May 1993

CHICAGO: Das Rheingold

On January 4, Lyric Opera of Chicago set forth on a four-season journey through Der Ring des Nibelungen with Das Rheingold. Given the artistic team for the company's first cycle in two decades, one expected Das Rheingold to be traditional -- pretty much what director August Everding, designer John Conklin and conductor Zubin Mehta delivered. Judging by the first installment, this Ring will be small-scaled, sometimes clever, occasionally banal, sporadically confusing.

Before the curtain went up, the projection of a large Erda mask greeted the audience as the long E-flat pedal stirred in the orchestra. The Norns made an unscheduled appearance, spinning a rope of blue light within a black, grille-sided box, which evidently will serve as this Ring's all-purpose framing device. The gods lounged about in a Japanese-style sculpture garden while, in the distance, Valhalla Towers rose like a golden skyscraper out of a craggy Alpine vista. Froh and Donner were Flash Gordon leather bikers, the former idly toying with a yo-yo. The Wotan clan munched green apples, presumably from Freia's produce stand. In the production's most winning jeu de théâtre, three Esther Williams-type aerialists -- doubling for the singing Rhinemaidens -- dived, floated and somersaulted high over the stage on cords operated by visible stagehands. The giants also had doubles, large robotic puppets that lumbered behind singers Matthias Hölle (Fasolt) and Jaako Ryhänen (Fafner) but were not integrated into the drama. This Rheingold alternately suspended and courted disbelief. Alberich's transformations, behind a sheet, were too feeble to be anything but intentional.

With his warm, commanding bass-baritone, James Morris conveyed Wotan's ruthless duplicity well. As Fricka, Tatiana Troyanos, looking like a displaced Herodias, stalked the stage with grave dignity, casting imperious glances at her errant husband. Ekkehard Wlaschiha offered a vivid, ultimately pathetic Alberich, his stark, black baritone keen to verbal nuance. Barry McCauley's cunning, well-focused Loge also proved a strong presence, and as Donner, Bryn Terfel invoked the storm clouds with a luxurious bass-baritone. A clumsy suitor, Hölle's uncommonly sonorous, youthful Fasolt tossed a courting bouquet at his beloved Freia (Hillevi Martinpelto). Nancy Maultsby intoned Erda's baleful warning splendidly. Dennis Petersen offered an agile, stagewise Mime. Singing behind a scrim hampered the projection of the Rhinemaidens (Joan Gibbons, Emily Manhart and Robynne Redmon), though they blended sweetly.

Mehta's shaping of individual scenes, such as the gods' descent to Nibelheim, was beyond reproach, with electricity and tension in the Alberich-Loge-Wotan scene, and he also propelled the long line of the drama. The orchestra rose to the climactic moments in the score, even though the conductor did not elicit great depth or refinement.