While opera fans are notoriously old-fashioned when it comes to stage directors bringing overarching new ideas to their favourite works, it is clear that if opera is going to have any future, it must be open to creative re-thinking.

Wieland Wagner successfully updated his grandfather’s “Ring” cycle at Bayreuth in the 1950s, and Karajan and Schneider-Siemssen used cutting edge projection technology to add a new dimension to the” Ring” cycle at Salzburg in the 1960s. In 1976, Patrice Chereau gave us something to think about with his radical new “Ring” at Bayreuth. In 2011, we have Robert LePage plumbing the depths of his prodigious imagination to produce an early 21^st century “Ring” at the Met.

Watching LePage’s “Die Walküre,” live in HD from the Met, I was often enraptured by the words and the music and moved to tears on several occasions. It was a magnificent production – no doubt about it – with some of the finest Wagnerian singing and conducting one could ever hope to hear. LePage, the stage director, deserves much credit for the power of the experience.

That said, LePage’s overall vision can only be described as “underwhelming” at best and, under the circumstances, obscenely expensive.

The Machine With a Mind of its Own!

Peter Gelb must have lost his mind the day he agreed to fund a new “Ring” cycle based on a 45-ton machine (photo:above) that required the Met to reinforce its own stage. “The Machine”, as it is called at the Met, is a giant seesaw with 24 aluminum planks. It can be manipulated to make all manner of architectural and/or symbolic configurations. Standing more or less vertical, it acts as a screen for projections.

In theory, this set piece was promising; in practice, it proved hard to handle. On the opening night of “Das Rheingold,” the ‘rainbow bridge’ conversion failed to materialize and the gods were left to make a mortal exit – stage right.

Such difficulties persisted. The “Met Live in HD” performance of ‘Die Walküre’ I attended started 35 minutes late while technicians scrambled to figure out why their computers were not able to communicate with the encoding sensors in the planks.

Inhibitor Rather than Facilitator of Directorial Creativity?

Worse than these technical difficulties, in my opinion, was the realization that “The Machine” gave us little of artistic merit to justify the enormous amounts of time and money spent on it, and led, it seemed, to some rather inappropriate directorial choices; for example, did we really need “The Machine” to show us Valkyries pretending to ride horses (photo:above) – some said it looked more like surfing – in Act III? Or the planks jacked up vertically to form a wall – as they were for Siegmund and Hunding’s battle – thereby reducing the vast Met stage to a long, narrow downstage playing area, giving this critical scene a cheap and claustrophobic look, when it should have been apocalyptic! Or Brünnhilde, in the final scene of the opera, lying, not on a rock but upside down at the top of a wall. What was that about?

In this scene, Wotan – with Loge’s invisible help – lit the “magic fire” that surrounds and protects Brünnhilde. Projections on “The Machine” showed what passed for “fire” in this production. But surely Wagner intended something awe-inspiring here – a fire massive and threatening enough to fend off all comers with the exception of the hero (Siegfried) who alone will be capable of braving the conflagration to wake Brünnhilde.

LePage’s fire was puny and wouldn’t have frightened a child.

During the scene in Hunding’s hut, while Siegmund is telling Sieglinde his life’s story, the audience viewed projections on “The Machine” of moving figures in black suggesting warriors and dogs in combat. It was all rather primitive and unnecessary; one easily got the sense of the story from the words and the music.

In short, “The Machine” is not nearly as versatile as its inventor imagined it would be. My overall impression is that LePage simply ran out of creative ways to use it.

Stars Upstage “The Machine” in Movie House

Fortunately, at least in the HD version, audiences could spend less time being disappointed in the set and more being fascinated by the characters in close-up. The Metropolitan Opera House is a huge barn of a place with most customers seated too far away to see facial expressions without opera glasses. The “Met Live in HD” changes this relationship and the technology pays enormous dividends.

Wagner’s “Ring” has its big moments, but more often it is a sort of recitative with characters telling stories in intricate verse. In this particular production, the words really meant something and were sung with deeply convincing expression. And we, the “Met Live in HD” audience, had the added benefit of ‘seeing’ the physical expression of that emotion.

Most expressive, perhaps, was Bryn Terfel (photo:right). Even with only one eye, he communicated volumes, and made every syllable count. His vocalizing was glorious, especially in the final scene, as he sings goodbye to his beloved Brünnhilde.

Deborah Voigt (photo:right) was an ideal Brünnhilde. She looked young enough to be Wotan’s daughter – a rare occurrence in “Ring” cycles – had plenty of voice for this demanding role and presumably with LePage’s encouragement, brought out the strength, the vulnerability and the playfulness of this character.

