You must be kidding
With a cast like this and Daniel Barenboim conducting, I wanted to go for the whole Ring cycle from La Scala. But if this is the Rheingold that I saw in 2010, I decided to stop right there.
Yes, the singing is fine and the projections effective. But although the beginning of Rheingold is "watery" indeed, having all the singers standing ankle-deep in water throughout the whole opera, incl. the ballet - with wet trousers and dresses up unto their knees - was to say the least totally distracting and disgusting.
After that, I really was't in the mood for more.
Actually, and unfortunately, this otherwise very substantial Rheingold was just another of the European Regietheater - you haven't "lived" until you have seen Il Trovatore with Jonas Kaufmann no less, from the Bavarian Staatsoper!! - that I find totally obnoxious. These director seem to use operas as background music for their weird concepts instead of respecting and adjusting their ideas to "come scritto" by the...
Solid opening to the La Scala Ring
The true musical merit and the importance of Das Rheingold is often underestimated or at least overlooked on account of its designation as merely the Prologue to the three parts proper of Wagner's epic Ring saga but it's essential to establish a precise balance and a vision that will propel the audience compellingly into this unique musical journey. The first part of the new Teatro alla Scala Ring, created in 2010, fulfils that remit well, with Daniel Barenboim managing proceedings with precision and drive from the orchestra pit and director Guy Cassiers fulfilling all the requirements to establish a suitable tone that fully supports the work.
I don't know what Wagner would have made of ballet being incorporated into Das Rheingold, but choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui's work does help to draw out those deeper premonitory resonances within the work. In addition to the fine performance of the work on the surface level of the stage direction and the singing, the greater...
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