Opera North: Ring

[Belgrove]

The first of the six cycles gets underway this weekend. I'm looking forward to seeing it in June. Anyone going?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Yup, going with a group of friends to the Saturday Leeds performances - starting on Saturday!

Several grapes have been crushed.

[ostuni]

I'm going to the Salford cycle, in June. Very much looking forward to it, having seen Rheingold & Götterämmerung in Birmingham in previous years: tremendous.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

The first of the six cycles gets underway this weekend. I'm looking forward to seeing it in June. Anyone going?

If it were staged, I'd be interested.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Quite surprised to see that the Saturday cycle has "some availability" whereas the Weekday run is "returns only" - I would have expected the other way round.

[Conchis]

If it were staged, I'd be interested.

This is the best Ring I've ever seen - precisely because it ISN"T staged. It's country miles better than the ROH's last attempt, which was hobbled by Keith Warner's misfiring production.

I shall be going to see Jo Pohlheim in Das Rheingold - his interpretation of Alberich blew me away in Siegfried and Gotterdammerung a few years back.

[Prommer]

Quite surprised to see that the Saturday cycle has "some availability" whereas the Weekday run is "returns only" - I would have expected the other way round.

Is this "Leeds" place you mention anywhere near P'eckham? I might need directions from Belgrave Square if so.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Is this "Leeds" place you mention anywhere near P'eckham? I might need directions from Belgrave Square if so.

It's north of the river - your Taxi driver will know how to get you there.

[Prommer]

It's north of the river - your Taxi driver will know how to get you there.

Thank God for that. I was thinking I might need to take a tram.

[jonfan]

I'm going to the second cycle at Leeds Town Hall and am looking forward to it immensely. I was blown away almost literally by their Dutchman last year so involving was the experience. The back projection of a sailing boat in a storm during the overture made me regret eating the meal I'd just had! The huge space of the hall helps the superb orchestra and singers in ways a proscenium arch production doesn't. ENO and Mackerras brought the Ring to Leeds Grand in the early 1970's and grateful as we were for the enterprise the very dry acoustics and the minimum space for only a couple of desks of string players made the experience far from ideal. In the Opera North production singers move behind, in front and between the orchestra to give a total experience and the lighting effects on a big scale enhance the suspension of disbelief required for total involvement. With just suggestions of mood and place given by the projections and lighting the listener can complete the experience from their imaginations, similar in a way to what the Solti Ring did on Decca with added special effects to the superb performances and sound.
Anyway Wotan is doomed from the start in Leeds Town Hall before a stone of Valhalla has been laid by Fafner and Fasolt. Above the arch of the stage is written in huge letters a quote from Psalm 127: 'Except the Lord build the house they labour in vain that build it.' So that's him told!!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Anyway Wotan is doomed from the start in Leeds Town Hall before a stone of Valhalla has been laid by Fafner and Fasolt. Above the arch of the stage is written in huge letters a quote form Psalm 127: 'Except the Lord builds the house they labour in vain that build it.' So that's him told!!

[Flosshilde]

Anyway Wotan is doomed from the start in Leeds Town Hall before a stone of Valhalla has been laid by Fafner and Fasolt. Above the arch of the stage is written in huge letters a quote from Psalm 127: 'Except the Lord build the house they labour in vain that build it.' So that's him told!!

Except that Wotan was the Lord in the context of the Ring (unless you consider that he was an upstart, & Erda & the Rhinemaidens' father were more more senior)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Das Rheingold

Well - that was rather splendid! A superb performance - especially Alberich (Jo Pohlheim) and Loge (Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke) - but the star of the show, the ON orchestra and Richard Farnes; absolutely magnificent (apart from a "blurred" moment of harmony when one of the brass players didn't count accurately at the very beginning of scene 2, when the "Valhalla" motif is first played). The detail from the players is truly astonishing, and Farnes' pacing and control of balance is so well judged: there is nobody living whom I would prefer to hear conduct this Music, and no other orchestra I would rather hear play it.

Peter Mumford's staging is totally absorbing, too: the sun glittered off the Rhine in the first scene, plunged into darkness as Alberich steals the gold - grey clouds shroud Valhalla - molten gold bubbles in the background in Nibelheim: the eighteen anvilists bathed in a red light from the fires of the furnaces. The gods are a closed community; frequently huddling together, touching and hugging - whilst Loge is kept apart; he gets close to the giants and to the two Nibelung brothers - the other gods kept on the other side of the stage, sneering with barely suppressed violence and contempt. And Alberich's transformations are cunningly done, too - the molten gold swirling into a coiled snake, the green lighting as he shrinks into the toad - simple devices but totally effective,

And the politics of the work - thefalse, seductive idea that power can only come in the absence of love - the way this lie insinuates itself into the psyches of all the characters (except Loge) and corrupts and then destroys them. This production (which I saw five years ago in the same venue - much more has been done with the movement and acting, to match how the ON Ring production developed over the subsequent years) unifies what we see and what we hear, drawing the audience ever closer in to the world of this Music Drama. Brrrr!

Fantastic stuff - the quarter-hour applause well merited. A great triumph for ON, and one that's coursing around my arteries and will keep me awake through much of the rest of the night!

(Cameras there, too - not BBC, but maybe it'll become available on DVD.)

[Nick Armstrong]

Fantastic to read, ferney! Enjoy the rest of the night

[Beef Oven!]

Well - that was rather splendid! A superb performance - especially Alberich (Jo Pohlheim) and Loge (Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke) - but the star of the show, the ON orchestra and Richard Farnes; absolutely magnificent (apart from a "blurred" moment of harmony when one of the brass players didn't count accurately at the very beginning of scene 2, when the "Valhalla" motif is first played). The detail from the players is truly astonishing, and Farnes' pacing and control of balance is so well judged: there is nobody living whom I would prefer to hear conduct this Music, and no other orchestra I would rather hear play it.

Peter Mumford's staging is totally absorbing, too: the sun glittered off the Rhine in the first scene, plunged into darkness as Alberich steals the gold - grey clouds shroud Valhalla - molten gold bubbles in the background in Nibelheim: the eighteen anvilists bathed in a red light from the fires of the furnaces. The gods are a closed community; frequently huddling together, touching and hugging - whilst Loge is kept apart; he gets close to the giants and to the two Nibelung brothers - the other gods kept on the other side of the stage, sneering with barely suppressed violence and contempt. And Alberich's transformations are cunningly done, too - the molten gold swirling into a coiled snake, the green lighting as he shrinks into the toad - simple devices but totally effective,

And the politics of the work - thefalse, seductive idea that power can only come in the absence of love - the way this lie insinuates itself into the psyches of all the characters (except Loge) and corrupts and then destroys them. This production (which I saw five years ago in the same venue - much more has been done with the movement and acting, to match how the ON Ring production developed over the subsequent years) unifies what we see and what we hear, drawing the audience ever closer in to the world of this Music Drama. Brrrr!

Fantastic stuff - the quarter-hour applause well merited. A great triumph for ON, and one that's coursing around my arteries and will keep me awake through much of the rest of the night!

(Cameras there, too - not BBC, but maybe it'll become available on DVD.)

Wonderful stuff ferney. You'll need a beer after all that!

Anvilists? Come on, I bet they're merely percussionists