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A slide show of stage set designs for the Metropolitan
Opera's Ring Cycle (1987-2000): Siegfried |
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Das Rheingold | Die Walkure | Siegfried | Gotterdammerung |  |
This truly Wagnerian Ring of the Nibelung reaches heights of romanticism with the technological tools of the space age which Wagner himself surely would have used had they been available in his day.
In Siegfried, totally different problems emerge:
"First, in the home and forge in the forest, in the beginning of the scene where treetops tower over the minute building. The forest is decisively Siegfried's home and had been for many years, before he understood anything of the world.
Then there's the dragon (Fafner) to which you have to pay special attention, so that it does not seem absurd! Before Fafner's outline becomes visible, the forest quakes; the powerful roots, which are also visible, are transformed into gigantic tentacles... As the dreadful monster becomes visible... it becomes understandable that his death at the hands of Siegfried provokes fantastic excitement... As the fight begins, projections fall on the whole scene and this very large stage appears to begin to move. Five stagehands worked from below. It was a grand performance of stage technology by the Met's workshops!
The task in the third act was again completely different: the open transformation after the key scene between Siegfried and Wotan, the Wanderer, where the boy does not recognize the Wanderer as his grandfather. This deeply tragic scene must change uninterrupted and without a curtain, into the scene of the rock on which Brünnhilde sleeps. It was impressive. Siegfried ascends the rock and the fire cannot bar his path. For this I used six stage lifts as they are called in the theater; each of these levels was three meters wide and twelve meters long. The front levels were lower and the rear levels climbed higher and higher until the set became identical to the end of Walküre where Wotan bids Brünnhilde farewell. It would be impossible with a curtain, as Wagner's music tolerates no interruption. With projections, the scene becomes more powerful, the passage more seamless, more gradual, enabling the listener to experience the whole drama up close. Siegfried's encounter with the forest bird, who inspires him to set off on his adventurous journey, to the greatest experience of his young life..."*
*[From G. Schneider-Siemssen in conversation with K. Pahlen: Die Bühne, mein Leben , Springer Verlag 1996; (The Stage, My Life - English translation by James Mulder, in press)]
Elsewhere in FanFaire... more on Richard Wagner, The Ring Cycle and the Ring at the Met.
