Götterdämmerung, Hamburger Staatsoper, 10 April 2011

The curtain opens onto a dark empty stage. The orchestra begins with the music from Brünnhilde’s awakening in Siegfried, only now it sounds ominous. You realise that in the darkness the set is slowly rising from below. The Norns stand on a gantry overlooking an apartment. While the Norns re-tell the story so far, a mime takes place below. Siegfried has his head down on the table, the newspaper open before him. Brünnhilde is asleep in the bedroom. She awakes, comes into the living room and comforts the restless Siegfried, then goes back to bed. Siegfried drinks beer, stands looking out through the window at the blank wall opposite, and goes into the bedroom and watches Brünnhilde as she sleeps. The Norns disappear, the sun rises, and Brünnhilde awakes. As she sings ‘Zu neue Taten’, bidding her heroic husband to set forth and do new deeds, she makes coffee and sets the table for breakfast.

Siegfried goes off to new adventures. He stands on the apron of the stage checking his map. The first set sinks, and we see a two story house (rooms without walls), moving slowly from the back of the stage. The house is on a revolve, and as the act progresses the action moves from one room to another. This is the set we will see for the rest of the opera, and it is a brilliant idea, both in line and at odds with the rest of Claus Guth’s production concept. In line with, because it places the action inside a dwelling, like every other scene in the cycle; at odds with, because it is a new way of telling the story that breaks too radically from what we have seen before.

But it works. Boring sections (the nanna naps) become compelling, so that the two hours of the first act fly. Hagen, son of Alberich and half brother of Gunter and Gutrun, hatches a plot to get the ring by proposing Siegfried as a mate for Gutrun. When Siegfried arrives he is bamboozled by a magic potion into forgetting Brünnhile and falling in love with Gutrun. It should be said that Siegfried was probably attracted to her anyway; as the great Wagner scholar Anna Russell points out, Gutrun is the first woman he meets who isn’t his aunt. Siegfried has a great idea: Gunter doesn’t have a bride, but Siegfried knows where he can get one! There’s a woman on this rock surrounded by flames; if Siegfried puts on the magic helmet (magic helmet?)* he can pretend to be Gunter and take Brünnhilde. Which he does. (I’ve skipped a bit here but you won’t miss it.)

In act two Brünnhilde turns up, really pissed off with Wotan because she thinks he lied to her (about only the greatest hero being able to penetrate the fire). She wonders where the hell Siegfried is so he can rescue her, and sees him marrying this Aryan bitch, so she’s really pissed off with him too. She tells Gunter and Hagen that she married Siegfried ages ago, so now Gunter is pissed off with Siegfried. (Hagen pretends he’s pissed off, but he’s really pleased.) In act three Hagen kills Siegfried (skipped another couple of bits, but no matter), and Brünnhilde realises that it was a setup. She returns the ring to the Rhinemaidens to restore order and throws herself on Siegfried’s funeral pyre. Valhalla and all the gods burn and disappear. The end. (I'm not making this up, you know.)**

I could not begin to tell you how this was portrayed in this production, but it was masterful. The changes of focus between rooms and levels was always interesting, and done in ways that are not in the libretto but made dramatic sense. While the first three parts of this production would not particularly impress on video, this Götterdämmerung has to be seen to be appreciated.

Christian Franz (Siegfried) tended to undersing, partly to husband his voice for the big scenes and partly because he was tired after three nights of singing. In his act three aria he had all the voice he needed, but was overwhelmed by the orchestra. This was a problem for everyone; Simone Young had the orchestra at full volume when she should have held it back, leaving the big guns for the showpieces like Siegfried’s funeral march and the finale. Katarina Dalayman (Brünnhilde) also had all the voice she needed; she is no Nilsson or Varnay but she sang strongly until the end. Sir John Tomlinson, one of the best Wotan’s of the last thirty years, sang Hagen with his deep, black bass. Yes, there were weaknesses in a voice near the end of its career, but Tomlinson has the musicianship to work around them, and his acting skills and presence were wonderful to see.

My favourite bit? The very end, when Brünnhilde sees Siegfried in their apartment in a vision as she dies, just as Siegfried saw her when he died. A very moving way to end, in keeping with the humanity shown through the previous fifteen hours of music.

*Bugs Bunny reference
**Anna Russell reference