Die Walküre
Lots of gents in bow ties tonight for some reason. Right off the bat, Siegmund meets Sieglinde, they fall in love and immediately get busy. Oh yeah, they're siblings. Not only that, they're twins. That makes it super-double incest. Plus, they're both Wotan's bastard kids. It just doesn't get less icky from here on out. Ovations for Sieglinde's husband, Hunding. He's my kind of thuggish brute. In five Ring Cycles, I can say that his death was the second best I've seen. After he whacks Siegmund, Wotan whacks him. He's just supposed to fall like a bag of cement. He did that very convincingly. The best Hunding-death I ever saw was back in the eighties when he fell forward right on his face. It was fantastic. I'm sure that guy must have lost a few teeth doing that. Following all the god-squabbling, some demands from the goddess of buzzkill, Fricka, some major defiance, and Siegmund+Hunding's demise, the Valkyries rode. It was nothing like Apocalypse Now, but Helmwige was there; so were Gerhilde and Waltraute. They all wear really cool hats. By the way, Brünnhilde is pretty hot in this production. The Valkyries didn't ride horses, as Wagner envisioned them doing. They just crept around this big, fake mountain. Wotan arrives really pissed off, makes a deal with Brünnhilde and sets the mountain on fire. That only took four hours to resolve. You know, it's been a while since my last Ring. I forgot just how long the second act is. Sure, a lot happens, but it does take some time to play out. Oh, and for what it's worth, the Seattle Opera's trombone section is pretty awesome.
Friday: Fearless idiot manchild runs amok in the woods - kills a dragon, finds a girlfriend.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment