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Bayreuth's 'Siegfried' marred by patchy singing
2007-07-31
Tankred Dorst's uninspiring production of Richard Wagner's four-part "Ring" cycle, being revived here for the first time, continued here on Monday with a performance of "Siegfried" that was marred by patchy singing. While German maestro Christian Thielemann continued to work magic in the unseen pit with the glorious Bayreuth Festival Orchestra, the singing onstage was anything but world-class. US tenor Stephen Gould in the title role hit most of the right notes, but his one-dimensional acting and flat, superficial tone is world apart from the burnished golden timbre demanded by Wagner's "Heldentenor" or heroic tenor. US soprano Linda Watson, no stranger to the role of Bruennhilde, has clearly come to Bayreuth a few years past her prime. And while she has the volume and stamina to ride the waves of orchestral sound, her voice frequently comes across as harsh and frayed and lacks the necessary ripeness and beauty. German bass-baritone Albert Dohmen, making his debut in the role of Wotan and The Wanderer, is increasingly gaining in stature and could be a father-god of note in a few years' time. Only British baritone Andrew Shore and German tenor Gerhard Siegel as the evil dwarf-brothers Alberich and Mime rightfully earned the storms of applause when the curtain came down. Dorst, the 81-year-old dramatist, seems to have only one idea for Wagner's sprawling tetralogy -- that our own world exists in unseen parallel to the fairy-tale world of gods, dwarves and dragons and the eternal fight for absolute power. But three operas into the four-opera cycle, that idea is now wearing thin and the paucity of Dorst's reading can no longer be made up for by visually impressive sets. In the first act, Mime's hut is a deserted biology classroom and Siegfried repairs the broken sword Nothung not with hammer and anvil but a Harry Potter-like wave of his wand. In Act II, the "Neidhoehle" cave where dragon Fafner hoards the ring can be found below a motorway bridge still under construction. Construction workers can seen huddled in a small tent on top of the bridge. The third and final act sees Siegfried breaching the circle of fire that protects the sleeping Bruennhilde in a disused quarry. Even taking into account the fact that Dorst had only two years to conceive a brand new production of Wagner's massive work after Danish film-maker Lars von Trier pulled out unexpectedly from the project, there seems little excuse for the lazy, haphazard way in which he moves his characters around the stage. And even though Dorst's "Ring" was widely panned by the critics at its premiere last year, the director has done very little to amend the production's many shortcomings this year. The 96th Bayreuth Festival is scheduled to continue on Wednesday, with "Goetterdaemmerung" (Twilight of the Gods), the fourth and final instalment of the "Ring".
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