This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon: Brünnhilde, a majestic Valkyrie, pulls her golden shield tight to her heart, and jabs her long spear at semi-god Siegmund. With his magic sword he slams her spear. Clashing metal, thunder, ecstatic love duets, bloodshed, pandemonium then stillness -- that’s all in a night at the opera at Union Avenue Opera.
Friday night the Norse mythic gods rise to action as UAO opens “Die Walküre.” It is the second opera in the series of four in Richard Wagner’s masterpiece about a mythical magical gold ring “Der Ring des Nibelungen” -- The Ring of the Nibelungen.”
May 22 marked the 200th anniversary of the German composer’s birth in Leipzig. He completed “Die Walküre” by 1857; however, it was not staged until 1870 in Munich. The entire Ring cycle was first presented in 1876 at his home opera house in Bayreuth, Germany.
While the full “Ring” runs 17 hours, UAO is presenting a reduced version of one of the operas each August over four years.
Last year’s presentation, “Das Rheingold” (The Rhine Gold”), tells the misty back story about the discovery of the gold. Walküre, Valkyrie in English, comes from Old Norse and means one who selects which warrior dies in battle. In “Die Walküre,” chief god Wotan sings a four-minute aria that summarizes “Das Rheingold.”
A story with modern parallels
Like all great sagas, the “Ring” continues to provide 21st century audiences much to think about that is relevant to our times, said Scott Schoonover, company founder, artistic director and conductor of this production. Its story can be applied to modern ideas about power in governments or at home in family relationships, stage director Karen Coe Miller said. Much of the opera is about fear of change in a transitional time, she said.
“When we are in a system or a relationship that is not working, we are terrified of changing it even though we think that may be wise,” Miller said. “Terrified because we don’t know what the new system is going to be. ‘Die Walküre’ is about the old way making way for the new. Brünhilde had the new idea of acting out of compassion even though she has to go against the law. Her father, Wotan, has to abide by the law, the law he made.”
This opera’s fulcrum is Wotan’s refusal to bend his law, she said. The cast agreed.
“He’s a control freak,” said bass Timothy Bruno, who sings the role. “He’s mythical but he’s like some people today who tell those they loves what is best for them. He thinks he is the only one who can execute the plan.”
Miller said Woten is “rigid even if it means sacrificing Siegmund, his own son. Wotan rages because he would dearly love to save Siegmund. His own daughter Brünnhilde betrays his law and he (punishes) her. If the world is going to end, Wotan wants it to go out with honor observing the law.”
Miller is an energetic director who often gets onto the rehearsal stage to model the moves she wants singers to follow. She is assistant director of the Oklahoma Opera and Music Theatre Company and a Oklahoma City University professor. She directed UAO’s “Rheingold” last August and regularly works at Minnesota Opera.
There are so many facets to this opera that every rehearsal we find something new,” Miller said.
New roles flex chords
Alexandra LoBianco, the New York soprano who sings Brünhilde, thinks of her character as a fiery, passionate but powerful warrior.
“Her father Wotan has empowered her,” LoBianco said. “I like the choices she makes and how it affects her relationship with her family. Though she does not obey the law, she does what she thinks Wotan wants. In fact, she says that: ‘I did what your really wanted even though you told me differently. I did it for you’.”
This is LoBianco’s third role at UAO. She last was here in 2011 shortly after winning the 2011 Liederkranz Vocal Competition’s first prize in New York. At UAO she won rave reviews in the title role in Puccini’s “Turandot.”
Bruno, who sings Wotan, is enthralled with the mythic story. “I love everything about it,” said Bruno, 26, a Cincinnati native. “The Ring” has fascinated him since he was a teenager when saw the movies based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s books “The Lord of the Rings.”
After the (first) movie, I read the books,” he said. It took only a small step to become a fan of Wagner’s “Ring.” “Some of Tolkien is word for word Wagner,” Bruno said.
Popular fantasies’ magnetism can draw children and young adults to “The Ring,” he said. He’s watched Ohio kids glom onto “The Ring” myth when he toured with Toledo Opera’s student outreach troupe. It presented a 45-minute, kid-friendly version of the entire cycle.
