BIG does as big is, and New York, and its Metropolitan Opera know big. This looks very big indeed, big big. It is the Robert Lepage / Ex Machina new Met Ring Cycle , the full Cycle scheduled for the northern spring 2012 (after Rheingold in September this year, Walkure in April 2011, Siegfried later in 2011, and Gotterdammerung early 2012).
Hang onto your seats.
(UPDATE - The youtube upload of the Met new Ring trailer has been deleted, obviously it's more than a case of any publicity is good publicity. To see it, the trailer, look here in the section detailing Das Rheingold)
It looks absolutely thrilling and while 'circus' did pop into my mind, 'Goldman Sachs' didn't. And describing as a "faithful representation of Wagner's great operatic myth" in the $ this way to the front of the big queue $ didn't help. I'm frustrated by approaches which continue to position the greatest moral work of the theatre entirely in a world of fantasy, past or future, and sidestep the direct challenge and confrontation of 'this up here is all about us, and you sitting there, you're us'.
Leplage is only a little more reassuring: "“The Ring is about change,” director Lepage says. “I try to be extremely respectful of Wagner’s storytelling, but in a very modern context. We’re trying to see how in our day and age we can tell this classical story in the most complete way.”" I, you need to understand, worship at the altar of the anti-capitalist Patrice Chereau Ring.
I've been lucky enough to have heard a few of the cast in Aix - Dalayman's Brunnhilde; Heppner's Siegfried (totally wonderful tear jerking stuff, but in a theatre at least a third the size) and Eva-Maria Westbroek's Sieglinde. Here's some intersting casting - the hot tenor with a touch of dark - Jonas Kaufmann as Siegmund. And the cover is? Stuart Skelton. I'm trying not to have bad thoughts.
Mr Skelton is also singing Parsifal at ENO next March/April, c Wigglesworth. That I would dearly love to be at. Parsifal is a box still being opened for me, and these two may just have the key.
