Washington's Wagner Ring Draws Young and Not So Young

The night before the Washington National Opera's grand opening of its first complete Ring cycle, I was having dinner with friends who commented on the fact that the tickets were sold well in advance and that people were traveling from far and wide to see it. Almost like a pilgrimage, they said. But one gentleman hailing from California bemoaned the future of the opera in general. He said he was seeing only elderly people at the opera and wondered what will happen when this generation is gone. On the opening night Saturday at the Kennedy Center, the audience was far from old. In fact, grey heads were in the minority any many people looked younger than 30. There was not one empty seat in the venue that sometimes has difficulty filling the house for the most popular of operas. What magic is Wagner's Ring wielding to draw crowds wherever it shows up?  

For sure, much of its attraction is due to the timeless themes of love, power and greed. But I think what makes it irresistible is the way in which Wagner wrapped these themes in the tapistry of ancient myths and classical fairy tales, that fascinated us in childhood and continue to speak to our inner child. What woman would not like to be woken up by a kiss from a true hero and what man would not like to wield power over the world, or at least over his own life.  So it is consoling to see the rich, the powerful and the beautiful who are as flawed and as vulnerable as we are, and have to atone for their sins just like we do for ours.  

The opening night suggests that Wagner has young fans...

...and attracts diverse audience

I saw my first complete Ring in the 1980's thanks to the WETA Television broadcast of a Met recording. I planned to "suffer" through it as a matter of education. But instead of dreadful boredom and fatigue I expected, even the longest operas kept me awake and mesmerized.  I could not wait for the next evening to see who did what to whom, just as in the past I had waited for a new season of Dallas to see who killed J.R. And there started my love affair with the Ring.

In his book A Night at the Opera, Sir Denis Forman says: "There was a time when Wagner and especially The Ring divided mankind into the Wagnerites and the rest. Today the war is won." And guess who is the winner!

Das Rheingold, Scene 3, Alberich and the enslaved Nibelungs

On Saturday night at the Kennedy Center, when the first Ring cycle opened with Das Rheingold or The Rhinegold as the WNO calls it, the undisputed winner was Wagner. The first of the Ring operas was last seen here 10 years ago, the other three followed one by one. The production I remembered as being firmly grounded on the American soil - with gold prospectors, robber barons and Erda as a Native American in a fringed suede dress, moccasins and feathers in her hair - has seen much improvement. I liked it well the first time, but the new version has a dreamy quality to it, including video projections of falling water, the mist rising over the river and changes in costuming that suggest universality and timelessness. In another fun new touch, this production has Freia afflicted with Stockholm syndrome, reluctant to  leave her captor Fasolt. 

A couple of chat forums took me by surprise with expressions of outrage that Wagner's gods should be using cell phones and boarding a cruise ship called Valhalla, instead of entering some sort of Norse heaven. For me Wotan, Donner, Frohe, Loge, Freia at alia were not gods even in the original version, but rather a privileged upper class fighting to retain its status. If you believe Bernard Shaw, The Ring expresses Wagner's view of his own society. In his booklet The Perfect Wagnerite, which I highly recommend, Shaw gives a detailed account on the subject. There were greedy industrialists in the 19th century as there are greedy businessmen today. Ecologists could argue that The Ring speaks in defense of the environment and protection of natural resources. In any case, why would it be easier to find Wotan more believable as god than as a CEO of a global corporation? Even the British queen calls her domain "the firm." 

Francesca Zambello had good reason to envision places and characters from the Ring in the United States. As I watched Das Rheingold, every scene and every dialogue made me think of something happening in the world today: Wotan and his group - of the political leaders of our time, weakened by the need for money and their own vanity, Alberich exploiting the Nibelungs - of a Chinese industrialist squeezing the life out of cheap labor.  Laws in The Ring are made to be broken even by those who make them; heroes are naive and therefore vanquished... 

And all this comes wrapped in some of the finest music ever written. Maestro Phillipe Auguin did a great job on Saturday safely guiding a huge ensemble of singers, players and extras through the treacherous waters of the mighty river, which is Das Rheingold opera. Overall, I think I was more impressed than 10 years ago, and I was impressed then too. In terms of portrayals it was good to hear fresh voices.  Lindsay Ammann's Erda, William Burden's Loge, Rhein maidens of Renée Tatum, Jacqueline Echols and Catherine Martin and giants Fafner (Soloman Howard - can't wait to hear him in Siegfried) and Fasolt (Julian Close) stood out for me.  It was a little surprising to see the return of some familiar faces in no less than the main roles. Alan Held as Wotan was as solid as I remember him, and Elizabeth Bishop's Fricka was as bland as I remember her from a decade ago. I could never quite understand Washington's infatuation with Bishop, but there it is.

