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Conducted
by
Paul Daniel
Directed by
Phyllida Lloyd
Designed by
Richard Hudson
Cast
Woglinde
Linda Richardson
Wellgunde
Stephanie Marshall
Flosshilde
Ethna Robinson
Alberich
Andrew Shore
Wotan
Robert Hayward
Fricka
Susan Parry
Freia
Claire Weston
Fasolt
Iain Paterson
Fafner
Gerard OConnor
Froh
Andrew Rees
Donner
Darren Jeffrey
Loge
Tom Randle
Mime
John Graham-Hall
Erda
Patricia Bardon
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Coliseum
English National Opera
27 February - 19 March
2004 |
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To preface this
years Ring
cycle in its beautifully refurbished
Coliseum, the ENO has provided a Rhinegold
in which the Rhinemaidens behave like
nightclub pole dancers, Wotan and his
fellow deities look like an established
Mafioso family, Alberich in his slick
red suit appears as a thug from the
wrong side of the tracks, and the giants
who built Valhalla are a pair of dodgy
contractors who, after striding across
the backdrop in the form of gargantuan
shadows, appear with their building-site
safety helmets on to demand their payment
the beautiful Freia, whose magic keeps
the gods forever young.
There
are those who decry the modernising
of Wagner in this way, saying that it
betrays the high mythic aspiration of
the original, thus trivialising it.
But as the writer Simon May observes,
it can also show how myth not only can
but must be infinitely plastic if it
is to speak sempiternally. All great
art bears restatement, even in forms
and guises at remote distances from
the original - as this ingenious presentation
of the Rhinegold shows.
Moreover,
once imagination has begun its work
on the elements of the story, there
is no reason why it cannot discover
its possibilities for restatement. It
is, for example, logical that it should
focus on the erotic implications of
the Rhinemaidens, and reveal it, as
here, in their sinuous undulations against
a series of poles. True, there are limits:
a comic might invite you to think, on
the basis of their names, that Flosshilde
could be a dental nurse from Leipzig
and Wellgunde an aerobics teacher from
Dusseldorf, but it is not the case that
just anything goes. The maidens were
inflaming but disappointing Alberich
mercilessly, remember, and had they
not been, he would not have foresworn
love and thus made himself capable of
using the Ring to gain mastery once
he had forged it from the Rhinegold.
This is a highly enjoyable Rhinegold.
The ENO orchestra utter Wagners marvellous
musical textures brilliantly, and two
of the roles are outstandingly performed:
Tom Randle's Loge and Andrew Shore's
Alberich. There is true pathos and suffering
in this Alberich during his defeat at
Wotan's hands, while Rom Randle's Loge
is not only a cross between Hermes and
Odysseus but has a broad streak of humanity
in it, richly expressing the ambiguities
of his half-divine status and his too-clear
understanding of the gods failings,
which he comments upon even as they
cross the bridge to Valhalla for the
last chapter of their questionable and
troubled existence. In both Randle's
and Shore's cases the extra dimension
is fine acting: they make their characters
immensely real, and deeply convincing.
This
is an enticing start to what promises
to be a riveting Ring season. No doubt
controversy will swarm upon it, but
the ENO's enchantingly accessible manner
will buoy it through.
AC Grayling |
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