Wagner’s Dream, a documentary by Susan Froemke, is the first of these films, providing an account of what new director Robert LePage wished to accomplish that was new.
See
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-cQmMOe1N4 .
LePage was hired as part of an attempt by the Metropolitan Opera to update its image and gain new subscribers. LePage believes that any media, including opera must change and keep changing to hold its audience. Many modern productions of the Ring Cycle however have overdone modern gimmickry. The basic charge is to simply tell the story and to let nothing stand in the way of the story.
Wagner himself was far from satisfied with the original production of the Ring, but Wagner died before the year was out and what changes Wagner had planned are unknown. Indeed, a production of the Ring operas to specification is impossible. How does one start an opera set under the water with three nymphs swimming fluidly when the audience only sees three fat ladies in fish tales? Thin people very rarely have the diaphragm power to be opera singers.
Willing suspension of disbelief is
very necessary no matter what is done.
LePage was inspired by the geography of Iceland where the Norse versions of Wagner’s stories were written, having a single set built to cover every scene in all four operas, a set which could be programmed to change shape and colour at the desire of the director. Whether this set entirely works is debatable. Reviewers have different opinions.
Disaster almost strikes at several points. The rainbow bridge does not work properly on opening night of the first opera, but is fixed for later appearances. Deborah Voigt, the singer who plays the Valküre
Brünnhilde, trips and falls on her entrance on opening night, but is fortunately not hurt and just gets up and continues, leading some in the audience to think the fall was purposely done. Ben Heppner had originally been scheduled to perform the role of Siegfried, but dropped out in February. Gary Lehman had been slated to perform instead but withdrew only eight days before opening night, citing illness, and Jay Hunter Morris, as understudy, was called in as emergency replacement.
The film stresses that this was the first time that Deborah Voigt had played
Brünnhilde, a part which is the female lead in three of the four operas. Emphasis is laid on the amount of work involved in the parts of Siegfried and Brunnhilde, parts that only a handful of singers in the world are even capable of fulfilling because of their difficulty. Both singers are generally rated as successes in this production.
There is nothing here that relates to Tolkien. That will not be true of subsequent reviews of the operatic films themselves.