'SIEGFRIED,' OF ALL OPERAS, IS A HIT GOING MODERN
                        Despite Spartan Action and Little Conciseness 
                                              By Paul Hertelendy 
        artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area music and dance 
                                                                 Week of May 30-June 6, 2011
                                                                  Vol. 13, No. 103
            The opera “Siegfried” has had an updating, moving from once-upon-a-time to abandoned Cleveland factories, empty oil barrels, beer bottles in the fridge, and the electric-power plants of Wotan, Inc.---the new megacorp of the top-dog CEO god. 
              Oddly enough, the updating functions quite plausibly, and this new production of Wagner’s opera was a big hit at the May 29 San Francisco Opera opening. There were huge sighs of relief all around, as this is the toughest challenge of the four “Ring” cycle operas (the wordiest and least concise of the bunch), and the complete cycle will be done three times here next month. If “Siegfried” works, usually the whole “Ring” will fly high, and tickets will be sold. Maybe even sold galore.
                With the chorus eliminated and the women put into subordinate roles, “Siegfried” is high on philosophy, low on action---enough so to convince me that the decision in some earlier SFO “Siegfrieds” to make cuts was not at all bad. This one is played uncut.  And it’s running 4.5 hours before the heroine even appears on the scene and captivates everybody---Siegfried himself, the Opera House audience as manifested in its five-minute standing ovation, and a lot of other folks hearing word-of-mouth encomiums on Wagnerian soprano Nina Stemme (Brünnhilde). The Swedish Stemme has a major voice with oomph and warmth to spare, along with a slender figure putting to shame all those Wagnerian fatty caricatures with horned helmets.
            For every one but her, this is a true endurance contest. And although there were no trumpety Wagnerian voices among the men, they held up admirably, with the Wotan of Mark Delavan showing honeyed expressiveness galore. In our era notably short of Wagnerian tenors, Jay Hunter Morris proved a durable figure for the title role--- not boyish-impetuous as Wagner conceived the part theatrically in the 1860s, but at least athletic and mobile, and sexually attractive for the ardent Siegfried-Brünnhilde love scene that sends every one home happy. 
            The most pleasant surprise in the cast was Mime, the repulsive, manipulative  and deceitful Nibelung who brings up the young orphan Siegfried while trying to forge his magic sword. Usually played by a character tenor long past his prime, arguably this Mime was by far the best ever encountered here in nine mountings since 1935 (of which I missed only the first two). David Cangelosi sang it heartily and accurately at the matinee with 101 nuances, ranged all over the stage, pounded his anvil in perfect time with the music, and added a couple of cartwheels to enliven the proceedings in a unique way. (His Mime also bore a striking resemblance to Joseph Goebbels, who had been among the most hated Nazi leaders in World War Two.)
            Overall, “Ring” über-Stage Director Francesca Zambello strove to make this opus more relevant for modern audiences, via Michael Yeargan’s urban sets and Jan Hartley’s eye-boggling projections, all very immediate thanks to the elimination of the usual Wagnerian scrim curtain. Zambello  played down Siegfried’s physical mistreatment of Mime, and brought Brünnhilde wisely downstage, instead of receding into a distant ring of magic fire. She now has added Siegfried’s scarf which he toted around everywhere, the sole memento of his late mother.
            So this was an immediate human drama  rather than a misty dream sequence. Thus presumably viewers will tolerate the immense cubistic dragon-turned-military-tank looking like Picasso’s biggest brainstorm, and not bemoan the absence of the deep forest, the cave, the spring, and the flashing dragon’s tail, all mandated in act two’s stage directions. 
            This new production of “Siegfried” carries forward Zambello’s concepts for the whole cycle, starting with the Gold-Rush mines of the first opera “Das Rheingold,” continuing with the Depression-era rural farm house and Amelia-Earhart-era parachuting valkyries of “Die Walküre.” Yet to be seen are the concepts for “The Twilight of the Gods,” already foreshadowed in the desolation projections by Hartley done for “Siegfried.”  No second team of singers is  scheduled anywhere in this rock-tight “Ring” casting.
            Donald Runnicles returned for another month-long run in the “Ring” pit, leading a superb enlarged orchestra of nearly 100, 17 of them brass, four of those playing the uniquely supple  Wagner tubas. 
            Indispensible supertitle translations of the German texts are provided most of the time, but with some maddening gaps here and there.
            THE WOTAN DISGUISE---Though the most powerful of the gods in Valhalla, Wotan here comes to earth disguised as a low-grade Merlin, with broad-brimmed hat pulled over his eyes. Throughout this opera, he is called The Wanderer.
            Richard Wagner’s five-hour-long opera “Siegfried,” third of the four-opera “Ring” cycle, at the S.F. Opera. New production. Three complete cycles given June 14-July 3. For info: (415) 864-3330, or go online. 

        ©Paul Hertelendy 2011
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           Paul Hertelendy has been covering the dance and modern-music scene in the San Francisco Bay Area with relish -- and a certain amount of salsa -- for years.
    These critiques appearing weekly (or sometimes semi-weekly, but never weakly) will focus on dance and new musical creativity in performance, with forays into books (by authors of the region), theater and recordings by local artists as well.
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