ROH Cycle 1 Siegfried - 7 October

Well, I survived my least favourite patr of the Ring! It's a good job
the orchestra were on splendid form because the singing was a
decidedly mixed bag.

Mime - Gerhard Siegel
Siegfried - John Treleaven
Wanderer - John Tomlinson
Alberich - Peter Sidhom
Fafner - Phillip Ens
Woodbird - Ailish Tynan
Erda - Jane Henschel
Brunnhilde - Lisa Gasteen

Stick-waver: Tony Pappano

Unfortunately I can't say I cared much for John Treleaven's Siegfried
- neither his voice nor the way he acted him as a boy so stupid that
he nearly forgets his sword when he runs off to find Brunnhilde. And
the less I say about his dodgy mullet wig the better! He sounded
slightly better than the last time I heard him, without so many
intonation problems but his high notes were often snatched and
strained, and at his very best he was adequate. The only thing he did
*really* well was throw chairs around and smash up furniture.

His love duet with Brunnhilde sounded like a brutally unsubtle
shouting match in places. Both he and Lisa Gasteen seemed to be
having a competition, trying to drown out the orchestra and each other
at the end of it. Rather ghastly, I'm afraid.

Sir John Tomlinson started well (underpowered high notes aside) and
produced some fine, sensitive singing in Acts 1 & 2. Unfortunately
(where have you heard me say this before???) by Act 3 he was flagging
again and seemed exhausted, although he did manage to hurl a chair off
the revolving platform quite impressively. Nice acting too.

Lisa Gasteen got off to a bit of a wobbly start but then was very
impressive, with the exception of a few dodgy high notes. Quite a few
people have now remarked that her top was much better the last time
around and I'm afraid I have to agree with them. However, I still
think she's fab and love her voice in general. She gave a very
powerful performance, strongly acted and sung - even if vocally she
wasn't at her best.

I really enjoyed Gerhard Siegel's pathetic and devious Mime - he acts
it so brilliantly and his voice suits the role so well. Peter
Sidhom's Alberich seemed a tad underpowered in places but generally I
liked his overall portrayal of the character

Phillip Ens' Fafner was amplified which puzzled me at first but he did
make a nice scary deep sound. I found Jane Henschel's Erda rather
uneven in tone with the gear changes of register particularly
noticeable. However, she certainly got some lovely rich notes out at
times.

Ailish Tynan was the Waldvogel and I found her vocal timbre rather
muffled. It didn't help that she was suspended from the top of the
stage on wires but I don't think the role suited her. For the
woodbird you need a very clear, totally pure bright sound - and her
voice sounded dull and muggy in the upper register.

I didn't see this production of Siegfried the first time around and
paid minimal attention when it was shown on TV, so unfortunately I
can't point out the changes made since the last time. However, out of
the entire Ring then I found this particular production of Siegfried's
sets, Personenregie and general "Konzept" to be by far the silliest/
worst.

There were so many aspects of the production which I disliked but
alas, I lack SJT's elegance and wit to give it the trashing it
deserves :-)

But to summarize: I thought most of the sets were pretty dire. Didn't
like the crashed aeroplane, badly-lit motorway or the stupid fake
grass on the hospital trolleys. The stuffed animals being wheeled on
were laughably awful and I wasn't the only one in the audience
repressing sniggers at that point. The dragon looked like a bad BBC
special effect - think Dr Who in the 1970s, and what the hell was with
Mime and the rat's head? For a moment I thought I'd dozed off and
woken up during a performance of the Nutcracker!

I did love the Wanderer on the spinning white slab, although I could
have sworn it was spinning a bit faster when it was on TV. However,
I violently disagreed with him murdering Erda with his spear. Why???
And isn't she immortal anyway?

Why did Siegfried give Brunnhilde the Ring at the end of this opera?
He makes a big deal of presenting it to her at the start of
Gotterdammerung, so she's going to have to give it back to him some
point before Tuesday afternoon :-)

Anyway, I'm afraid this one really did feel like 6 hours -
particularly the love duet which just seemed to go on forever and
failed to hold my attention. I did enjoy it - but mainly for the
"wrong" reasons, i.e: people gratuitously throwing chairs around and
Treleaven's bad wig. Oh well, just one more to go and I really like
the next one.......

Mrs T xx

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