As Siegmund (photo:right), Jonas Kaufmann was uncommonly handsome and his singing got better as the performance unfolded. He tended to go sharp in his upper register in Act I but was pretty much dead-on in Act II. He doesn’t have the stentorian tones of a classic Heldentenor, but at his best he projects both strength and beauty of sound. As his sister Sieglinde, Eva-Maria Westbroek (photo:right) also sang with strength and beauty and produced a special richness in the lower register. When these two lovers kissed, we believed it was the real thing.

It is no longer news that Stephanie Blythe is one of the Met’s greatest assets. In the role of Fricka in this production, she matched Terfel in both inspired histrionics and subtlety of phrasing. Making her entrance on top of ‘The Machine” in what appeared to be a mechanized wheelchair – albeit without wheels – she never left it. Was this device meant to suggest she was disabled? Was it a throne? Or was it was just another way to justify “The Machine”.

Maestro James Levine on the Podium Despite Health Issues

The extraordinary performances in this “Ring” could only be fully realized with the support of a fine orchestra and an authoritative conductor. We had both in this performance. The Met Orchestra, a virtuoso ensemble, played with heart-rending expressiveness from beginning to end. The intermission feature with players from the brass section introducing their instruments – especially the Wagner tubas – demonstrating their sounds, and explaining what the ‘leitmotifs’ do, was excellent.

This performance also had the air of an historic occasion, thanks to James Levine’s presence on the podium. Levine (photo:right) has suffered mightily in the past few years as his health has deteriorated. His pain and physical incapacity have gotten so bad that he has had to give up the music directorship of the Boston Symphony and to cancel dozens of performances at the Met. There was a great deal of uncertainty as to whether he would be able to conduct this performance of “Die Walküre.” Happily, he not only showed up, but was in total control of the performance from the opening bars. At the end of the opera, he remained seated at the podium in the pit instead of joining the cast on stage for bows; but even the healthiest of conductors have been known to exhaust themselves conducting operas as long and as complex as “Die Walküre.”

The music was in excellent hands but what appeared on stage was less satisfactory. For all the hype about LePage’s remarkable new equipment, invented to give us an imaginative re-telling of the “Ring,” we waited in vain for ‘The Machine” to burst forth with a genuine ‘coup de theâtre’ Even more significant, perhaps, was its failure to serve the arch of the drama.

By all means, let’s have a unit set that morphs from one scene to another, but as it morphs let it complement the storyline – let it, in the case of the “Ring,” enable us to visualize the worlds of both gods and men, and let it illuminate the arenas in which they intersect as each is affected by uncontrolled pride, greed and passion.

LePage’s machine may have been conceived as a ‘means to an end,’ but halfway through this “Ring” cycle, it has become a deeply flawed end in itself.

Paul E. Robinson is the author of “Herbert von Karajan: the Maestro as Superstar,” and ”Sir Georg Solti: His Life and Music.” NEW for friends: The Art of the Conductor podcast, “Classical Airs.”

I learned about opera watching Herman Geiger-Torel build the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto, first in the Royal Alexandra Theatre and later in the dreaded O’Keefe Centre, and through annual visits to Maple Leaf Gardens by the Metropolitan Opera. As a young man, I welcomed the opportunity to see real, live opera. Mostly, what I learned and loved was the music; only later did it start to dawn on me that sets, costumes and direction could be interesting too – that is where my commitment to opera started to wane. What was presented on stage in Toronto in the 1950s and 60s was often amateurish and traditional, in the worst sense.

Salzburg in the 60s More Tech than the Met
Frequent visits to New York convinced me that the Met was not much further ahead. This distinguished company seemed content to hire the best singers money could buy and let the rest of it take care of itself. Again, speaking personally, the future of opera began to look a whole lot brighter when I saw the productions Herbert von Karajan was presenting in Salzburg in collaboration with Gunther Schneider-Siemssen in the late 1960s and early 70s. Here was a fresh approach to a decaying art form, making use of the latest technology. Futuristic and abstract sets, complex lighting schemes and elaborate projections brought a new dimension to Wagner’s “Ring” cycle.

The Karajan-Schneider-Siemssen “Ring” was eventually brought to the Met and it was my good fortune to get to know Erwin Feher, the technical genius who adapted this production to the Met’s quite different stage and equipment.

Tech for Tech’s Sake Turns Masterpiece into Farce!
This long introduction is my way of introducing a review of the Met’s current production of Berlioz’ “La Damnation de Faust” in its Met HD Live incarnation last week. I am all in favour of applying the latest in stage and film technology to operatic production; however, I reserve the right to object when a director turns a masterpiece into a farce. I am afraid Robert Lepage managed to do just that with Berlioz’ légende dramatique. Perhaps it was the parade of soldiers walking backwards during the “Hungarian March,” or the lines of naked men inhabiting the bowels of hell – that did it for me. But let me start with the overall concept. More details later.

