Opera - Michael Portillo wonders if it is time for the Met's James Levine to pass the baton
When the curtain descended on Gotterdammerung, ending the second Ring cycle at New York's Metropolitan Opera, there was an ovation that many performers must dream of. Every member of the 4,000-strong audience seemed to be cheering, and the noise level rose when the conductor, James Levine, took his bow and invited applause for the orchestra. But was there a hint that the audience was trying too hard? All week, while New York opera-goers had been cheering Levine, the out-of-towners - people whom I bump into all over the world at Wagner Ring cycles - were less convinced. Rheingold had lasted two hours and 40 minutes, which is considered to be about as long as any conductor can get away with, and Levine's direction had seemed not merely considered and detailed, but just plain slow. Of Siegfried, some went so far as to say that it had dragged.
On the morning preceding Gotterdammerung, the New York Times carried a long article speculating on Levine's health. Evidently he has some disorder that causes tremors in his left arm and leg. He says that it has got no worse over the past ten years and that it does not affect his performance. But the Times went on to quote anonymous Met musicians who reported that Levine tires during long pieces by Wagner, slumping forward on the stool from which he directs, and that he makes only small gestures with the baton, thus making it hard for players to follow his intentions. The publication of such remarks has to be damaging for the maestro, and the way in which some instrumentalists have broken ranks to speak to the press cannot have helped morale in the pit. Hence the roars of solidarity from the Met audience, which has enjoyed 28 golden years since Levine became the company's artistic director.
It was, in many ways, a fine Ring. There are not too many traditional productions around (though it will be worth catching another production at the Seattle Opera in August 2005), and the Met has the space and money to build huge sets evoking Valhalla (the gods' palace) or Brunnhilde's rock. The opera house's gigantic machinery renders Wagner's impossible stage directions possible. The composer calls for the collapse of the Gibichungs' stately home, a flood by the River Rhine and the destruction of Valhalla by fire all within a few bars, and the Met duly delivered it all in a memorable finale. The staging was excellent and full of surprises. However, it was annoying that the lighting was kept generally dim, hence some costumes became visible only at curtain call.
The Met found $3m a while ago to install facilities for subtitles that appear, but only if you want them, on the back of the seat in front of you. They are particularly helpful for Wagner, aiding comprehension and audience attentiveness, and easier to absorb at a glance than surtitles above the proscenium arch.
New York can hire the best talent on offer and, not surprisingly, there were many fine performances. James Morris continues to be a great Wotan. He brings maturity and excellent vocal range to the role. Matti Salminen's voice is huge and beautiful as both Hunding and Hagen. Richard Paul Fink was the clearest and most melodious Alberich I have heard. It is still a privilege to hear Placido Domingo as Siegmund. Not only is the voice in good shape, but he moves around the stage like a man in his forties rather than his sixties, which is handy when playing a young lover. Britain's very own Philip Langridge sings and acts Loge delightfully. The chorus of vassals was precise, loud and exciting.
The orchestra played brilliantly, and it was clear that Levine loves the minutiae of the score, undeniably illustrating aspects of the music rarely dwelt upon by others. But why did it not set our spines tingling? His conducting did seem too slow. There was nothing wrong exactly, but the big moments just did not happen the way they are meant to.
Levine's conducting may not have been the only problem. First, the Met's size can be a disadvantage. Although the acoustics are wonderful, allowing the strong voices to sail out over the top of the orchestra even when it is playing at full romp, I still felt remote from the action in fine seats at the front of the grand tier. Second, while Gabriele Schnaut (Brunnhilde) and Jon Fredric West (singing Siegfried at the Met for the first time) were good and got better, there was little magic between them. Third, even though I have seen many tiresome avant-garde Ring productions, most of them have had something stimulating to say. I would be hard-pressed to tell you what kind of interpretation inspires Otto Schenk's production. The trouble with a cycle staged just as Wagner intended is that today, it can fail to shock and infuriate.
That is not what Wagner intended. He did not offer us incest, adultery and rape so that audiences could leave the theatre feeling unruffled. On this occasion, the ruffling was left to the New York Times.
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