Mainly Opera and Ballet
This was the third instalment of Barrie Kosky’s new Ring for The Royal Opera. It’s an opera that can drag a bit in Act I, but under the baton of Antonio Pappano and the stage direction of Barrie Kosky there was never a dull moment. Added to this, Andreas Schager was superb in the title …
Keith Warner’s production of the Ring alludes to connections with modern physics: in Rheingold the tarnhelm deforms the gridlines of Cartesian space to the curved space-time of Einstein’s General Relativity, and in Götterdämmerung, Siegfried’s Rhine journey traverses both space and time. In Siegfried Act 1, Mime adds mathematical symbols to those already written and in …
In this revival of last year’s successful new Meistersinger director Barrie Kosky there seems to an excess of stage farce that rather weakens the overall effect. Too much mockery is expended on Beckmesser, rendering him not just a klutz but a pathetic creature shuffling over to Eva on his knees in Act 3 as his prize …
Wagner’s Nuremberg is a city of trials: Walther’s trial by the Mastersingers in Act 1, Beckmesser’s trial by Sachs as he delivers his serenade in Act 2, and their separate trials by the people in Act 3. Yet fifty years after Wagner’s death, Hitler took power and Nuremberg became the venue for those post-war Nazi …
