The first night, an overall excellent one, was the first of the four parts of Ring Cycle -- Das Rheingold, which was presented in this production at San Francisco Opera a couple years ago and I did attend that performance.
The star was once again, the orchestra. Runnicles is definitely one of the best, if not the best Wagnerian conductor of nowadays. Every outing of his Wagner performance is an event. Surely.
There were four scenes and only the Nibelheim scene was truly wonderful. The Rheinmaiden scene was not magical and the adobe of the gods pre-Valhalla was rather non-descriptive but not offensive. The production and direction was interesting and intriguing most of the time and it was musical and that was a tall order already.
The scene change was rather loud and between Scene 3 and 4, patrons clearly heard someone snapped: "Hurry up!" All these noises competed mightily with the wonderful music interlude and was very regrettable. Perhaps unavoidable, if we don't want to be saddled with an unit set.
The costume was bad, lighting excellent.
Singing was uniformly good. The best singing was from Stefan Margita as Loge. His voice was the sweetest one I ever heard on this stage. Ronnita Miller impressed with her rich contralto as all-knowing earth goddess Erda.
The giants were wonderful as well, so was Gordon Hawkins as Alberich and David Cangelosi as Mime.
As for staging, I still have mixed feelings towards Zambello's effort. Fricka's characterization still offended. She was a frumpy Hausfrau, rather than a goddess in the statue of Hera or Juno. She should not be a shrew. She sounded reason. Though I do like the more emphasized intimacy and closeness of Fricka and Wotan in that period of their life. However, it was just not magic, mythic and cosmic enough. For example, both Rheingold and Tarnhelm were represented by flimsy and cheap looking cloth. Better solutions ought to be found.
Some changes of the staging took place, for better or for worse. When Alberich showed his ring to his slaves, instead of running away in terror, this time, the slaves retreated in orderly formation, though screamed appropriately. Odd and the menace was diminished.
The ending still had the cruise ship gangway leading to Valhalla but less offensive this time. Perhaps the boldly colored floor and rainbow colored sky screen helped. I also like the black-clad Rheinmaids' reappearance at that moment. Cannot remember if it was new or not. Don't remember them last time.
The thunder accompanying Donnor's hammer swing was louder, but still out of sync. The little flame ejected very briefly from the two ends of the hammer was still pathetic. Better do without.
Again, Loge's struggle with Alberich as a toad was badly staged again.
Overall, a wonderful evening. However, I did regret more that I didn't catch the previous Ring Cycle production here by Nikolaus Lehnhoff.
Below are the cast and production team:
Cast
| Wotan | Mark Delavan | |
| Loge | Stefan Margita | |
| Alberich | Gordon Hawkins | |
| Fricka | Elizabeth Bishop | |
| Erda | Ronnita Miller | |
| Mime | David Cangelosi | |
| Fasolt | Andrea Silvestrelli | |
| Fafner | Daniel Sumegi | |
| Froh | Brandon Jovanovich | |
| Donner | Gerd Grochowski | |
| Freia | Melissa Citro | |
| Woglinde | Stacey Tappan | |
| Wellgunde | Lauren McNeese | |
| Flosshilde | Renée Tatum |
Production Credits
| Conductor | Donald Runnicles | |
| Director | Francesca Zambello | |
| Set designer | Michael Yeargan | |
| Costume designer | Catherine Zuber | |
| Lighting designer | Mark McCullough |
Below are several pictures and videos I took before and after the performance:
Waiting at Oakland's Rockridge Station for Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) train to San Francisco
Towards the opera house - San Francisco City Hall is in front of Memorial Opera House
Poster
View from the Balcony (San Francisco City Hall)
Patrons arriving at San Francisco Opera (War Memorial Opera House)
Patrons arriving at San Francisco Opera House
Patrons arriving at San Francisco Opera House
Glamorous Patrons
Way to the Biergarten
Biergarten on the balcony
Where the scenery machines are
Two and an half hours later
Related articles:
Part 4, Götterdämmerung - Premiere of Wagner's Ring Cycle at San Francisco Opera
Part 3, Siegfried - Premiere of Wagner's Ring Cycle at San Francisco Opera
Part 2, Die Walküre - Premiere of Wagner's Ring Cycle at San Francisco Opera
My Experiences with Wagner's Operas
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