Achim Freyer’s Redemption through Geometry, Metaphysics and Light Sabers
by Rita Valencia
Although I am focusing on design and direction in these notes on LA OPERA’s Ring Cycle, it would be a travesty here not to applaud the spectacular vocal performances last night. I would single out Anja Kampe, whose performance was jaw-droppingly powerful, tender and transfixing…but then that would leave out Placido Domingo’s powerful, expertly polished performance with its subtly Italianate flourishes so right for the part of Seigmund; or Linda Watson’s spectacular Brunnhilde. Eric Halvarson (Hunding) has a basso so profound I would be terrified to be in the same room with him singing, and Vitalj Kowaljow performed a nuanced and complex Wotan. Michelle DeYoung ’s power mezzo gave Fricka some real muscle, and the ensemble of Walkuries was as exciting a moment in opera as I can recall.
With some trepidation I approached the second installment of Achim Freyer’s aggressively designed Ring Cycle. I came prepared for the Tacky, Ornate and Silly and was delighted to find a thoughtful execution which had a fine sense of human scale and movement that was carefully calibrated to the music. The slow motion choreography is a signature of Freyer’s style and here it works brilliantly as a visual complement to the story and score, in contrast to the imposed stiffness that was so awkward in Das Rheingold. There was still some silly stuff: a heavy reliance on light sabers that reminded me of the toy department at the now defunct Kmart on San Fernando Road, but I cannot really fault Freyer for that–I doubt that he has shopping for young boys at KMart in his lexicon. (He has a daughter Amanda, who is his co-costume designer.) And he probably is unfamiliar with the local connotation of a large eyeball he places high stage left–one can’t expect him to be familiar with L.A.’s Lowbrow Art movement which years ago took the emblem for one of its own. As The Ring plays out, I am sure that the style of this idiosyncratic designer/director will become less chafing to some in the audience, especially as his thoughtfulness and conceptual mastery of The Ring’s resplendently layered matrix of mythos and narrative is fully revealed.
Die Walkurie opens with a dark dreamscape centered on a large rotating clockface disk upon which a solitary black figure moves in an excruciatingly slow clockwise orbit, dragging with it the hand of the clock–a white illuminated tube–which turns on the spindle of a tall glowing blue tube. These two projectiles form the central thematic objects–literally poles–on which the story turns: the blue tube stands in for the magic sword which Wotan has planted in the tree outside Seiglinde’s home, for only a true hero to extract, and the white glowing tube represents Wotan’s spear, upon which is written the law. An emblem of heroism, the sword is double-edged. On the one hand it represents empowerment of the Hero, who is the soldier of forces of love, hope and freedom of humankind; this sword will enable the twin lovers Siegmund and Seiglinde to successfully escape Seiglinde’s cruel ogre of a spouse, Hunding. The other edge of the sword is its function to enable the more destructive and venal desire of Wotan, arming the hero to get back the Ring. Just as the sword is double edged, so is the Hero, who is both a vehicle for goodness and innocence, and also the most brazen and foolish evil. The second “narrative pole” of the myth’s geometry is the spear upon which the Law is written. Law plays a crucial role in the story that unfolds. It is the law written on that spear which thwarts Wotan’s desire to obtain the Ring. The giant Fafner’s claim upon it is legal and binding–a chafing worry for Wotan whose doomed desire for the Ring subverts every action he takes. The Law drives the force with which Fricka commands Wotan to bend to her will in her vendetta against Wotan’s beloved children, Seigmund and Seiglinde. Their love is verboten: breaking laws of marriage and against incest. Even though we know that Fricka is motivated by more petty motives of envy and spite, the Law is on her side, and the law is binding.
That these two objects form a clockwork has deep significance to the story: the abstracted timepiece reminds us that each scene we see unfold has its roots in actions of the past and will have deep ramifications in the future. Using two poles as a geometric analog to the pivotal narrative forces is a brilliant design strategy, as is the clockface with its circumambulating figure who moves clockwise when the action is moving forward, and counterclockwise when the drama is reflecting on past actions. Freyer uses the rotation of this clock as choreographic device, creating the illusion of flowing movement, with the actors moving hardly at all. It becomes the long space strangers must traverse to become lovers in the slow arousal of lust between Sieglinde and Siegmund in the first act. In the stunning climactic scene of the ride of the Valkyries, it becomes a demented carousel spinning strange broken bicycle horses ridden by the enchanting and wild females who are palpably gleeful in their performance.
The stage does occasionally creak when it rotates though–which wasn’t anywhere near as distracting as the cell phone that went off in the first act or the man who tried to sing along with the Valkyries who was sitting next to my friend Martin. Now if only Freyer would lose that dangling igloo shaped castle that he uses for Valhalla…he’d have a whole-hearted fan.
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