Bayreuth's Paint-laden Die Walküre Booed with Gusto

BAYREUTH -- For Die Walküre, seen August 19, the vast Bayreuth stage has been turned into a giant, bright white triptych. Controversial Viennese artist Herman Nitsch, charged with creating the “artistic action” for this concert staging, remotely and in real time directs ten of his assistants: They pour paint from the top of the canvases so that it flows down in ribbons like an ever-changing bar code, and toss buckets of paint across the floor so that it spatters. The tableau begins with a rainbow of colors, but turns blue and green for the “night of love,” then black for Wotan’s lament and farewell, then red for Siegmund’s death.

In the second act, a cross appears with the white-clad body of blindfolded woman, and the assistants pour gallons of red paint on her. This seems to foretell Siegfried’s bloody childbirth, which is to end with Sieglinde’s death. In Act III, another cross appears, with another blindfolded body. Again buckets of red paint are poured on the body, while a man, stripped to the waist, elevates a Christian monstrance. The meaning? I have no idea, especially since it doesn’t correspond to anything in the text. ut it takes the form of a solemn ritual, and the presence of religious symbols makes it reverberate with meaning, for better or worse.

A row of chairs is placed in front of the “action,” and the singers, all wearing black choir robes, come and go, sometimes facing each other as appropriate, but without more substantial interaction. The orchestra is confined to the pit.

All of this is very distracting, of course, but it proceeds at such a slow pace that it doesn’t really interfere and is somewhat interesting. The audience disagreed, and when Nitsch came out at the curtain (he looks disarmingly benign, sort of like Father Time, smiling benevolently, bent over a cane bushy white beard) he was booed lustily.

Boos for stage and pit

The other person to be booed on this night was Finnish conductor Pietari Inkinen, making his debut here. This is alarming on several levels. For one thing, it is quite rare for the Bayreuth audience to boo a conductor. But it’s more perilous in this case because Inkinen is booked to conduct the 2022 Ring.

The 41-year-old maestro has risen fast in the orchestral conducting world, and is currently music director at the Deutsch Radio Philharmonie as well as the Japan Philharmonic. He will soon become music director of the KBS Symphony Orchestra in Seoul as well. His experience in opera, however, is limited, save for a Ring at Opera Australia in 2013, when he was an 11^th -hour replacement for Richard Mills. There he was celebrated for saving the day but also because, as my seatmate put it, “he looks like everyone’s sweet grandson,” with his shy smile and chubby cheeks. I wrote at the time that he was “still a conductor learning his craft,” and there were occasional problems with coordination, string tone, and pacing. At times, he covered the singers. Still, it was ruled a success, and was doubtless a major factor in his being chosen here.

Herman Nitsch's “artistic action” for Bayreuth Walküre is created as the performance progresses: notice the tiny figure at the top of the photo

But what a mess! Inkinen led an abysmally dry performance with little tension and not enough volume from the pit. Balances were off, sometimes too string-heavy, sometimes weighted to the woodwinds, but rarely with any clarity from the brass or percussion. Some scenes, like the “Ride of the Valkyries,” seemed too frenetic. But except for parts of the second act, the entire opera was just dead and flat, without warmth or drama. When a conductor fails at Bayreuth, the usual excuses are the idiosyncrasies of the covered pit or the lack of rehearsal time. Conducting the first cycle of a new Ring is a big deal, the time and effort of which Inkinen clearly underestimated. Perhaps he’ll turn things around by next summer. Otherwise, it will be a career-damaging disaster well beyond that of Valery Gergiev, who made his debut here in 2019 conducting a new production of Tannhauser that did not go well. Bayreuth is not a training camp; it is hallowed ground on which the likes of Toscanini, Richard Strauss, Furtwängler, Knappertsbusch, and Boulez trod. To fail here, especially in a new Ring, is to fail before a global public.

The cast saves the day

Otherwise, the extraordinary cast created a musical triumph. Klaus Florian Vogt seems to have grown up here, starting with a triumphal Walther (in Die Meistersinger) in 2007, and proceeding through the title roles in Parsifal and Lohengrin. In his earlier years, he had a voice like that of a choirboy: clear, with almost no vibrato. Now the voice is deeper, darker, and seems to have gained power. But it also is more incisive, with more color. He is an ideal Sigmund. Lise Davidson, also a Bayreuth favorite, was a Sieglinde whose light, clear unforced soprano has the power to match her considerable acting ability.

The estimable bass-baritone Günther Groissböck had been cast as Wotan, but withdrew five days before the first performance, apparently for next season as well as this one. He was replaced, at least for this season, by Tomasz Koniecjnyj, who has considerable power but lacks finesse and restraint, and sometimes has a hard metallic sound.

Irene Theorin has been singing Brünnhilde this season, but for this late performance she was replaced by Catherine Foster—in fact, an upgrade. Foster is an artist with power and nuance, and this was a credible performance. Dmitry Belloselskiy was a feral, fearsome Hunding. Christa Mayer was a sympathetic Fricka, without shrewish caricature and with a sweet, pretty sound. The Valkyries did not blend well, which is odd because they typically do so here, reliably.  

At a press conference before the season, Katharina Wagner, firmly back at the Bayreuth helm after a long medical absence, said that innovative productions were necessary to attract a younger audience. Her great-grandfather’s command, “Children, make something new!” is clearly the guiding principle. She announced a new, virtual-reality Parsifal for 2023, designed by MIT professor Jay Scheib, with the audience wearing special headsets.