So I sat through about 5 hours of Wagner's Ring Cycle last night. As for an intelligent review of the evening's performance, the set design was fantastic - real horse, fire on the set and the last 10 minutes was an amazing spectacular fluid set changing spectacularness. The singers were quite good, although Brunnhilde was a little lacking in volume - the orchestra drowned her out quite a bit and she shook to produce the vabratto. The sightlines at McCaw hall were great, even in the free cheap seats Susan and I were in. Other than that it was the longest freaking thing I've ever sat through. Enjoyable, but by the end I was exhausted. I ended up bulling my way through it by existing on sugar and caffiene (red bull does give you crazy wings.)
Operas are hillarious. The drama that ensues is ridiclous. For my take on Wagner last night I offer the following:
There was this guy name Siegfried who was raised by a crazy theif dwarf in the middle of the forest. He makes this sword (of which he's a little too attached to I think) and to "test his mettle" goes after this big ass dragon. So he slices and dices and is big-heap-dragon-slayer.
After Siegfried tasted some of the dragon's blood the birds in the forest start talking to him. Yes. He tasted blood and heard birds talking to him. They tell him to take a ring (which will help him rule the world) and a helmet - which is a shiny cloth in the play I saw - and to kill the dwarf. So he grabs the gear, leaves the mounds of gold, goes home and kills the dwarf - at which point the entire male cast goes "hahahahahah! - the dwarf couldn't make the blade but he could feel it. hahahahaha."
Crazy dad-like theif Dwarf is dead and the birds tell Siegfried there's this hot little piece of tail on top of a mountain that's on fire. So he sets out and finds this girl all asleep in armour up at the top of the mountain. So he undresses her, mates with her, and after one night in her bed, she gives him all of her goddess wisdom and strength in trade for being his wife - and they are undyingly in love with eachother.
Seriously.
Anyway, she gives him her horse (which somehow has lived on this fire mountain of barren rock with her for a long time) and she hangs out on the mountain while he goes tra-la-la down the river to meet this trippy family by the Rhine. The younger brother who hasn't got any power (boo-hoo) convinces his older in power brother to drug Siegfried to be in love with their sister and forget about any other woman, (the sister is a decidedly unpretty girl). Anyway, he'll want her SO MUCH that he'll grab the Brunnhilde from the mountain, have the older power brother marry her, and in all this scheming the power poor brother will get the ring and rule the world.
The fat lady with the hat sings at this point, but it's not the end.
So most of this happens, with the aide of the trippy helmet that lets him look like whoever he wants and instintaneouly be wherever he wants just by thinking of it. The power brother drags poor sad weak Brunnhilde down and forces her to be his bride. So everyone is jelous and angry and pissed at everyone else except for Siegfried, who's just happy-ditz-confused.
In the end everyone just about everyone dies - big suprise. Poor power brother kills Siegfried - by this pond where three trippy mermaids try to steal his ring after poor power brother got a wicked bad dream about his daddy. Evil cunning daddy told poor power brother to kill Siegfried. So, of course, that's the way it goes. Crazy-poor-power brother then kills his powerful brother by "sort-of accident" after power brother was all sad that they hurt the "hero". Ugly sister gets all sad Siegfried is dead, so kills herself.
Brunnhilde (the broad that told crazy-poor-power brother how to kill Siegfried) decides she wants to go up in flames with Siegfried on the funeral pyre so the three mermaid chicks can have back the ring stolen from the ashes of her dead body at the bottom of the Rhine. She decides to take her horse with her to burn in the flames.
Oh - and all this brings about the destruction of Valhala.
Oh Operatic Drama, how amusing you are in your woe-is-me-vengence-greed riddled theatre. I do love your music though.
*note the fat lady didn't sing at the end. :(
No comments:
Post a Comment