Gods and Gold

By MARTHA DUFFY/BAYREUTH

If devotion to the works of Richard Wagner is a worldwide cult, then a performance of The Ring of the Nibelung is that religion's ultimate rite: a fervent emotional and aesthetic observance. Any opera house that is able to produce the Ring cycle -- four long, mythic music dramas, based on old Norse and German sagas -- is assured of a sellout. Audiences travel across continents to submit themselves to the Ring's thrilling embrace. Among Wagner's many other theatrical gifts was his ability to build a climax at the end of every act, so that the audience is continually swept into a musical catharsis. Movie scores -- like those by John Williams for Star Wars and several Spielberg epics -- avidly try to duplicate the master's visceral thrills but always fall short.

No production of the Ring is as sacred to Wagnerians as the one that takes place at their holy see -- Bayreuth (pronounced buy-roit). Wagner founded the music festival first held there in 1876 and designed its theater, the Festspielhaus. He engineered the completion of the theater specifically for this 15 1/2-hour tetralogy about a peculiarly human race of gods and demigods who were ruined by their greed for a cursed treasure of gold. Heads of state -- from mad King Ludwig of Bavaria to the much madder Adolf Hitler -- have made the pilgrimage to this isolated city in northern Bavaria to hear the master as he wanted to be heard.

Of all the opera houses in the world, only Bayreuth can mount a new production of the entire Ring in a single week. This summer the program has attracted more than routine interest because it is the one year in seven when a new Ring cycle debuts. In addition, the conductor for the first time is James Levine, the Metropolitan Opera's powerful artistic director and the leading interpreter of Wagner on the international scene ever since Georg Solti largely retired from theatrical work. Levine's partners are Alfred Kirchner, an experienced European opera and theater director, and set and costume designer Rosalie, the professional name of Gudrun Muller. This is the pair's first time working on the Ring at Bayreuth as well. The result is an expected success for Levine, a muddled start for Kirchner and a deserved round of boos -- as only Festspielhaus crowds can bay them -- for Rosalie.

A Bayreuth audience is unique. Every one of the 1,925 seats is occupied by someone who knows his Wagner and has cast-iron confidence in his opinions. This summer has been the hottest in a century, and the theater is not air conditioned. While the music plays, the crowd sits still and silent; a sneeze brings savage stares. At the curtain call, though, reaction is unbridled. Virtue is rewarded with thunderous stamping on the wooden floors; lapses with lusty booing.

Kirchner and Rosalie set out to present a Ring that ignored the political -- mostly Marxist -- approach that has been popular in Europe over the past two decades. Reacting especially to Patrice Chereau's influential 1976 production, set in the Industrial Revolution, the team rejected polemics in favor of a more classical approach. But they failed to come up with an alternative vision. The modest strength of this Ring is that it leaves the audience with scope to listen and think; the weakness is that the stage is empty of ideas or inspiration.

Instead, Kirchner and Rosalie offer what is basically a high-tech light show -- perhaps the trendiest and most threadbare gambit now popular in Europe. Some of the stage pictures are inspired, like the glassy, green, undulating * plates that suggest the forest in Siegfried, but too often the choices seem arbitrary. In addition, Kirchner's stage maneuvers are inept. Time and again the cast is left singing directly to the audience -- just like the bad old days when operas were turned into stiff pageants. Some awkward direction will be corrected next year. Bayreuth stages no new productions of Wagner's other operas during the second year of any Ring cycle, wisely using time and money to make improvements, which can be extensive.

For now, Rosalie overshadows the direction and even the music with stunningly ugly and capricious costumes. At a press conference she explained that since no one has seen a god or a giant or a dragon, she had to create them from her imagination. In fact the sources are painfully clear. Some influences are evidently classical -- warriors all wear plastic breastplates. Unfortunately they suggest Jean-Paul Gaultier's Paris more readily than ancient Athens. More striking are the costumes containing Oriental references. They make the wearers appear larger -- read fatter -- than they are, a particular pity with a fit and youthful-looking cast. The inspiration seems to have come from Issey Miyake, a master at making small figures look grand. Rosalie received her curtain-call boos in an outfit by the Japanese designer, but his magic touch turned out to be untransferable.

The greatest casualty is soprano Deborah Polaski, playing Brunnhilde, especially in Die Walkure. Tall, handsome, heroic in gesture and carriage, she should make an ideal goddess. But with her bulky breastplate and helmet and huge skirt, she looks like the typical porky Wagnerian. The Rhinemaidens are decked out in biker gear, the dwarf Alberich wears one bright green sneaker. A reference to the Green movement? Who knows.

Of the creative trio only Levine trusted his material and worked to burnish it. His Wagner has been criticized for being too slow. Certainly he chooses rapture rather than excitement. In the Festspielhaus, with its marvelous acoustics, every instrument is audible and clear. Under Levine's baton the music seems translucent, and the melodies play themselves. "It is as if I am standing in front of a treasure chest," the conductor says, "and the idea is to draw it all out where the listener can hear it and feel it and get involved in it."

Singers like Levine's spacious pace. Ekkehard Wlaschiha, the excellent Alberich, says that "to sing this music fast, you have to be Superman. Levine fulfills the tempi and he gives you time to phrase -- you can better form a musical arch." Adds Manfred Jung, a properly servile Mime: "It's no secret that the orchestra plays more quietly if the beat is not fast."

In one area neither Levine nor any other conductor can dip into a treasure. The Ring is now impossible to cast in an entirely satisfactory style. There are no sopranos who are equal to the heavy demands of Brunnhilde. Nor are there any tenors strong enough to carry off Siegfried, perhaps the ultimate heroic role. Levine has picked expert singing actors who are musically sensitive. Polaski's voice is simply too light. As Siegfried, Wolfgang Schmidt delivers a poetic reading of the score, but his tone is dry and reedy. Tina Kiberg makes a passionate if shrill Sieglinde. As Wotan, John Tomlinson falters in the beginning but finds commanding style in Siegfried.

The real hero of the week was the Bayreuth orchestra. Its members work in a closed pit, invisible -- as is the conductor -- to the audience. The temperature there is fiery. But the musicians seemed ideally responsive to Levine, and at the end of Gotterdammerung, he paid them tribute by taking his bow standing among his sweaty, shirt-sleeved crew of 119. The roar of prolonged stamping reverberated through the hall, with not the echo of a boo.