Die Walküre

For a stereotypically pompous city, they take their ostentatious activities very unpretentiously. Every opera production is quickly sold out, even the tickets for where you can’t see the stage. People do not dress up, but if any noise is made (including eating, a massive pet peeve of mine) they will kill you. While Opera is a luxurious habit in other areas around the world, here it is a necessity and an addiction. To borrow from Nietzsche: “An artist has no home in Europe except in Paris.”
I was lucky enough to snag some last minute tickets to Theatre Chatalet’s modern production of Die Walküre. Mon Dieu! What a production! While the traditional productions are relaxing where one can forgo directorial choice analysis, the active mind sometimes prefers the novel productions so you can wonder what the hell they were thinking. For instance, I saw a production of Parsifal where the set was a one-dimensional grey landscape, divided by a railroad track and there were 14 aluminum chairs mounted on the backdrop. It was horribly distracting, and ruined an otherwise fine performance; fortunately this was not the case for this afternoon’s Die Walküre.
The markedly symmetrically blocking of the performance and the kabuki movements purposefully eliminated the anthropomorphism of the Gods as well as the work’s human concerns. The costuming fit perfectly with the stoic nature of the production. No one smiled, touched or even hinted at any intimacy (until the final duet between Wotan and Brünhilde, this certainly emphasized their “embrace,” but at the expense of every other character) and I found this inappropriate in such a romantic work.
There were interesting moments, when the vampirically pale Brünehilde and Wotan lie on these adjacent protrusions from the floor. Also, while everyone was wearing black, the underdeveloped character of Sieglinde was clothed in a flowing white robe. When Wotan was explaining Alberich’s plots to Brünhilde, the lighting made his hand green. In contrast to the many circle/ring motifs I have seen in other productions, there were none in this one. During the beautiful orchestration at the end, Wotan raised his hands in what I thought would have been a circular shape, but instead it was a triangle.
The voices were amazing as, most markedly Hunding, played by Stephen Milling, but I love that bass role so I am biased. Fricka was also quiet notable, played by Mihoko Fujimura who at first was having some problems. It seemed like the orchestra was having such a great time playing (and they played wonderfully) that they forgot there was an aria going on onstage. She was able to surmount these odds, and sang beautifully. Another issue I had was with the staging in the first Act between Fricka and Wotan, when the onstage table actually turned.
I should also make it clear that I was in a weird haze for most of the weekend, not feeling very good and not able to really produce any decent work. As soon as the violins started their triplets everything changed. All that existed was the music and myself; one of those divine moments I am privileged to every once in a while.