Overall, it was a memorable opening of the cycle, certainly worth a trip to Washington. Even though I know who does what to whom in the next installment, I still can't wait to see it.

If literature on Wagner is to be believed, few contemporaries liked him except Ludwig II and Cosima von Bulow. His progeny also has a dubious reputation. But even his worst enemies today can hardly deny the glory of Wagner's music. 

Antigone and the Law of Gods

The ancient Greek drama Antigone has just finished its short run at the Kennedy Center after shows in  Luxembourg, London, Ann Arbor, New York and elsewhere. The performance featuring Oscar-winning French actress Juliette Binoche in the title role, staged by Dutch director Ivo van Hove, and newly translated by Canadian poet Anne Carson, is a modern take on the 2500- year-old play by Sophocles. As every great classic, it resonates with any new generation because even though technology moves forward, human nature does not.

Juliette Binoche as Antigone 

Antigone is doomed to die a slow death, still young and virginal, because she dared to disobey civil law. Her king and uncle Creon has decreed that one of her two brothers who have killed each other in a civil war is to be left unburied as food for vultures and dogs, while the other is to be interred with honors due any great patriot.  (For details, please re-read the drama or check Wikipedia.)

Defying the king's order, Antigone performs the last rites for the unfortunate Polyneices (who in my opinion was only fighting for his rights), and when Creon calls her on the carpet, she argues that the king's orders do not have "the power to override those unwritten and immutable laws decreed by the gods." And, therefore, she continues: "How could I be afraid to disobey laws decreed by any man when I know that I’d have to answer to the gods below if I had disobeyed the laws written by the gods, after I died?"

Well, the girl raises an important question, one that is as relevant today as it was around 440 BC, when the drama was written, except that today perhaps we would talk about one God above and none below.  People oppose or support things claiming God wants this or that, and leaders from ancient Greeks to the medieval Crusaders to George W. Bush have claimed to act in the name of God.

Sometime in the early 1990s, I attended a Christmas service at a Serbian church in London. The priest sermonized that the newly-born Jesus stood behind the Serbs in their just fight against the enemy - Bosnian Muslims, Kosovo's Albanians, Croats ?  Years before that, I heard a Croatian priest in Yugoslavia preaching that God supported the Croats' struggle for independence. God's will has been invoked by fanatics such as Japan's Shoko Asakara, Uganda's Credonia Mwerinde and California Marshall Applewhite - just the three of them causing hundreds of deaths.  Today, we are witnessing beheadings, bombings, shootings and various other atrocities committed in the name of God.

King Creon, the mythical leader of the ancient Thebes, acted on his own conscience when he issued his offensive decrees, arguing that he must insist on discipline to run an orderly state.

"There’s no worse evil than anarchy.
Anarchy destroys nations, my son.
Anarchy destroys homes.
Anarchy turns the spears of allies into fleeing cowards.
Those men left standing, the survivors, have been saved by discipline", he said.

Van Hove's Antigone: Haemon Trying to Reason With Father 

Creon's son Haemon warned him in return that "Gods give man his most important possession, his brain," and therefore, he said, Thebans can see that their king is acting against the laws of a civilized society. That did not sway Creon. Only when the city's elders determined that his decrees must be revoked because they are contradicting divine laws and that "the punishments of the gods have swift feet and do whatever evil they wish," he hastened to undo his brutal deeds. Alas, too late!

Like Creon, a secular leader today can be questioned and warned to mend his ways. But whoever would dare question God? And so those who want to lead people into committing death, destruction and other despicable deeds, resort to claiming "God's will" to seal the potentially disobedient lips.  Threats of death and eternal life in hell can be added for good measure.

We need a Haemon today to remind us that God gave us brain for a purpose. Personally, I am convinced that God does not mind being questioned. For example, I have never believed that He ordered Abraham to kill his son Isaac as a proof that the devout man loves God more than his own son. No wise man would ever ask such a thing of a parent and the Almighty is surely wiser than the wisest of men.

If I happen to meet God after my death (hardly likely because I am too much of a sinner) and if He confirms that the story revered by the Christians, Jews and Muslims alike is true, I will ask: "How could you? I trusted you!"

Cinderella And Other Fairy Tales

After more than 300 years the story of Cinderella continues to captivate, whether presented in a movie, opera, ballet or some other form.  Let me be quick to clarify that Cindy is not my favorite fairy tale character.  That honor goes to the princess who kissed a frog and turned him into a prince.  I have kissed a number of frogs in my life and none of them has turned into a prince, but I keep trying. However, I never miss a performance of Cinderella and always discover a new layer to the story.   

