One entry to tie up all the pieces together and summarize in pictures the Ring produced in 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 at the Paris Opera.
This Ring will be remembered as a huge project that the Paris Opéra decided to confide to
Günter Krämer.
The stage at Opéra Bastille is huge and setting up the show that can be viewed by everyone in such a vast auditorium is tough, especially if we keep in mind the standard requirements applying to every contemporary production of the Ring: the show must be subtle, ideas should be clear and different from recent productions (at least in some aspects), and the show must be spectacular. Even though Krämer was not audacious in his approach, his take on this saga was coherent, interesting for the most part, and the parallel with the 20th century history of Europe and Germany was very engaging.
I felt that the last of 4 operas was less captivating, most probably because the production team got tired. Perhaps they should have spread the producing process over three operatic season, instead of two.**
This was also the first official Ring conducted by
Philippe Jordan. He's taken great care of everyone involved in building the musical structure around this Ring and even though the orchestra started off a little apprehensively in the Rheingold, they ended the Ring in a great style.
The cast was uniformly brilliant with several stand-out/memorable performances: a stunning Brünnhilde by
Katarina Dalayman in the Walküre; extraordinary
Thomas Johannes Mayer whose stamina to sing 10 Wotan in a row at Opéra Bastille was mind-boggling; authority by which
Stephen Milling and
Hans Peter König sang their parts;
Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke and his dramatically phenomenal Mime;
Kim Begley's fantastic rendition of Loge... and many-many others. A huge THANKS to all the singers.
In the end, I should say that I did like the Paris Ring mainly for its grandeur, its ambition to be huge (and huge it was), although a lack of director's audacity was often unsettling.
Below you can find the production photos with links to my blog-entries related to each of the four operas.
On the less complimentary side I must note: (1) A disappointing behavior of the Parisian crowd that boorishly disapproved everything that even slightly strayed off the good-ole traditionalism: they consistently booed Krämer after every show, often just to vent out their frustration [that they wouldn't admit!] for having missed the points in Krämer's references; (2) Scandalously pretentious critics of the leading French newspapers that collectively decided to thrash each of the four productions, even when it was painfully obvious that they totally misunderstood the Krämer's intentions to relate his shows with important historical references. They even copied from one another the "arguments" against Rheingold that were completely off the target.
To use your platform and officially kill a production by your review is valid if and only if your arguments are clear, you demonstrate that you've understood the director's intentions but you found them misplaced, misfit, untenable... [or at least admit you didn't understand them!] Otherwise your review is both humanly and intellectually irresponsible (to put it nicely).
Prepare and read something about the background story related to a given production before writing about it -- especially when submitting your review to the main-stream media!
**
Even though the stage at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich is much smaller than the one at Opéra Bastille, I can only imagine troubles that Andreas Kriegenburg will meet while mounting all four Ring operas in a single season 2011-2012.
