A concert Rheingold full of emotional flow

“You know,” said one member of the audience leaving the Usher Hall to another, “I enjoyed that more than any opera performance, because there was no stupid direction.”

“That” was Das Rheingold, in a concert performance by the Mariinsky Theatre, conducted with delicacy by Valery Gergiev. From the opening notes to the winding down of the final chord, the music flowed like the mighty Rhine itself, sometimes threatening to break its banks in a flood of sound, then rippling away.

Wagner’s opera is both a set-up for the working-out of Fate in the subsequent three parts of Der Ring des Nibelungen and a standalone tale of the perils of ill-thought-through contracts, promises and bargains. Wotan’s cunning plan to get the Giants to build him a fortress in exchange for his sister-in-law Freia, in the hope that Loge would find him a way out of the contract before he had to deliver, was always a bad idea.

As Loge and Wotan tried to retrieve the situation, by stealing from the dwarf Alberich the gold Alberich had stolen from the Rheinmaidens, there was a distinct feeling of boys on the spree. The shameless hamming of  Alberich’s brother Mime – an excellent Andrei Popov – drew not sympathy but conspiratorial smirks from the pair.

The stage was dominated by Loge in a sparkling performance by Mikhail Vekua. He disarmed with a glance from his twinkling eyes and good humour in what appeared as adversity suffused his voice. With crisp, clear enunciation, when opportunity arose, he relished the sibilants.

Vitalij Kowaljow was no dread Old Testament god with a voice of doom. Rather his was a more conversational voice, not lacking in gravitas, and with a clear difference between his ‘indoor’ uxorious voice and his more godly public voice.

Mikhail Petrenko’s Fafner initially seemed not quite the full shilling beside Yuri Vorobiev’s highly articulate Fasolt, enforcing his contract with all the vehemence of a City lawyer. Yet Petrenko soon showed that Fafner was well ahead of the game, firing the rich consonants like anachronistic bullets. His insistence that the gold to buy Freia’s freedom should include the ring with magic powers which Alberich had made from the Rheinmaidens’ gold.

The Rheinmaidens, Zhanna Dombrovskaya, Yulia Matochkina and Ekaterina Sergeyeva svelte and elegant in scarlet, taunted Alberich in a delightfully pert manner, their victim (Vladislav Sulimsky) convincingly unattractive and unsympathetic. His was a powerful portrayal of a singularly unpleasant character – there was no feeling sorry for him in the end, having been bested by Loge and turned into a toad.

Fricka, Wotan’s wife, was sung by Ekaterina Semenchuk, her voice rich with warmth and love – albeit exasperated love as regards Wotan. As her sister Freia, Oksana Shilova was bright and fresh-voiced, with an understandably nervous edge – who wouldn’t be, being carried off by Giants?

Erda, warning Wotan of the gods’ mortality and to return the ring, was sung from the back of the orchestra by Anna Kiknadze. Evgeny Akhmedov and Ilya Bannik, as Freia’s brothers Froh and Donner respectively, completed the ensemble.