Music Review: Powerful Chicago cast meets challenge of Wagner's 'Ring'
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CHICAGO -- The Loop is once again home to "The Ring."
For the first time in nearly 10 years, the Lyric Opera of Chicago is presenting Richard Wagner's monumental "Der Ring des Nibelungen," his cycle of four operas telling the mythic tale of a cursed ring's role in the downfall of the gods.
Staging "The Ring" in its entirety in three one-week cycles, the company has created the festival atmosphere Wagner intended. It's a ton of opera -- about 16 hours over six days -- but the proximity allows the audience to see the development of concepts in these interrelated yet varied operas from the 19th century: "Das Rheingold," "Die Walkure," "Siegfried" and "Gotterdammerung."
With the Pittsburgh Symphony's new artistic director, Andrew Davis, leading the pit (he is music director at the Lyric), the first two operas, seen Monday and Tuesday, respectively, were nothing short of a stunning success. They made a statement not only about the continuing power of Wagner's once controversial works, but also to the enduring success of the Lyric, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year and operates with the third-largest budget in the country.
The supreme lure for critics and opera buffs around the world, staging a "Ring" cycle is akin to showing off your company. Only healthy troupes want that sort of scrutiny, and the Lyric is definitely artistically healthy. Plus, who wouldn't want to flaunt the golden art deco metalwork of its auditorium, one of the most visually splendid opera halls in the country, even if it's a little dry acoustically.
"The Ring" stands as a pinnacle in lyric theater. Wagner not only criticized the opera of his time, he offered a solution. "Wagner banishes from opera the whole conventional element, which, only because routine has shut our eyes to it, has not struck us as offense and false," wrote Tchaikovsky of "The Ring's" first performance in Bayreuth, Germany, in 1876. Arias, duets and chorus no longer exist as contained elements; instead, singing weaves together like an epic poet reciting a mythology, which is exactly what the libretto is. Wagner wrote it himself, mixing Norse, Greek, German and other legends. He corrals the complexity of the story and the size of the cast through a system of recurring musical snippets known as leitmotifs.
First Published April 7, 2005 12:00 am
