Despite Covent Garden’s craving for perfection, IT made a farce of it. Beamed into a local cinema, the screen froze at the end of the first Act. Missing the climax, the making of the sword!
During the interval, signal was restored and the designer discussed the making of the forge, discussing the scene we missed.
The second Act began, but without subtitles. And unless you spoke German, or had seen it before, you would not know what was going on.
Here is Alberich and Wotan, chief of Gods, sitting on a bench. Yes as two tramps🤣
In case you are confused. This is the stage set.
Pretty obviously, this is the cave where the Giant, Fafner, lived. No perhaps not, it took me fifteen minutes to work that one out, and I knew the Opera.
By the third Act, half the audience had left. What started as sixty, we were now down to thirty. And after five and a half hour, it all came to an end, when Siegfried, fell in love with his Aunt, an underwhelming performance by a singer well into her fifties.
Rather like Margaret Dumont, in the Marx brother farce, A Night at the Opera.
I know we were told the cinema started at 515, the performance finishing at 10.30 then curtain calls.
I was able to go for a walk along the sea during the first interval.
With the top 1% of the country having 17% of the Nations income, there is no shortage of takers. added to this corporate seats, and our Chinese visitors.
As I noted in another post, two weeks ago on a Friday night I counted over 300 in various wine bars, with cocktails at £15 each, and house wine £8.5 a glass. And the people there, aged about forty. Plenty of money about for some people.A friend of mine did not bulk at the idea of £85 for a steak!
@peterlee What are such people paid enough for such openly ostentatious wining-and-dining?
Money-trading? Brand and other management "consulting"? Senior directors in IT companies? Divorce and conveyancing solicitors, and corporate-law barristers? Commercial-property landlords?
Looks like directors or producers trying to be too clever, and even without the cock-ups and breakdowns, if they feel they need sets and staging like that I'd rather attend a choral performance and let my imagination take me to mountains and the Rhine Valley.
The "steam-punk" style contraption is absurd and irrelevant - I think the story assumes and hints at Siegrfried forging the sword by hand. The two tramp-like figures make me think of Waiting for Godot, not Norse mythology (on the other hand, horned helmets would be cheapskate too). The nocturnal street-scene to represent Fafnir's lair is just silly.
The "how we did" is interesting but as a totally separate documentary. It should not be used as an intermission. It reminds me of once going to the cinema to watch a Bond film, and among the preceding advertisements was one using a set from that film. Utterly cack-handed programming!
The Ring of The Neibelung is a huge story, difficult to follow without at least a synopsis, but impressive enough not to need fancy staging; and certainly does not need or deserve Pseuds' Corner gimmicks.
I expect if you asked those responsible why they did it and why it all failed, you'd not receive a clear, convincing answere, just a stream of Pseuds' Corner arty drivel mixed with management-ese drivel.
@ArishMell With two intervals of half an hour for drinks and snacks, it’s how they rake the money in. And at £300 a ticket. who can blame them.
The best performance of the night was the guy who played Mime, Peter Hoare, is a name to look out for.
An old lady in a body suit, covered with feathers, did nothing for me, claiming to be a woodbird. She could not even sing. The part sung off stage by a Canadian soprano.
@peterlee I'd certainly expect decent standards, especially at that price (was that the cheapest of maximum?).
The intervals are not a problem. You can't expect everyone to be able to sit through an anture performance without a break, though I'd have thought two intervals for a single opera of what, three hours? one too many.
@peterlee I saw Siegfried a few years ago and enjoyed it thoroughly. Parts of Siegfried always bored me on recordings. But in the theater it was all exciting!!!