Soprano Amber Smoke never dreamed of singing the ravishing young semi-goddess Sieglinde. Then last year, Smoke made audition rounds in Europe. Three times in two days German opera agents told her she should sing Sieglinde.
“Two in Munich and one in Berlin,” the Mount Pleasant, Mich., native said.
It seemed odd to her since Sieglinde is a soprano role and she’s always been told she was a mezzo. She wondered whether the suggestion was made more because of being a tall blonde rather than her voice quality. But on her return to the U.S., she studied the Sieglinde role and loved it.
It is her first Wagner role and her first soprano role. She’s still dazzled that it feels just right for her voice, she said. She hopes to sing it many times again.
Sieglinde’s hero, love interest and more -- we won’t spoil the surprise -- is Siegmund, a semi-god sung by tenor James Taylor.
“Siegmund has an amazingly intense attraction for Sieglinde which he does not understand,” Taylor said. “He sees himself as a white knight. He’s a god, but he can’t get past his human-ness.”
Taylor, who lives in Richmond, Va., has been singing professionally for two decades in operas and concerts. After graduating from Yale, he sang in the prestigious San Francisco Opera Merola apprentice program and spends much of his year now teaching voice.
“This is the hardest role I have ever done,” Taylor said. His challenge is not the singing but acting convincingly, he said.
“The story has to be told even if you crack a note as you do it,” he said.
Wagner loved literature and mythic storytelling before he became a musician and composer, a self-taught musician at that. He first wrote his “Ring” story as a long poem shortly after the European revolutions of 1848, years before he set it to music.
“The Norse myths are about looking out for Number One. It is a circle that never ends and is what so much on television and reality shows are about now,” Taylor said. That sometimes bothers him. “The myths are not St. Paul, not the Christian message that I believe in.”
Boiled down not chopped
The reduced version of Wagner’s “Ring” the UAO is using is by British opera composer Jonathan Dove. He hoped that it could tour, making the masterpiece assessable to wider audiences. Dove’s reduction of “Die Walküre” runs about three hours with one intermission, conductor Schoonover said.
Dove spliced out many of Wagner’s repetitions. How many times does Wotan have to explain about the ring of gold, stage director Miller asked?
Dove retained “all primary places where decisions are made, all key moments still shine,” she said. “He leaves in why Wotan is full of rage, why Brunnhilde makes the decisions she does. Dove keeps the momentum of the story going.
“If anything in this version there is more intensity,” she said.
The Ring’s most famous melody, “The Ride of the Valkyries,” (Think Apocalypse Now or Elmer Fudd) remains.
“Everyone knows that music, can hum it, but many have no idea it’s opera,” artistic director Schoonover said. “They can’t leave after the first act; “Ride of the Valkyries” is in the second act.”
Another plus is that the Dove reduction is safer for younger singers who are age appropriate for their characters, LoBianco said.
“I’m grateful to do this shorter Dove reduction,” LoBianco said. “I’m safe singing it with Scott who I trust implicitly. Union Avenue is such a singers’ company.”
She knows sad stories about young singers who have rushed into roles that were too big for their still maturing voices, harmed their vocal chords and ended their careers. Someday when her voice matures and is stronger, typically about 40 for Wagnerian sopranos, she’d like to sing the full role.
“This way I can work Wagner into my voice and body into my muscle memory, when my (vocal) chords are still youthful,” she said.
While Dove’s “Ring” is in English, the UAO restored Wagner’s German lyrics. From its first season 19 years ago, the company’s mission has been to produce each opera in its original language. English supertitles are projected on two screens.
Audiences last year at “Rheingold” applauded the abstract digital video and still images that echoed the saga’s location and emotions, created by Michael Perkins, a St. Louis theatrical production designer. His digital designs are seen at Shakespeare St. Louis, too. For Friday night, he has new imagery that will be projected onto the stage.
“Last year the audience seemed to be following the story, engaged, enthusiastic” Miller said
“Rheingold” was the best attended of UAO’s 2012 season, Schoonover said. “Many said that they didn’t think that they would enjoy Wagner but really liked it,” Schoonover said.