By comparison with Das Rheingold, Die Walküre is a far more likeable work. For one thing, its main characters are more often moved by love and compassion instead of greed and politicking. Musically, there is more yearning in the first interactions of Wälsung twins than is found over the entire previous evening. Moreover, Walküre contains some of the most beloved excerpts from Wagner’s entire oeuvre: Siegmund’s Spring song, the Ride of the Valkyries, Wotan’s Farewell and the Magic Fire.
As if in recognition of this inherent richness, Opera Australia's production team, led by Chen Shi-Zheng toned down some of the visual excess that bedevilled their Rheingold, with far happier results. The opening act centres on a white, leafless tree, with a few screens showing stylised rain. During the Spring Song, flowers are projected onto the tree, and a moon wrapped in shimmering gold tracery contributes to the romantic atmosphere. These digital images are supplemented by an older analogue effect as the love duet nears its culmination, when golden petals fall from the rafters, creating a beautiful carpet on the stage.
As sibling lovers, Anna-Louise Cole and Rosario La Spina deserve plaudits. Cole (who will sing Brünnhilde in the third cycle) has a rich, creamy delivery that easily cut through even the busier orchestral textures. La Spina provided a focussed tenor, with impressively prolonged cries of “Wälse”, and whole-hearted commitment to the role of desperate hero turned ardent lover.
Having played Fafner in Rheingold, Andrea Silvestrelli impressed even more as a particularly brutal Hunding: his physical abuse of his wife (and Cole’s silent scream in response) was hard to watch, but brilliantly effective in directing our sympathies. With a huge voice that recalled the great Matti Salminen, Silvestrelli’s return in later operas as a dragon and the villainous Hagen is eagerly anticipated.
Act 2 brings back the bickering Wotan and Fricka, but also introduces Brünnhilde, played by the excellent Lise Lindstrom, another alumna of the 2016 OA Ring. Her notorious Ho-jo-to-hos were tossed off with aplomb, and she was thoroughly convincing throughout her punishingly long sing. Like her Valkyrie sisters, she is clad in silver and black, although her red dreadlocks help her stand out amid their blond quiffs and punk hairdos.
Deborah Humble was again impressive as a dignified Fricka, whose relentless logic impels her husband to abandon Siegmund. Against a backdrop of abstract swirling patterns, Daniel Sumegi delivered a focussed monologue, culminating in his impassioned wish for “the end”. His grief at Brünnhilde’s betrayal seemed to outweigh his sympathy for his fallen son, and the gesture with which he dispatched Hunding aptly conveyed his disdain for Fricka’s champion.
The scene where Brünnhilde announces to Siegmund that he is to die is one of the greatest in the tetralogy, and Lindstrom and La Spina were brilliant in tracing the emotional journey whereby Brünnhilde is awakened to compassion. It was all the more unfortunate that the phoenix (in three distinct parts, each operated by a separate puppeteer) which substituted for Brünnhilde’s steed Grane, couldn’t remain in the background, but kept ‘flying’ to the front of the stage during their tense exchanges.
The dancers, so otiose at the end of Rheingold, were again in evidence during the Ride of the Valkyries, charging around with spears. At least here their presence complemented the energy of the music, played with controlled passion by the Queensland Symphony Orchestra who, under Philippe Auguin, really came into their own here. From the stormy start through to the scintillating fire music at the end, they were excellent, with very few blips or moments of mis-coordination with the stage action.
In a coup de théâtre, the Valkyries enter not in ones and twos on their flying horses, but all together on the back of an enormous phoenix which descends from the rafters. The eight singers brought bravura energy to their rollicking battle cries and their later pleas with Wotan for mercy for their sister.
The final duet between Sumegi and Lindstrom, with its emotive parting between father and daughter, culminates in her ascending to a high rock supported on spears, around which a metallic Chinese dragon curls before catching fire. It is at moments like these that this production really comes in to its own: where the theatrical instincts of the team complement the thrilling music rather than cutting across it.
David's travel to Brisbane was funded by Opera Australia
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