1/ In other opera activity this weekend - “The American RING” production of SIEGFRIED. Mime’s cave is a broken-down RV beneath high-voltage wires in the desert; Fafner is still a giant but encased (“dragon”) in a malevolent steam shovel; the Waldvigel is
https://twitter.com/SFOpera/status/1373412576164507649
2/ - sorry, the Waldvogel - is a “smashin’ bird” in a snazzy orange trench coat; Alberich the Nibelung Ring-forger, first seen in DAS RHEINGOLD as a confused miner, is a derelict pushing a shopping cart but still plenty proud.
3/ what I like about this production is not just that it’s cleverly untraditional but it carries a concept through and combines it w the traditional. Eg the Wanderer - Wotan in SIEGFRIED - enters as a desert roamer, but in addition to his ratty T-shirt he has the coat he wore in
4/ DIE WALKÜRE + spear and eye-patch as required by the libretto.
5/ Gotta say this for Mime (“MEE-meh”): tho the Nibelungs are smiths by racial tradition, we know from Mime’s (possibly unreliable) testimony in RHEINGOLD that b4 the Ring, they mainly forged trinkets for their women. They were not a warrior ppl & there’s no evidence they
6/ contracted out for swords. So blame Mime for planning to kill Siegfried, but don’t blame him for not being particularly good at forging swords.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
