'The Ring' in a railroad freight yard

In commemoration of Richard Wagner's 200th birthday, I recently attended a performance of The Ring of the Nibelung at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

This is the Met's relatively new production, directed by Robert Lepage, that's sometimes referred to as "The Machine Ring" because the set for the entire four-opera marathon consists of a 45-ton series of 24 aluminum planks that rotate on an axis and can be manipulated into almost any needed shape -- from the waters of the Rhine River to a rocky mountaintop to a dense, lush forest to the inside of a feudal castle. Creative use of interactive projections on the planks and effective background lighting make the Machine an amazing piece of stagecraft worthy of the Met and this monumental work of art.

Theoretically.

The main problem, to my amateur senses, is that it's very noisy! Anytime it moves, there's clanking, creaking and banging. It might have actually worked better if Lepage had changed the setting from Wagner's mythological prehistoric time to a modern-day railroad freight yard! Weirder Ring productions than that have been attempted, unfortunately.

In 2009, I saw Seattle's "Green Ring," with its naturalistic and realistic sets. That production also was set in mythological time. At one of the post-performance Q&As with Seattle Opera's knowledgeable and entertaining general director, Speight Jenkins, an unsuspecting audience member thanked Mr. Jenkins for presenting what he called a "traditional" Ring. Speight was furious!

"This is NOT a traditional Ring," he insisted. A "traditional" Ring, Speight said, would be what he saw at the Met in the early '50s, with a forest represented by trees painted on a background rather than Seattle's forest of realistic-looking onstage trees. And more important, the singers in those days simply came out and stood while singing their part -- they made little effort to act. And one of the Seattle production's many strengths was how the singers brought out and developed the characters' personalities.

In New York, the Lepage Machine, while creating marvelous images for the visual sets, too often takes us back to those days of "traditional," static opera by restricting the singers in interacting with their colleagues. The giants in Rheingold, for example, are separated and elevated by the Machine's set from each other and the gods they're bickering with, which makes their abduction of the goddess Freia look contrived. Sometimes the Machine does get out of the way and let the singers act, but their space is always limited because the area in front of the Machine, which cannot move up- or downstage, is a fraction of the Met stage's generous proportions.

Another problem with the Machine is that it occasionally malfunctions. I consider myself quite lucky that it didn't break down during the cycle I saw in late April and early May.

Lepage's Rheingold was chosen to make its much-hyped debut on opening night of the Met's 2010-11 season. At the end of the opera, the gods are supposed to cross a rainbow bridge and enter their new home, Valhalla. The effect was quite spectacular when I saw it last month. But at the end of that first performance, the bridge was nowhere to be seen, and the gods just ambled off into the wings to some of Wagner's most stirring music. Oops.

More recently, I listened to this season's radio broadcast of Rheingold shortly before my trip to New York. When the head god Wotan and the demi-god of fire, Loge, head down to the caves of Niebelheim, where they intend to steal the Ring, stunt doubles walk down a brightly lit stairway in another very cool effect. But at that point in that Saturday matinee broadcast, there was a loud thud, some clanking, then voices talking frantically, and finally someone saying something about "the conductor," although the music never stopped. Very odd. A friend in New York who attended the performance reported that a malfunction kept the stairway bit from happening, a stagehand had to walk onstage (can't be good if that happens!) to push part of the set back in place, but then a section of it was hanging down in front of the Machine as the next scene was about to begin. When someone told bass-baritone Eric Owens to go ahead with his upcoming entrance, he protested that he couldn't see the conductor. Thus the voices heard on the radio broadcast. Amazingly, conductor Fabio Luisi and the Met orchestra didn't miss a beat, Owens and tenor Gerhard Siegel made their entrances, and somehow the set snafu was resolved. But it made for some tense moments in the house.

The quality of this production was varied -- sometimes the Machine and its accompanying effects were superb, as when it showed all the creepy critters crawling through the forest where Siegfried has grown up, or the "overhead" view of Brünnhilde lying asleep surrounded by fire at the close of Die Walküre.

At other times it fell short. In the very first scene, a little more convincing theft of the Rheingold would have been nice, rather than Alberich with a sack scampering up the Machine's planks to the top of the set while the Rheinmaidens just sit and watch. One sings "Haltet den räuber!" (which pretty well translates to "Stop! Thief!") but they make no effort to actually stop him as he walks right past them.

The end of Act II of Götterdämmerung is supposed to be one of opera's great "awkward moments." Brünnhilde, Hagen and Gunther have just sung their great trio (wait! a trio? in Wagner? yes, it's true, he broke his own "rules," and quite well, I might add) plotting Siegfried's death, each of them with a different reason for it. They are all quite serious at this moment, but who comes in at just the wrong time? Why, it's the happy Siegfried, Gutrune and the wedding party! It would have worked much better with an obvious glance or two between the characters that just hinted at "Oh, it's you. Plotting your death? Uh, no, we'd never do that!" In this production, the plotters just appear kind of grumpy as they take their places in the procession and the curtain falls. The final music of this scene is the sinister motif of the evil Hagen, played by the low strings and bassoons, but there's no acknowledgement of that onstage.

The interactive projections were quite ingenious at times. When the Rheinmaidens sing in the first scene of Rheingold -- they're supposed to be underwater -- bubbles are projected on the planks just behind them at exactly the moments and in exactly the places that they sing. And when one of the characters puts his hand in a projection of water, it realistically ripples out. All a very clever inclusion of technology that really sets the Machine apart.

An audience favorite is the eight Valkyries riding their flying horses during the "Ride of the Valkyries" music. Each sits astride one of the Machine's planks as it bobs up and down like a hobby horse, and as they "land" on the Valkyries' Rock, they slide down their plank one by one as if they were coming down a playground slide. Kind of hokey, but if any scene needs a little humor and hokeyness, it's this one.

Despite the Machine's shortcomings and a few production disappointments, this was actually a quite enjoyable Ring, and the main reason for that is that musically, it was superb (at least in the cycle.I attended).

Check back soon for a rundown of the performances. For rail yard workers, the Met's cast, orchestra and chorus did a masterful job of putting this train together.