The gears (literally) begin to turn tonight for a warm-up performance of Das Rheingold, in advance of Saturday’s start to the first of three full runs of Richard Wagner’s Ring Cycle at the Metropolitan Opera.
The big deal is Robert Lepage’s massive — and massively complex — stage machinery. This $16 million Ring is getting attention for the director’s vision as well as to see if that vision is sturdy enough to make it through to the flood at the end of Götterdämmerung.
- Classical Music 101: What Does A Conductor Do? - June 17, 2019
- Classical Music 101 | What Does Period Instrument Mean? - May 6, 2019
- CLASSICAL MUSIC 101 | What Does It Mean To Be In Tune? - April 23, 2019
This massive enterprize has become a supersized magnet for all of the big debates that swirl around the opera world in the present day, in particular trying to figure out if there is, or should be, a line of demarcation between the composer and librettist’s original plan, and the director’s interpretation.
Yesterday, the New York Times published an interview with Met general director Peter Gelb by music critic Anthony Tommasini that touches on this issue and others.
Gelb calls Lepage’s Ring Cycle revolutionary, which is self-evident, because the stage machinery turns.
What is more important is that Gelb has brought a culture of experimentation to a large opera house in a country with a very conservative cultural aesthetic.
As Tommasini writes:
By Mr. Gelb’s calculation, when his first decade as general manager ends in 2016 (“provided I’m not fired before then,” he added in what he later said was just gallows humor), the company will have presented 62 new productions and introduced 17 works to its repertory. This compares with 45 new productions and 12 Met premieres in the previous decade. Along with the increased productivity, clearly “a good thing,” he said, come “increased chances of success and disappointments.”
All the operas we know and love today came to be in a culture of trial and error. Some of the gems were flops on their opening nights, because they were just too different, so someone, perhaps several generations later, had to see that work’s value.
The world is not producing a lot of new operas today, so the role of new and interesting has to be taken up by the interpreters rather than composers and librettists. At the outset of his mandate, Gelb wanted to commission new works as well as new productions — and, if the largest opera company on the continent can’t achieve this, who can?
It results in a lot of passionate debate, critics who don’t get it, audiences who do (and vice versa), and an artform that renews itself from generation to generation.
You can listen to a live webstream of Das Rheingold tonight, starting at 8 p.m. ET, here.
Here are some background videos on this production (Fabio Luisi, not James Levine, will conduct this month’s performances), ending with a listen to the most arresting operatic opening music ever written:
John Terauds
- Classical Music 101: What Does A Conductor Do? - June 17, 2019
- Classical Music 101 | What Does Period Instrument Mean? - May 6, 2019
- CLASSICAL MUSIC 101 | What Does It Mean To Be In Tune? - April 23, 2019
