The late Graham Vick's comic Rhinegold is a triumph – if only the visionary had lived to see it
It is a rare and melancholy privilege to review the last work of a great operatic visionary. For that is undoubtedly what Graham Vick was, until his untimely death two weeks ago from complications arising from Covid-19. Vick had a burning conviction that opera at the highest level should not only be for the people but of the people, with amateur performers working alongside professionals to bring new life to the great works of the operatic canon. At Birmingham Opera, the company Vick founded in 1987, he strove mightily to realise that vision. No opera was too vast in scope or too challenging in practical terms for the company to take on.
Opera hardly comes more vast in scope and mythic resonance than the four-opera epic of Wagner’s Ring, whose first part, the “preliminary evening” called The Rhinegold, sets the scene for the eventual downfall of the gods. But it also has a knock-about fairy-tale violence and rough-edged comedy, and plenty of contemporary resonances in its tale of a troop of power-crazed gods who turn a blind eye to the squalid deals done by their leader Wotan. So just right for an opera company that wants to bring a rude demotic energy to hallowed works of the operatic repertory – which is exactly what this production did.
The first scene where the Rhine Maidens guard their gold at the bottom of the Rhine set the tone. Symphony Hall was plunged into gloom for Wagner’s wonderful evocation of the story’s emergence from primal unconsciousness, the slow burgeoning of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra’s sound controlled with an absolutely sure hand by the company’s music director Alpesh Chauhan (who was superb throughout). Suddenly onto the bare circular stage there staggered three girls in spangly silver dresses, aka the “Rhine Girls”. It wasn’t surprising to see these three girls out on the razzle do such a poor job of guarding their gold, or to see the lusty dwarf Alberich, played with huge capering energy by Ross Ramgobin as a frustrated fast-food delivery man, have such an easy time making off with it.
From this point we knew tawdriness and bathos and low comedy would be the keynotes – hardly revolutionary, in productions of Wagner’s Rhinegold, but director Richard Willacy made sure they were struck with huge relish. Some moments were laugh-out-loud funny, such as Byron Jackson’s impersonation of the thunder-god as a baseball pro, stirring up a storm by striking the ground with his baseball bat. Eric Greene as Wotan was a hollow, strutting pimp in gold-coloured shell-suit, always with more of an eye to the news cameras following him around than his wife Fricka, played with long-suffering nobility by Chrystal E Williams.
The two giants who want payment for Valhalla were a couple of jaded building contractors in hard hats and ill-fitting suits, the god Froh a nightclub bouncer. The most riveting of these grotesques was Brenden Gunnell as the fire-god Loge, vocally commanding in his barely concealed contempt for his boss Wotan, looking like a superannuated biker in red string vest and long leather jacket (it’s a shame he didn’t make his entrance on a Harley Davidson).
Here and there real feeling peeped out amidst the squalor. Keel Watson touchingly portrayed the giant Fasolt’s yearning for the beautiful god Freia, when he reluctantly accepts payment in gold instead of her. John-Colwyn Gyeantey as Alberich’s put-upon brother Mime was so perfectly self-pitying one had to pity him in return. And the amateur actors who took on the roles of news cameramen, angry demonstrators (“Our Lives Matter!” said one placard) or the oppressed workers in the underworld who literally had to shit gold (humour for a moment giving way to Freud) added hugely to the effectiveness of their scenes. In all the production was a triumph. What a tragedy its prime mover wasn’t there to see it.
The second performance of Wagner’s Rhinegold at Symphony Hall, Birmingham on August 2 is now sold out