Maxim Mironov and Isabel Leonard in WNO's production of Rossini's opera Cinderella.

The other day I was passing by Kramerbooks store at Dupont Circle and noticed in the window a selection of children's storybooks. One was titled Everyone Poops and another The Gas We Pass: The story of Farts. Wow! They did not have those where I grew up. My first reading list comprised Grimm's, Anderson's and Perrault's fairy tales from which I advanced to Aesop and international folk stories.  In my teens I went through a period of obsession with the romanticized stories of the Wild West by Karl May and Zane Grey before graduating to the great classics.

Although I don't often see Perrault's tales in the children's sections of the dwindling number of the area's bookstores, I assume there must be an interest in them, judging by the number of kids at the Saturday premiere of WNO's Cinderella.

The production seems to be targeting young audiences and those young at heart. The colors and the design are over-the-top, screeching and at times ridiculous. But one can imagine a kid building a set like that from lego pieces, with costumes cut out from neon-colored paper. Note for example the prince's blue-and-white patterned shoes. Fussy but simple and geometric at the same time, like everything else in the show. The acting also was exaggerated and clearly meant to make you laugh even in the sad and tender moments. You could not take this Cinderella too seriously, at least not initially. It took time getting used to, but once I got "into it" it became great fun. The first really hilarious schtick was the arrival of the false prince on a white horse. I don't know if it's the same in other cultures, but in mine "the prince on a white horse" is the synonym for every woman's romantic dream of a man. Maxim Mironov's Don Ramiro was absolutely delightful. He looked like a confused young man with no experience with women. I imagine my son was like that on his first date. Isabel Leonard was not as charismatic for me in real life as she was in the Met broadcasts, but she sang beautifully.   The portrayers of the mean stepfather and his daughters, Dandini and other characters were all skilled entertainers both in terms of singing and acting, eliciting outbursts of spontaneous hilarity, with the exception of Shenyang whose Alidoro I thought was too serious for this production.

WNO's Cinderella, the Proposal Scene

Despite the emphasis on the comic, I found more depth in this production of Cinderella than I did in the Met's version a few years ago. Maybe it was the mismatch between the statuesque Elina Garanča at the time and her short and portly prince, maybe it was all the kitsch and confection in the more traditional production - but despite superb singing I never noticed then as I did this time that Angelina, aka Cinderella, was craving family. The playbill notes focus on her forgiveness and magnanimity, but to me she seemed more like a lonely woman who wanted to come to her prince from a home and a family.  Rossini's Cinderella wanted to bring an identity to her marriage, not just assume the husband's.   Even an unloving stepfather and two malicious step-sisters were better than no kin at all.

The not-quite-so-happy ending is a mixture of funny and serious like many other things in this production.  Angelina emerges from her reverie with a broom in her hand, a harsh reality that awaits many a young woman today when she wakes up.  Teenage girls might prefer the standard happy ending in Kenneth Branagh's new movie version of Cinderella. I appreciate that the British star director gave a new dimension to the wicked stepmother, portrayed aptly by Cate Blanchett. In this movie, she is a beautiful and elegant woman whose beloved husband died, forcing her to remarry. She is disappointed to learn that she is not as well loved by the second husband and it hurts even more to find herself impoverished after his death. She is still evil, but more human and easier to understand than a stereotypical fairy-tale stepmother. Branagh's Cinderella, on the other hand, is a girl with a cause, or at least a motto, not just a dreamer. But she is only a half-baked activist as if the director could not quite decide how much to intervene in the classic fairy tale. The sets in the movie are exceedingly Disney-like and gaudy, complete with a pumpkin turning into a carriage, lizards into footmen, glass shoes and tons of tulle. One expected more creativity from a Kenneth Branagh.

Opera in the Outfield

The Washington National Opera has chosen a formula which worked successfully last year with The Magic Flute free-for-all in the  Nationals baseball park.  Various operatic characters walked into the outfield to mingle with the audience and engage the kids.  The production including Jun Kaneko's playful costumes was a hit with the area families.  This year, you can expect Cinderella's mice  (or are they rats?) to greet you on arrival.

It is clear that such a vision of Rossini's opera does not agree with the music critic I saw run out of the theater as soon as the curtain hit the floor. I knew what to expect in her review the next day and she did not disappoint: a slew of poisoned arrows rained from Mount Olympus. But there are many who applaud WNO's Francesca Zambello for bringing approachable opera to the backyard of many families who would never see it otherwise.  The classic fairy tales presented in the way kids can understand teach them to dream of a world in which the good always wins and the evil is punished, something that stories about bodily functions do not.