11/2/2021 0 Comments Wagner Das Rheingold
It has been quite a ride, full of unexpected twists and turns: not entire unlike the history of our benighted late capitalist world since Wagner-Jahr in 2013 – although thank God, nothing like so far-fetched. And so, the time came for final check-in to Frank Castorf’s Golden Motel. It's often said Wagner composed his Ring Cycle backwards, and it's not untrue - although Das Rheingold is the first in the sequence of his four epic dramas (ahead of Die Walkre, Siegfried and Gtterdmmerung), it was conceived at the end of the composition process as a 'great prelude. Alberich steals the Rhinegold from the Rhine Maidens, in order to forge himself an all-powerful Ring.Richard Wagner completed the first opera in the Ring Cycle in 1854 - after he had written the final three. Zum ersten Mal seit dem 1999 gestarteten Stuttgarter «Ring»-Abenteuer hat mit dem Staatstheater Karlsruhe ein Haus f&252 r die vier Abende von Richard Wagners Opernzyklus vier verschiedene Regisseure engagiert: «Das Rheingold» inszenierte David Hermann, am 9.Photo: Enrico Nawrath / Bayreuther FestspieleSynopsis: The first opera of Wagners epic Ring Cycle. Richard Wagner: Das Rheingold Staatstheater Karlsruhe.That is not because I believe in some unsullied, unmediated experience in the Festspielhaus, quite the contrary. As with last year, I shall not re-read my earlier reviews until after having written those for the present year. I did, however, see it in 20.
Wagner Das Rheingold Full Of UnexpectedFor good and for ill, we are all, to a certain extent, postmodernists now. This intense extended one-act draws from Norse mythology and German folklore to weave a story of gods, monsters, and an epic heist of precious gold.Perhaps more to the point, this is a production concerned with, or at least unusually amenable to, ideas and criticisms of narration, of the construction, criticism, and disavowal of memory. Tradition is present any case how can it not be in this of all houses and festivals? There is no need for it to become, in Mahler’s celebrated phrase, Schlamperei.Melbourne Opera continues its Wagner cycle with a new production of the first of his Das Ring des Nibelungen operas, Das Rheingold, at the Regent Theatre.Wagner’s music is seared into the pop psyche as the score for the famous helicopter scene in Apocalypse Now, and that same power infuses DAS RHEINGOLD (The Gold of the Rhine River). By the same token, however, I – like they, I presume – hope that I shall be open to new understandings and do not wish to be unduly weighed down by ‘tradition’. The same will certainly be true of the performances themselves, and of Castorf’s – and his collaborator, Patric Seibert’s – understanding and critical vision. What I see, hear, and write will undoubtedly be informed by prior memories, thoughts, and interpretations – and so it should be. One might say the same of Hegel too – or indeed Marx. That despite his own, post-Hegelian insistence on, pursuit of, totality. Like the Bible, Wagner presents two myths of creation: one here, one in the Norns’ Scene of Götterdämmerung he arguably offers scope for a good few more too. One might say it was already there anyway, even in this, one of the grandest of all artistic narratives. Just as Romanticism inescapably changed us – no one any more, at least in the Western world, really finds unrequited love intrinsically amusing, no matter what – so has the awareness of writing and deconstructing narratives. It certainly was for Castorf. Start Free 7-Day Trial.Narration and its unreliability come to the fore from the outset, both from Wagner and Castorf. Met Opera on Demand subscription or rental. Das Rheingold is only available with a. Levine Schwarz, Langridge, Morris, Wlaschiha. But let us not get too far ahead, whatever that quintessential Wagnerian temptation.2000s. (Theresa May, are you watching, courtesy of your Snooper’s Charter?) But should we, in another sense? Are we seeing things that are not even ‘there’, whatever that might mean? Some of the time, unquestionably yes, although it is often difficult to know. But should we? There is the question of surveillance, of nowhere to hide, of course, not least in a society such as ours. We see things, via the cameras and the screen relay, that we would otherwise not see. In lesser hands, such might merely be a gimmick, but we are no more concerned with lesser hands here than we are with Wagner, who is emphatically not responsible for bland, overblown, or merely offensive successors. ‘No, you pinkoes are “constructing a narrative” I am “telling it as it is”.’ Right…Texas is where it all kicks off: on Route 66. Gentlemen might not be the issue here, but power is and being a ‘gentleman’, like all ‘manners’, is in large part a matter of power, of class and other conflict, however much we may feel the need to persuade ourselves otherwise. What to make of Fricka’s brief, mediatised reinvention as ‘a blonde’ as Wotan (or another fun-loving, megalomaniacal, School of Playboy world ‘leader’) might call her. People are there who are otherwise ‘not’. Nor does being a ‘citizen of the world’ – which returns us to… Sometimes, then, we are certain concerning discrepancies. The world does not work like that. We have even – most of us – now come to terms with the impermanence of capitalism, a few years ago a claim regarded as absurd by all save for a few of us ‘extremists’ who needed to recognise the Berlin Wall had fallen. (So too will Valhalla/the new Golden Motel too, of course, for the gods are not, cannot be, immortal we are all Feuerbachians now – or Wagner is, at least. So is wherever the gods ‘are’, before Valhalla. If Carry On be your narrative, carry on, I suppose but Wagner and Castorf are deeper – yes, how Teutonic! – than that. Some audience members – perhaps there is those whose mobile telephones do not go off en route to Nibelheim: an updating too far? – merely laugh whenever there is something a little post-watershed content to view. There is certainly something of JR to our Wotan, perhaps still more Sue Ellen (of later years) to Fricka in this narrative (whose?) there is, anyway. Froh is pretty, after all, as Wagner seems to have intended in his creation of cipher gods and goddesses: Donner and Freia too, not really ‘characters’… A trashier Dallas remake seems in the offing: there is doubtless a closer reference to draw but reader, I am afraid I am not the one to do so. The Confederate flag elicits more immediate resonances now as does its ultimate replacement by the rainbow flag. But is it a postmodernist Marx we want? Who cares what we want, for is truth not anti-consumerist? And so on…But back to Texas. (Are you there, Donald? Is this Götterdämmerung already?) There is delight to be had in the ‘Rhine’ waters, but they are really just a paddling pool. An ugly man in a ‘beautiful’ world: politics, as we quaintly used to say, is showbusiness for ugly people. He had, he once said, every sympathy with Alberich, cruelly provoked as he was by the hedonistic Rhinemaidens. Wagner presents it and immediately undermines it. It is one of the most pernicious, yet perhaps also one of the most necessary, or at any rate, tenacious of myths. Keep it in the family by all means: but please, between members of the opposite sex! What, as it were, would be the alternative for Deutschland? Fricka will offer him help in the next instalment.)There has been no golden age. ‘Do not Disturb’: the sign is thrust in his face. Our Everyman waiter/host, Patric Seibert would like to be part of their narrative, or rather would like to welcome them into his, but they banish him once he has brought them (yet more) drinks. They may no longer have a beach ball and water, but cocktails in bed may prove an upgrade. Indeed, they avail themselves of as much fun as they can in their room. Kmspico free download windows 81The struggle between new and old money, even a sacerdotal order and capital, continues: perhaps not quite the main thing, as in Wagner or at least in many of our readings, but an important thing. He renounces love, of course, and wins, if not the world, then at least a caravan competitor next door. The petrol pumps suggest that in some sense he did. Alberich would like to, certainly. Do they know that they will, more or less, be all right? (What they tell Siegfried later on suggests so, at least at some stage.) But is that not to forget about oil? If theirs is the ‘natural’ world, their lot is rape.
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