The Australian director Barrie Kosky is never afraid to bring something unconventional to his productions but his ideas are always intriguing and the result of deep thought. Last year, he startled us with Das Rheingold, the first part of Wagner’s epic Ring saga, by upgrading the importance of Erda, the Earth goddess. Usually, she appears only towards the end of the opera to give advice to Wotan, King of the Gods, but Kosky brought her in right at the start, looking aged and fragile, solemnly observing events.
Erda does not explicitly appear in the second part of the Ring cycle, Die Walküre, but Kosky brings her back, again starkly portrayed by a naked octogenarian making her way slowly across the stage as events unfold. The degradation of the Earth brought about by the destructive nature of the Gods is thus brought into harmony with modern environmentalism and fears for the future. I generally disapprove of such anachronism in opera, but Kosky’s idea further adds to the intensity of the story. I suspect that even Wagner would have approved.
I had greater doubts, however, about another anachronism in the first act when Hunding threatens Siegmund with a gun. It made me wonder why, when the two men later had a fatal sword fight, Hunding did not just shoot his rival. Perhaps he suddenly remembered that they did not have guns in Norse mythology.
Otherwise, almost every aspect of the production was stunning. Antonio Pappano’s vigorous conducting brought out the very best from the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, from the very first notes of the overture, which magnificently conveyed the urgency and vigour of the story. Wagner’s magnificent music adds to the intensity by never giving the audience a chance to recover by indulging in applause, but sweeps us along as the dramatic events unfold. And with love, death, infidelity, incest, murder and extreme marital disharmony even among gods, there is plenty of drama to be set to music.
With starkly impressive set designs by Rufus Didwiszus and glorious lighting effects by Alessandro Carletti enhancing the action onstage, the entire cast seemed inspired to lift their efforts in both singing and acting, meeting the huge demands in stamina imposed by an opera that lasts over five and a half hours.
Die Walküre is playing at the Royal Opera House until 17 May.
Box office: rbo.org.uk or 020 7304 4000
English baritone Christopher Maltman at first seemed a curious choice to play Wotan, looking more like a hen-pecked bank manager than a Leader of the Gods, but his appearance was perfect for the scene with his very tall and domineering wife Fricka, stridently played by Russian mezzo-soprano Marina Prudenskaya, and his subsequent rage with his daughter.
As a bank manager, Wotan might have benefited from a fatherhood course and some anger-management classes, but instead he vented his wrath on Brünnhilde, whom he had sired with Erda herself. Powerfully played by Swedish soprano Elisabet Strid, Brünnhilde is the leader of the Valkyries, who were all daughters of Wotan and had become his personal Stormtroopers. When they all appeared for the opera’s famous and impressive Ride of the Valkyries, it was another mark of Kosky’s determination to avoid cliches by making this band of female vigilantes look more as though they had risen from the mud at Glastonbury than the lawns at Glyndebourne. And when, at the very end, Brünnhilde was condemned to be given a sleeping draught and incarcerated behind a wall of fire, Kosky had promised, and certainly delivered, a scene such as we had never before experienced.