The reviews are starting to come in, and it’s pretty clear that most of the critics think Robert Lepage’s new production of Das Rheingold at the Metropolitan Opera is good, very good, despite the big mechanical glitch in the finale of last night’s premier.
Here’s the Daily Telegraph:
Lepage treated the audience to a mesmerising display of virtual magic, giving them plenty to feast their eyes on in the intimate scenes between the coups de théâtre. Images projected on to the set evoke the depths of the Rhine, the mountaintops of the gods and the underground realm of the Nibelungen….Far from overwhelming the singing, Lepage’s playful production complements it beautifully, with the set acting as a big resonating chamber.
Other reviews: The New York Times; The Wall Street Journal; Bloomberg; Associated Press; The Guardian; The Toronto Star; The Montreal Gazette (this one is a pan).
The new Ring, even without much difference of opinion, will no doubt occupy opera circles in the next several days.
I have a different thought about that: the arts community, including opera supporters, would more profitably invest their time in discussing New Yorker music critic Alex Ross’s op-ed in Sunday’s New York Times.
Jumping off from a statement by singer David Byrne that the money spent on new opera productions (specifically, in his case, the LA Opera’s new Ring) was not well spent —
There is a greater value for humanity in empowering folks to make and create than there is in teaching them the canon —
Ross convincingly argued otherwise. He ended with a quote from Mark Twain, who after seeing Wagner at Bayreuth, wrote:
Sometimes I feel like the sane person in a community of the mad. But by no means do I ever overlook or minify the fact that this is one of the most extraordinary experiences of my life. I have never seen anything like this before. I have never seen anything so great and fine and real as this devotion.
That is a great message the arts community should be carrying to the unconvinced, the likes of David Byrne.