“La Damnation de Faust” is not an opera at all. It works perfectly well as Berlioz intended, as a concert piece. Had he wanted to turn it into an opera, he would have done so himself and most certainly would have made lots of changes in the process.

I find the whole concept offensive. To convince me otherwise will require a production far more persuasive than the incoherent mess Lepage perpetrated on the stage of the Met. Lepage has talked a great deal about how he has brought “state of the art video techniques” to this work. Mention was made of “interactive video” in which the singers can change the images simply by moving their bodies. I noticed that Lepage talked much less about any connection between the images and movements he used, and the music. My impression is that the music was simply one of many components used to heighten the theatrical experience. Think Cirque du Soleil. By the way, Lepage created a show called “KA” for Cirque du Soleil at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas in 2005.

For “La Damnation de Faust,” Lepage created a huge four-story scaffolding and virtually all the action in the production takes place in some part of this structure. As set design, think the TV quiz show Hollywood Squares with each of the celebrity panelists occupying a different cell in the scaffolding matrix. At times, Lepage did indeed have characters occupying these cells, and at other times either cellular projections or integrated projections. One could understand the fun Lepage had in organizing these cells and projections, but clearly he ran out of both money and ideas. While Cirque du Soleil can easily find $32 million for a Las Vegas show, the Met would have trouble raising one-tenth of that for a single production. Nor could they find the time required for weeks of technical rehearsals.

It appears that Lepage is a director who proceeds by free association, rather than by studying the work he is engaged to produce. I am still trying to figure out why Faust was unceremoniously dumped out of a boat – why was he in the boat in the first place? – then seen to be swimming or tumbling under water along with some unidentified other folks. Later, during the scene in which spirits are apparently bewitching the sleeping Marguerite, we see eight ballet dancers in separate cells in the scaffolding doing nothing more interesting than what appear to be basic warm-up exercises at the barre, as a group of half-naked men attached to cables begins climbing up and down the various levels of the scaffolding. This development combined elements of Cirque du Soleil, Chippendales and Monty Python.

Graham & Relyea Rise Above the Ridiculous
The “Ride to the Abyss” was one of Lepage’s great set pieces. He put together images of galloping horses and menacing birds with riders in silhouette. Unfortunately, none of the riders were either Faust or Méphistophélès, who were content to stand nearby and deliver Berlioz’ music as best they could. Then came another Faust-dump, this time into the bowels of hell and the eager arms of the Chippendales lads looking surprisingly buff and content in their new digs. The coup de théâtre was to have Marguerite ascend into heaven by way of an enormous ladder in the middle of the stage. It was all very silly and ultimately ridiculous.

And the music? Susan Graham as Marguerite and John Relyea as Méphistophélès were excellent in spite of the appalling production thrust upon them. Marcello Giordani is turning into the ‘go-to’ guy among tenors at the Met. He seems to be involved in nearly every production. In fact, on the day of this “Damnation de Faust” he also replaced an indisposed colleague for the evening performance of “Madama Butterfly.” I would like to be able to say that he sang beautifully as Faust, but alas, he didn’t. He sang sharp from almost beginning to end. I think the poor man deserves a rest. James Levine was in the pit. I have to wonder about his judgement as music director in allowing such a travesty to go forward, let alone having to look at it every time he conducted it. Perhaps that explains why he took the “Hungarian March” at such an absurdly fast tempo. No doubt he had a car waiting.

Lepage Scheduled to Tackle the “Ring” in 2010
There is, of course, another way of looking at this farrago. Lepage himself has suggested that “La Damnation de Faust” was merely a dry run for some of the technology he is planning to use for the new “Ring” cycle at the Met in the fall of 2010. If so, there is still time for General Manager Peter Gelb to retract his conviction that “Lepage represents everything I believe in regarding storytelling and visual presentation.”

Lepage may be a creative genius with his own multidisciplinary production company Ex Machina or in Las Vegas, but he is out of his comfort zone in an opera house. And to hand him carte blanche with the greatest work in operatic literature is foolish and irresponsible.

For the record, at the theater I attended in Cedar Park, Texas there were only twenty people in the audience. As Yogi Berra used to say: “If they don’t want to come, you can’t stop them.” But perhaps they knew something we didn’t. Again, for the record we had the same problems with projectionists failing to turn up the volume to an acceptable level and failing to turn off the house lights after intermission. The sound quality was once again appalling, with the magnificent Met Orchestra reduced to sounding like an acoustical recording from 1920.

Paul E. Robinson is the author of “Herbert von Karajan: the Maestro as Superstar” and “Sir Georg Solti: his Life and Music,” both available at http://www.amazon.com. For more about Paul E. Robinson please visit his website.

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