar interpretation, the composer's grandson Wieland emphasized the influence of Greek drama on Wagner's aesthetics. French Director Patrice Chereau detected a 19th century Marxist dialectic at work with his controversial 1976 Bayreuth staging, while Set Designer Pet Halmen and Director Nicolas Joel used aspects of Kabuki drama in their recent Wiesbaden production.

The ambiguities of the Ring, however, are what make it so irresistible, and lately there has been something of a Ring boomlet in America. The San Francisco Opera unveiled its splendid Ring last summer; the Dallas Opera has produced all four segments in the past five years; there is a production under way at Artpark in Lewiston, N.Y. Next month the Metropolitan Opera begins its new Ring with the second opera in the cycle, Die Walkure. Yet for sheer audaciousness, none of these companies are likely to rival the Seattle Opera, which opened a new Ring last week to an invigorating chorus of lusty cheers and outraged boos. Long coddled by safe, representational operatic productions, the American public is getting a chance to see what directorial interpretation, so common in Europe, is all about.

The Rhinemaidens frolic in Victorian bloomers. Fricka ascends to Valhalla by means of a balloon gondola. The Valkyries ride off to war aboard carrousel horses suspended in midair. Wotan puts Brunnhilde to sleep in what appears to be a cluttered attic, full of ungodly bric-a-brac, and she awakens in a starry mausoleum. Siegfried slays the dragon Fafner by chopping at a gigantic crab's claw and then pushing over a flimsy set of painted flats. The forest bird who guides the hero to Brunnhilde is a taxidermist's specimen, carried aloft on a stick by a highly visible soprano.

The seeming naivete of Swiss Director Francois Rochaix and American Designer Robert Israel, however, is the result of a thoughtful and ultimately respectful examination of the sense of the piece. Rochaix and Israel are not the first to note the parallels between Wagner's life and his works, but few have ever acted on them so explicitly. Central to understanding the Seattle Opera's Ring is the notion that Wagner and Wotan are cognates, and that just as the composer uses leitmotivs, or musical symbols, to weave and bind his sprawling tapestry, so should Wotan employ theatrical symbols -- props -- to underscore the unity of the world he has created. The universe of the Ring is an illusion, a necromancer's house of cards, that must finally come crashing down.

Such an interpretation is not without its perils, unintended laughter being foremost among them. It is difficult, for example, to understand how Siegfried slays Fafner by wounding him in a horned extremity. Nor is the production immune to directly contradicting the sense of the text. When Brunnhilde tells Siegmund that he must die in his forthcoming battle with Hunding, it is imperative that the exhausted fighter actually look upon her for the scene to make dramatic sense, especially since English supertitles are used. Further, some of the ideas are not very original. The use of 19th century costume (Wotan is dressed to look like Wagner) is borrowed from Chereau, while some of the tableaux, particularly those that involve characters suspended from wires, evoke the striking images of Theater Artist Robert Wilson.

Elsewhere the touch is surer. Blessed with an extraordinarily vivid Mime in Dutch Tenor Hubert Delamboye, Rochaix gives the conniving dwarf free rein, particularly in Siegfried, where his exchanges with the sturdy Siegfried (American Heldentenor Edward Sooter) have a sharp, often humorous bite. And having Siegfried relate his wooing of Brunnhilde directly to Gunther near the end of Gotterdammerung gives the innocent Siegfried's ensuing murder a special poignancy.

Budgeted at $3 million and cast largely with Americans, the Seattle Ring is not in the vocal class of Bayreuth, the Met or San Francisco. Yet Sooter gives a strong, noble account of himself, as does Baritone Julian Patrick as a robust, crafty Alberich. Soprano Johanna Meier makes a touching, feminine Sieglinde and Tenor Emile Belcourt a slick Loge. In the crucial role of Brunnhilde, Soprano Linda Kelm displays a huge voice and an enviable ease of vocal production, but she needs more refinement and a better stage presence before the part will belong to her. Presiding musically is an unlikely figure: Manuel Rosenthal, 82, a French conductor and composer who speaks no German and has never commanded a Ring before. Rosenthal leads a symphonic performance noteworthy for its clarity and color. At its best, as in Die Walkure, Rosenthal's view of the score is fluid and graceful; at its worst, as in Gotterdammerung, it is merely glib. "There is too much emphasis on heaviness in the Ring," says the diminutive Rosenthal, who conducted the Seattle Symphony from 1949 to 1951. "I discovered the French side of this music, the fantastic orchestration that I never suspected was there."

Although Rosenthal's tempos tend toward the inflexible, sometimes leaving sluggish singers to catch up as best they can, he never swamps them in Wagnerian sound. Clean and elegant, Rosenthal's interpretation reflects an approach one does not usually associate with Wagner. "Some people will be surprised," he says, "but the Ring is lots of fun." In a production that compels rethinking Wagner's monument, the casting of Rosenthal is the most daring element of all.