Der Ring Des Nibelungen – La Scala, Milan. Review by Ros Carne
*****
Wagner’s monumental cycle of operas has always provoked controversy. Recent productions have moved away from the composer’s own naturalistic stage directions and the visual interpretations of nineteenth century artists such as Arthur Rackham, Odilon Redon or Carl Emil Doepler, who designed the costumes for the first production of the tetralogy at Bayreuth in 1876. After the Second World War, particularly in a divided Germany, there were pressures to rethink Wagnerian interpretation, to move beyond myth and symbolism, heroic violence and racial pride, to more pressing and immediate political and economic themes. Two years ago, at the Berlin Staatsoper, Dmitri Tcherniakov’s direction lurched implausibly between a corporate boardroom and a mental hospital. The Valkyries were in track suits and the rest of the characters looked like they had been kitted out in Primark. The conductor was Phillippe Jourdain, the orchestra and singers first rate. But most members of the audience were left in some confusion as to precisely what was going on.
By way of contrast, the current production at La Scala conducted by Simone Young and directed and designed by Sir David McVicar, takes the Ring back to its mythic roots while making brilliant use of the 21st century potential of inventive and versatile light effects to indicate setting and mood. Sumptuous costumes by Emma Kingsbury are clearly influenced by the interpretations of the above-mentioned artists while hinting at the early twentieth-century fashions of Mario Fortuny as well as more recent inspirations such as The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars and Game of Thrones. The whole production is infused with a vibrant athleticism which verges at time on the acrobatic. Not only do the Rhine Maidens appear to be actually swimming, but they are joined by a mysterious naked man (a Rhine boy?) whose astonishing but inexplicable gyrations are one of the few anomalies in an otherwise harmonious vision. Beautiful quasi-human horses prance on running blades, while the giants Fasolt (Jong Min Park) and Fafner (Ain Anger) must surely have created operatic history by performing their demanding roles on stilts.
Suspension of disbelief is a prerequisite to enjoying these operas and one of the difficulties for any director/designer must be the need to link the many different, parallel worlds. In this vast opera house, it is crucial to play at several levels so that the actor singers are more than dots on a flat surface. McVicar and his co-designer, Hannah Postlethwaite, achieve this by strewing the area of action with huge rocks shaped like broken human heads and hands. These become caves, mountains, the dragon’s lair, Brünnhilde’s resting place. It is as if an age of giants has gone before and we are left with their shattered memorials, a perpetual reminder of the inevitable decline and ephemerality of all civilisations.
Simone Young’s conducting is passionate and energetic, her gestures large yet precise and there is a powerful sense of forward motion. She has an apparently instinctive feeling for the great sweep of the score, and Wagner’s music never drags as it can do in more ponderous versions. The effect is at once lush and exciting, verging on the wild, different from the more polished sound of the Staatsoper orchestra under Phillippe Jourdain in Berlin. Young started her Wagner career as assistant to Barenboim in Bayreuth and clearly lives and breathes these operas. The cast, orchestra, and audience love her. There was a touching moment in the first interval to Die Walküre when the first clarinet was invited onstage to rapturous applause to recognize his final performance after 40 years in the band.
But in the limited time available (I am on holiday in Naples as I write), my focus will be the final work of the cycle, Götterdämmerung. At the start of the opera, we find ourselves in yet another parallel world, the home of the Norns who, like the classical Fates, must weave the rope of past, present and future. In their horror of what is to come, their rope unravels and falls apart. Then, after Siegfried’s poignant farewell to Brünnhilde, we arrive in the kingdom of the Gibichings. The stage is illuminated with gold, a vast gilded skull looming behind the action from the back. Is this the slayed dragon from Siegfried? Is all this gold the looted treasure from Fafner’s cave? And yet the mood here is distinctly human and horribly familiar. The Gibichungs are a fierce, militaristic clan, their uniforms hinting at Prussian bellicosity and the early days of European fascism.
From this point on the opera moves fast with a fatal love potion and plot twists worthy of any contemporary thriller. Through all this rapid action, Klaus Florian Vogt’s powerful Siegfried gains a new emotional stature. He has left behind the angry adolescent and grown into his destiny as the great hero. Vogt has the power and vocal agility the role requires and there is never a hint of exhaustion. He is well matched by Camilla Nylund’s Brünnhilde, noble and impassioned, her initial shock and despair leading to a fury that is all too easy to comprehend. She is at her best when all movement stops and she is standing front stage, singing out to the auditorium in conventional operatic style.
The build-up to the death of Siegfried is famously rich in dramatic irony, with the audience knowing so much more than the participants. We watch in horror as the lovers becomes victim to the nefarious machinations of Hagen (Günther Groissböck), culminating in the terrible moment when Brünnhilde tells him exactly how to kill the man she believes has betrayed her. For those who grew weary during the long explanations and extended declarations of the earlier operas, the rapid pace of Götterdämmerung comes as something of a relief, despite its dark contents.
Finally, out of the twists and turns and horror of Siegfried’s death comes a sudden shift of tempo, the heart-rending beauty of the hero’s funeral march. Readers should look elsewhere for an analysis of this ten-minute orchestral interlude which draws in motifs not only associated with Siegfried, but also his parents Siegmund and Sieglinde. Every listener will have his or her very personal response.
In the final dramatic scene of the drama the stage shimmers with soaring red and gold flame. There are clouds of grey black smoke. This is the moment we have all been waiting for. The heroine and her loyal steed, the half-human, half-equine Grane run through the blaze to the funeral pyre, kneeling at the head and feet of the great hero as the flames rise upward. Through the inferno we see the broad staircase of Valhalla and the hooded figure of Wotan falling to his doom. It’s hard not to feel that the composer would have approved.
The Ring is sometimes avoided by those who dislike the racism implicit in the story, the strong whiff of antisemitism in the presentation of the Nibelungs. Others will justify the philosophy of its creator by pointing out that the thirst for power and control amongst the warring races is shown to be an empty quest. No one actually uses the ring, and all those who seek to possess it are destroyed, even the Gods. The Ring is a lengthy parable about the dangers of power and in that sense, it is as relevant to the world we live in today as it was to the nineteenth century. On a more human level, it tells a familiar domestic story of forbidden love and jealousy. The current production doesn’t burden us with a specific contemporary angle on Wagner’s intentions. Rather it presents a world on stage comprised of both beauty and horror, leaving us to bring our own thoughts and reflections to this great piece of operatic writing.
Ros Carne, Naples, March 2026.