STAGING  **

MUSIC  *****

Longborough's second full Ring Cycle under the guardianship of its longterm maestro, Anthony Negus reached its Götterdämmerung this May and June. Longborough has a commitment staging different Rings and this one has trod a long and thorny path with the 2020 pandemic derailing a Walküre that was due to showcase Lee Bisset's debut in the role of Brünnhilde. When Amy Lane's production was resurrected in socially-distanced 2021, half the orchestra were on the stage, the cast wearing their own clothes and visibly donning face masks when not singing. 

Siegfried in 2022 was creaky but fully staged and Bisset bonded well with Australian tenor Bradley Daley as one of the least irritating Siegfrieds I have ever seen. But the big improvement came with this year’s Götterdämmerung in which we first come upon the incestuous aunt and nephew laughing post-coitally on the floor of the stage.

Lee Bisset as Brünhild © Matthew Williams-Ellis

What followed was an empty stage. Siegfried began his Rhine Journey to Wagner's delicious music. Amy Lane's production did nothing with the Rhine Journey interlude except to change the back projection from time to time. This over-used directorial device has plagued her entire Ring from the 2019 Rheingold, which is a huge shame as our Siegfried and Brünnhilde did some great work downstage – as did Julian Close as a deeply-troubled Hagen who convulsed every time he thought of Alberich’s ring. But meanwhile in the background the cyclorama kept changing images – sunset, deluging water, rain on a window pane, an unpleasant parchment-coloured smear that might have been an old map of Gibichung territories. What matters – if this Ring has to be enslaved to back projection – is that one image is chosen for each scene, not changed while someone is singing their heart out in the foreground. It is the singers who are carrying the story and if the director and video designer are getting bored that is because the scene is under-directed.

There was also the strange question of The Book. Several characters read from a small, leather-bound, illustrated book. At one point Hagen held it up to the audience but it was too far away for this reviewer to see what the drawings meant. Siegfried also read it and Brünnhilde ripped a page out in anger, but it’s never good to reach the finale and still be asking your neighbours 'What's with the book?'

Similarly when Waltraute visited Brünnhilde on her rock, and immediately threw what looked like a dirty old towelling robe at her – and later Brunhilde threw it back – one was left questioning its significance. Roll on 2024 when hopefully the complete cycle will provide answers. It would also be good to see and not just hear Hagen’s last desperate line 'Keep back from the Ring!'. This was delivered from so far into the wings that I only saw his hand so, depending on where you were sitting you may have missed the son’s last attempt to retrieve it for Alberich.

Mari Wyn Williams, Katie Stevenson, Rebecca Afonwy-Jones as the three 'Norns' in Götterdämmerung © Matthew Williams-Ellis

Nevertheless, Amy Lane did achieve something I have never seen before – and loved. At the end Wotan/Wanderer (played by a member of the chorus) staggers on stage to witness the destruction of his Valhalla (more back projection). Wagner had always wanted this staged but Wotan is rarely there which is a shame because this is Wotan’s cycle. He must be there to see it concluded.

Better still, in the sublime reconciliatory music of the Sieglinde’s Liebeserlösung theme that ends the opera our dead Siegfried and dead Brünnhilde were brought back on by the entire cast to lie down together at the front of the stage, reconciled. It was not exactly the Schopenhauer notion of renunciation that had inspired Wagner, but my God it was moving.  

When the music ended I have never heard such silence. It was a total coup de theatre. No one wanted to spoil the moment by applauding. Then the auditorium erupted. Julian Close and Bradley Daley were cheered to Longbrough's low rafters but Lee Bisset actually seemed overwhelmed by the response to her. Britain has its new Brünnhilde. 

Amy Lane may not be the best director of Wagner, but she and Anthony Negus know how to stage a finale. And she has time before 2024 to tidy up this show. 

Until 6 June. lfo.org.uk

Bradley Daley (Seigfried) and chorus in Longborough Opera's Götterdämmerung © Matthew Williams-Ellis