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‘Das Rheingold’ review: Arizona Opera gives Wagner an epic update

Kerry Lengel
The Republic | azcentral.com
The giants Fasolt and Fafner in Arizona Opera's "Das Rheingold."

Like the similar English folklore that J.R.R. Tolkien forged into “The Lord of the Rings,” Norse mythology is the inspiration for Richard Wagner’s epic opera cycle “Der Ring des Nibelungen.” And these two fantasy franchises have something else in common: a rabid fan base.

When Arizona Opera staged a full “Ring” in 1996, it was international news. Few companies have the wherewithal to pull off the feat, and Wagner aficionados and classical-music critics flock from around the world whenever it happens. Serious fans count their “Rings” by the dozen, and having the opera world focused on Arizona like the Eye of Sauron put the company on the map. (Specifically, Flagstaff, where the cycle premiered before moving on to Phoenix and Tucson.)

Rodell Rosel as Loge in Arizona Opera's "Das Rheingold."

Arizona Opera joined an even more select group when it repeated the feat with an all-new “Ring,” with a different stage director, in 1998 (although The Republic’s review was not a rave). And to mark that achievement, the Phoenix/Tucson company closes its 2017-18 season — the first programmed by general director Joseph Specter — with “Das Rheingold,” the “prologue” in Wagner’s mythological tetralogy.

The production is a remount by stage director Brian Staufenbiel, which premiered two years ago at Minnesota Opera. (Incidentally, that company is now led by Specter’s predecessor, Ryan Taylor.)

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Sleek modern staging

Staufenbiel wisely puts the music front and center, with conductor Joseph Rescigno (of the Florentine Opera Company in Milwaukee) and the orchestra onstage.

Arizona Opera has a top-notch “band,” and it’s always a pleasure to hear them unmuffled by the orchestra pit. The trade-off is that the performance becomes something of a concert production.

The bridge to Valhalla in Arizona Opera's "Das Rheingold."

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. It sure worked for Broadway’s “Chicago,” and there’s a lot working in the sleek modern design here.

Costumes range from slightly updated Valhalla drag to an insectoid carapace and antennae for the dwarf Mime. Meanwhile the giants, Fasolt and Fafner, appear in armor-like black cloth and steampunk goggles, and communicate with the “smaller” gods via a live, lo-res video link. Hi-def video sets the scene — the divine mountaintop, the underworld of Nibelheim — while projections on a scrim add ambient touches such as rippling water.

Old-fashioned storytelling

Though there are many overlapping motifs, when it comes to storytelling, the difference between “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Ring of the Nibelung” is that Tolkien transformed folklore, where Wagner, nearly a century earlier, dramatized mythology more faithfully (he was his own librettist).

The results aren’t very dramatic to a modern sensibility.

For starters, that evil dwarf Alberich is about the most pathetic excuse for a villain in the fantasy genre. A crass denizen of the deeps, he happens upon the Rhine maidens, who make sport of his clumsy advances. (So add Woglinde, Wellgunde and Flosshilde to the #MeToo ranks.) As revenge, he steals the Rhine gold, a magical mineral that illuminates the caverns but can be forged into a powerful artifact by anyone willing to forswear the love of a woman.

Richard Paul Fink as the dwarf Alberich in Arizona Opera's "Das Rheingold."

Baritone Richard Paul Fink sings Alberich, and he is terrific. But the wannabe tyrant, easily fooled out of his newfound power, isn’t one to strike fear in the hearts of men and hobbits. He’s more of a Gollum figure (although by the end of the opera, he’ll have something in common with Frodo, too).

Divine dishonor

Up on the mountaintop, the ruler of the gods, Wotan (Mark Delavan), is no great shakes as a hero, either.

He’s promised the giants the goddess Freia (Laura Wilde) as “payment” for building his city in the clouds, Valhalla, but conspires with Loge (Rodell Rosel; you know Loge as Loki in the Marvel universe) to cheat them. It’s a price he can’t afford to pay, because Freia is the goddess of youth, and without the apples that she nurtures in the garden, the gods will grow old and wither.

So how is it that Wotan is in charge? Oh, yes, he has the “spear.”

And we haven’t even gotten to the question of whether Wagner’s German nationalism is posthumously complicit with Hitler’s. But if we go there, we have to talk about the racialized subtext of “The Lord of the Rings,” too. Another day.

“In the end, it was the music,” Republic critic Kenneth LaFave wrote in 1996 after watching the entire marathon. It was a rave review, but most of all for the singing and the playing, and this “Rheingold” deserves similar praise.

It’s interesting to look at, but it’s Wagner’s intricate, pre-cinematic score that creates the real magic.

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Reach the reviewer at kerry.lengel@arizonarepublic or 602-444-4896. Follow him at facebook.com/LengelOnTheater and twitter.com/KerryLengel.

Arizona Opera: ‘Das Rheingold’

Reviewed Friday, April 6. Remaining performances: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, April 7, and 2 p.m. Sunday, April 8. Symphony Hall, 75 N. Second St., Phoenix. $25-$135. 602-266-7464, azopera.org.

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