As a reflection of the present state of things, politically and ecologically, Wagner’s final opera of his Ring tetralogy is an uncomfortable reminder that the hunger for power, together with the ambition and fundamental greed that feeds it, never goes away, only returning in ever more threatening waves. It’s as well that the cumulative strengths of Longborough Festival Opera’s production, now reaching its apogee in Götterdämmerung, should be so deeply satisfying musically as to engender elements of hope.
Realising Wagner’s own epic ambition in the context of Longborough’s small, Bayreuth-inspired theatre is primarily the remarkable achievement of conductor Anthony Negus, undoubted lord of this Ring. His authority and understanding permeate every bar. The tone-colours coaxed from his musicians – albeit necessarily fewer than in big houses – are captivating, and the sense that his fine cast of singers were able to luxuriate in the orchestral sound as well as their own is underpinned by tight discipline.
Heroine of the night is Lee Bisset’s Brünnhilde, her sumptuous soprano radiating passion whether driven by love, anguish or anger at betrayal. Sculpting phrases with great expressiveness and, particularly in her various duets, finding the equivalent physical gestures to make her characterisation natural and credible, she was magnificent throughout. The chief virtue of her Siegfried, Bradley Daley, was the clarity of his diction allied to vocal stamina. Following the chicanery of this galumphing youth being drugged and duped, it was in dying, and the tender memory of his love for Brünnhilde, that he engendered most sympathy. Julian Close’s Hagen was powerfully sung, emphasising his tortured side as well as the evil of his machinations, while baritone Benedict Nelson was an impressive Gunther. Laure Melroy as his sister Gutrune, Catherine Carby as Waltraute, the trios first of Norns – notably Mae Heydorn – and then Rhinemaidens, as well as the male chorus of Hagen’s vassals, all made their mark.
Director Amy Lane and set designer Rhiannon Newman Brown’s staging felt inconsistent, with Tim Baxter’s video design awkwardly framed. Clouds, lakes, water falling like Niagara and the flickering of Loge’s fire were sometimes more distracting than atmospheric, as was the image of a brutalist Valhalla high on a mountain, which would not burn even in a conflagration of all the ash trees.
Against the glorious symphony with which the opera ends, and with the reappearance of the theme of ecstasy reinforcing the redemptive element of Brünnhilde’s self-sacrifice and immolation, Lane’s suggestion that this daughter of the gods was reunited in death with Wotan as well as with Siegfried, may have implied all-fine-in-the-end closure. But when a red light was shone into the audience, as though embracing all in the deathly flames, the effect was sobering.
Götterdämmerung is at Longborough Festival Opera in rep on 31 May, and 2, 4 and 6 June.
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