Das Rheingold is at its best when Loge really bosses the show. At York Hall yesterday, in the first of two full Ring Cycles being presented by Regents Opera, James Schouten didn’t so much boss the show as put a rocket under what was already a strong performance and propel it into orbit. The role is normally sung by a relatively light, character tenor, which Schouten is definitely not, being a former baritone (a convert from the dark side, as singers say). His Loge was the linchpin of the opera, sung at full dramatic throttle and with an almost music-hall swagger – a real thrill to behold.
Of course, the person really in charge – when she eventually appears – is Erda, and director Caroline Staunton pulled off a true coup de théâtre as the lights dimmed to black out everything except an all-white, spotlit Mae Heydorn, who sang a premonition of doom to pin you into the back of your seat.
This wasn’t a normal Rheingold in a normal opera house. The orchestra consisted of just 24 musicians, playing an arrangement specially created by conductor Ben Woodward. The indoor arena at York Hall in London’s Bethnal Green – a once-famous boxing venue of yesteryear – is an improbable setting for Wagner, with the singers placed in a rectangular area at the centre of the arena, the orchestra in a raised area at one end and Woodward conducting facing the audience, which is seated in tiered rows around the other three sides, giving a sort of ‘Wagner at the Circus Maximus’ effect. But after a short while getting my ears attuned to this different sound world – with the pianissimo opening not helped by the loud clatter of shoes from the York Hall ushers – I can honestly say that I forgot that I was listening to a reduced orchestration, with the exception of some mourning for the absence of harps. In the right hands, a smaller orchestra can become a “less is more” where you hear the harmonies with greater transparency and Woodward showed himself to be exactly the right hands in this regard.
The outstanding feature of this performance was the total commitment to the text and the storytelling of every cast member. German diction was impeccable (with comprehensive surtitles filling in any gaps) and the singers threw every ounce of meaning into every line. You could nitpick some of the singing: however thrilling Heydorn was, her vibrato was on the heavy side; excellent as Ralf Lukas’ Wotan was early on, he faded slightly in the closing “Abendlich strahlt der Sonne Auge”. But that would miss the point that Rheingold has the highest narrative content (and the least philosophical musing) of the tetralogy, and this cast drove that narrative quite brilliantly. The interplay between Lukas and Ingeborg Børch’s Fricka was unusually telling (a promising sign for Tuesday’s Walküre) and the two and half hours were over in a flash. Even verses that aren’t exactly pivotal were delivered to powerful effect. I’ve never taken as much notice of Froh’s “Zur Burg führt die Brücke”, leading the gods towards the rainbow bridge to Valhalla, as I did of Calvin Lee’s engaging tenor.