“Hojotoho!” At the Bayreuth Festival in Germany, “Der Ring des Nibelungen,” Richard Wagner’s magnum opus, three full-length operas plus a (full-length) prologue takes place over four days. “Die Walküre” is the second production presented. Audiences attend on Sunday and Monday, have a day off on Tuesday, and finish up on Wednesday and Thursday. They (in addition to the performers) must need the weekend to recover.
Santa Fe Opera’s first ever production of Walküre, famous for the above-mentioned battle cry and orchestral “Ride of the Valkyries” in Act III, features a beefed-up orchestra which sounded magnificent under the baton of James Gaffigan. Wagner, the famously antisemitic composer, a favorite of the Nazi party, might roll over in his grave to have not one but three black men playing leading roles in the production, but James McCorkle, as Siegmund, Soloman Howard as Hunding and Ryan Speedo Green as a magnificent, shirtless Wotan, were stunning. If only the Washington National Opera in our nation’s capital could borrow this production and offer free tickets to all the snide, anti-DEI politicians roaming the streets with their American flag lapel pins. Diversity still rules in Santa Fe!
Hitler may have championed Wagner and his operas in the same way that Trump is fond of “Les Misérables” (and his favorite song, “Y.M.C.A.” by the Village People) but beyond the politics, there is the matter of hours and hours of thrilling music surrounding a libretto which offers extended periods of stasis. Eduard Hanslick, an early reviewer, wrote in 1876 (the opera debuted in 1870) “The second act is an abyss of boredom. […] Scenes like this recall the medieval torture of waking a sleeping prisoner by stabbing him with a needle at every nod.”
Wagner himself aimed to defy the conventions of Italian opera, with its tradition of displaying voices, costumes and love. HIs theories of music drama (he rejected the term ‘opera’) aimed to “to throw the whole force of his musical expression on character and emotion. Text, music, action, scenery — all must unite in a common purpose, each indissoluble from the other.” (according to “Music with Ease”). He used ‘leitmotifs” or “guiding motives,” musical themes associated with a specific character, theme, or locale in a drama. Wagner’s aim was to “reinforce an overall sense of unity within his compositions, even if primarily at a subconscious level.” Unfortunately, this “unity” often leaves performers standing around waiting for the orchestra to finish another “leitmotif” before any action can proceed. Wagner is an acquired taste.
Credit is due to the Santa Fe “Walküre” director, Melly Still, and Scenic & Costume Designer Leslie Travers. While the use of a 50’s dinette set and Laz-y-boy recliner in the first act sets up a kitschy theme which is never developed, scenic elements such as screens which only partially hide the spirits who loom and linger in the background of every scene, the two-story set separating heaven and earth, and the dancers fighting ropes from the rafters as wild horses, all add fresh visual statements—a reason to be telling these myths today.
A highlight of the evening was the wonderfully humorous and iconic costumes for the eight sisters (not counting Brünnhilde, who was wonderfully played by Tamara Wilson) who make up the Valkyries. Not only is their music stunning, it is a third act kick-in-the-pants for those who have grown drowsy in their seats. It was also satisfying to see a band of big girls be given the opportunity to look amazing and to exult in their own lung power—enough to knock down a house.
Vida Miknevičiûtė, the diminutive Lithuanuian soprano with a name that will always be a copy editor’s nightmare, gave a very human performance as Sieglinde in an opera filled with superhumans—her voice was surprisingly big for her size, and she somehow convinced you that there was no other man in the world for her than Siegmund, her brother. The two of them made incest almost attractive. Wilson’s Brünnhilde was an equally excellent actor, mischievous in Act One, but becoming an increasingly tragic figure by the end. She made the arc of her character’s journey believable, even if the scene with her father in the last act, (‘if I am a laughingstock, what are you?’) was like a father/daughter therapy session that seemed to last way past the standard 50 minutes.
One should also note that although there was “choreography” advertised, this was another season at Santa Fe Opera with an absence of real dancers doing real dancing. The “dancers” were more like graceful supernumeraries except for the few minutes spent as horses chomping at their bits and wrangling ropes. Granted, eliminating dancers is an easy cost-cutting measure, much like DOGE eliminating Federal workers, but most major opera houses have entire ballet companies at their disposal and Santa Fe is missing out on one of the key elements of traditional operas.
