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By ANDREW POWELL ERL \u2014 Nothing tests funding for the musical arts like Der Ring des Nibelungen<\/em>. Then again, nothing cements a support base so decisively. Take this Austrian village<\/a> of 1,452 souls and several hundred brown cows, where the eighth Ring<\/em> cycle in sixteen years turned smoothly Aug. 1, 2 and 3, literally around the clock. Here a tradition of community participation in the arts \u2014 rooted in four hundred years of staging the Passion of Jesus \u2014 has since 1998 combined with local business money, political will, creative determination and a realistic setting of priorities to endow and operate the three-week-long Tiroler Festspiele<\/a>, at which Wagner\u2019s music takes pride of place.<\/p>\n Gustav Kuhn<\/a>, 69, conductor of all these Ring<\/em> cycles, helped found the festival. Often lazily dubbed a \u201cmaverick\u201d because he shapes his own calendar and seldom works with mainstream orchestras and opera companies, Kuhn in fact roams freely less than he builds. Beyond that support base, he and the festival have partnered with a religious order in Lucca (to house a training facility for singers and other artists, the Accademia di Montegral<\/a>), with orchestra pools in Minsk (to procure players for Erl), with an artist manager in London (for vocal soloists) and with a design firm and the Col Legno<\/a> record label in Vienna (for graphics, CDs and DVDs). Kuhn\u2019s music-making is if anything conventional, in contrast to that of true mavericks like Nikolaus Harnoncourt, and it fits that fellow Salzburger Herbert von Karajan was once a mentor.<\/p>\n An iron crown of thorns<\/a> separates the village\u2019s two performance venues. It could easily double as a symbol for the circle of fire on Br\u00fcnnhilde\u2019s rock, but its purpose was to decorate Robert Schuller\u2019s 1,500-seat Passions-Spielhaus (1959), a cream Corbusian curlicue erected for the sacred plays and now also used for the Ring<\/em>. Fifty yards away stands proof of the Tiroler Festspiele\u2019s success: a jagged black 862-seat Festspielhaus that would have been designed by Lockheed if Delugan Meissl had not arrived first. Just two years old, this was the venue for three Bruckner symphonies over the summer, and, being insulated, it has enabled a new winter extension of the festival. Grazing fields occupy the space fronting the two buildings down to the main road, which follows the Inn River<\/a> as it races out of the Tyrol into Bavaria. Parking is at a walkable distance north of the cows.<\/p>\n Despite its curl, the Schuller hall is laudably plain, with bare floors and a wooden roof. It offers mellow natural acoustics and easy sightlines and would be ideal for Wagner\u2019s tetralogy except for one detail: Jesus\u2019 suffering and resurrection required no orchestra pit. The large Ring<\/em> orchestra, then, sits on risers behind a scrim while the action takes place downstage. This repurposing is evidently blessed: our Aug. 2 Walk\u00fcre<\/em> storm began and ended in sync with a deafening downpour on the roof.<\/p>\n For the second time in the festival\u2019s history, Wagner\u2019s three Tage<\/em> were performed within the space of 24 hours, Siegfried<\/em> starting at 11 p.m. and G\u00f6tterd\u00e4mmerung<\/em> ending at 4 p.m. The tight schedule fueled advance doubts about staying alert during the music. These proved unfounded, but expectations of audience camaraderie were likewise off the mark. Instead a quiet numbness prevailed during intermissions as people ate sausages, drank beer, lounged in lime-green deck chairs and generally conserved their energy. Attendance held up, even for the wee-hour Siegfried<\/em>. Hotels for miles around, most of them small, and all full, knew to expect oddly timed guest comings and goings.<\/p>\n Jan Hax Halama<\/a>\u2019s feeble, box-based props offered a degree of unity through the cycle but little in the way of beauty or grandeur. Lurid lighting didn\u2019t help, and at no time did the orchestra vanish from view. The action schemes, by Kuhn, worked best in intimate exchanges such as between Wotan and Fricka, Waltraute and Br\u00fcnnhilde. Siegfried\u2019s journeys made good use of the theater\u2019s aisles, but it was alarming \u2014 notwithstanding the custom of local involvement in Erl\u2019s Passion plays \u2014 to see preschoolers bear open-flame torches for fire scenes down the darkened aisle steps as fire-brigade members watched from the side doors, vital moments away from any devastating potential fall.<\/p>\n Musically there were rewards. Compared with recent Ring<\/em> cycles in Bayreuth, Vienna and Munich, Kuhn\u2019s leadership offered consistency (beyond Christian Thielemann), imagination (unlike Franz Welser-M\u00f6st) and propulsion (trouncing Kent Nagano). He astutely judged balances, given the orchestra\u2019s recessed position. The winds of his mostly young, partly Byelorussian orchestra played eloquently and tirelessly. Thomas Gazheli<\/a> sang an incisive, many-faced Rheingold<\/em> Alberich and a vivid Wanderer. Vladimir Baykov<\/a>\u2019s Walk\u00fcre<\/em> Wotan would be an asset on any stage. Hermine Haselb\u00f6ck<\/a>\u2019s firm-voiced, elegant Fricka (in both operas) recalled the young Waltraud Meier, despite some forcing. The clarion-topped, warmly intoned Br\u00fcnnhilde of Mona Somm<\/a> set the seal on Gotterdammerung<\/em>, of which Act II \u2014 and notably its Vengeance Trio, with Michael Kupfer<\/a>\u2019s manly coke-snorting Gunther and Andrea Silvestrelli<\/a>\u2019s worthy but woolly Hagen \u2014 emerged as the cycle\u2019s strongest unit. Anne Schuldt<\/a> made a persuasive visiting Waltraute.<\/p>\n Compromises included Johannes Chum<\/a>\u2019s sweet-toned but unsteady Loge and the willing but imprecise choristers in G\u00f6tterd\u00e4mmerung<\/em>. Otherwise Erl\u2019s realistic priorities took their heavy toll. The string sound: not fully cultivated, possibly reflecting limited rehearsal time or skill levels Kuhn could not improve. Principal roles inadequately taken: the W\u00e4lsung twins, the Hunding, the Walk\u00fcre<\/em> Br\u00fcnnhilde (cruelly mis-assigned to a low-lying lyric voice) and the Siegfrieds in both operas (the first reduced to marking his way through Lachend erwachst du Wonnige mir<\/em>, the second devoid of heroism). Characteristically undeterred, this valiant village mounts two more Ring<\/em> cycles next summer<\/a>. Moo!<\/p>\n Photo \u00a9 2014 Franz Neumayr<\/p>\n Related posts:
Published: September 29, 2014<\/span><\/p>\n
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