Word: wagnerism
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...than any one of the original operas except the "prologue" Das Rheingold. Sellars handles the musical cuts as skillfully as possible, and except for some of the act endings in Die Walkure and Siegfried, which he uncomfortably splices straight into the next scenes, they are not unsettling. Of course, Wagner's meticulous structure of leitmotifs crumbles to the ground. But from the opening of Rheingold, when Sellars' voice and the rustle of silver paper (standing in for the Rhine) nearly overpower the river's flow in the orchestra's string section, we know this is to be a visual...
...purists this approach is sheer heresy--they remember Wagner's demand that his works be called "music-dramas." But most scoff at that today, and take the music much more seriously than the drama. Sellars does the opposite, and compensates for the loss in musical clarity with wonderfully adroit stagecraft. Sometimes it descends to the level of slapstick pot-shots at Wagner's Nibelungs, Gibichungs, forest-birds and bears, but at least as often it sensibly comments on the eternal production problems of the Ring...
STRAIGHTFORWARD enactments of Wagner's text complement the implicit parody of the hand-puppets and dummies. For the entry into Valhalla over the rainbow bridge in Rheingold, the bridge is projected through a transparency onto the rear wall of the stage; Brunnhilde's enchantment at the end of Walkure occurs atop a ladder, wrapped in a crimson cape and defended by a cordon of flashing lights; for the funeral march in Gotterdammerung, Siegfried's body is set in a huge wooden cart that Brunnhilde, haloed by a spotlight, pulls along. Sellars manages these scenes better than many directors with...
...enterprise this huge, of course, there will be misses as well as hits, and Sellars has his share. Particularly in Gotterdammerung--where many critics say Wagner's inspiration failed him--Sellars falters too. Splicing in whole minutes of Kurt Weill music to back up the leather-jacketed, bar-stool Gibichungs may be a justified comment on their theatrical value in Wagner's original scheme. It also, however, shatters with an axe-stroke of cynicism the mood of benign humor that prevails until them. The musical effect is appalling, the lapse in taste alarming...
...where you started," only it's taken four hours instead of 15 for the gods to pass on, the world to burn up, and the ring to return to its rightful owners. You aren't any wiser than when you started, and you certainly haven't experienced the catharsis Wagner assumed he would induce...