El ciclo de "El Anillo", Kirov 2007.

Music Review Kirov 'Ring' Cycle

Kirov Brings Russian Soul, and Budget, to Its 'Ring' By ANTHONY TOMMASINI Published: July 16, 2007

Damon Winter/The New York Times Kirov 'Ring' Cycles 1 and 2 continue this week at the Metropolitan Opera House. Above, "Das Rheingold."

Veteran opera buffs know all too well what it's like to sit incredulously through some pointlessly elaborate new production wondering how it was possible to squander so much money for so little effect. I had exactly the opposite reaction on Friday and Saturday nights at the Metropolitan Opera House, during the first two installments of the Kirov Opera's production of Wagner's "Ring," presented by the Lincoln Center Festival. In many scenes the stage was filled with genuinely intriguing imagery, evocative of ancient Russian folk and fine arts, and some strangely surreal touches befitting Wagner's mythological epic. Yet too often the sets by George Tsypin and the costumes by Tatiana Noginova just looked, well, cheap and tacky. If only this staging, a joint concept of the conductor Valery Gergiev and Mr. Tsypin, had had a proper budget, I kept thinking. Even some of the props looked like stuff from a high school theatrical. In "Das Rheingold" on Friday night the magic Tarnhelm that allows Alberich the Nibelung dwarf to change form or become invisible looked like a kitschy sorcerer's apprentice hat covered with gold foil, a silly thing that crinkled and threatened to come apart every time Alberich put it on.

VIDEO Kirov "Ring" The Russian opera's production of Wagner's "Ring," presented by the Lincoln Center Festival. Videography by Nan Melville for The New York Times.

In "Die Walküre" on Saturday night Brünnhilde and her Valkyrie sisters were dressed a little like Morticia in "The Addams Family." Their warrior helmets were glittering, feathered headdresses that would have looked right in a Las Vegas chorus girl revue. And did some prop person find their black, rubbery battle shields in the Halloween costume bin at Wal-Mart? The Maryinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, Russia, the home of the Kirov Opera, is an institution with an awesome history. Mr. Gergiev, who runs the place, both the opera and ballet companies, has struggled valiantly over the years to secure financing, a task that has become more difficult as the government has floundered. Yet budgetary restraints do not seem to have affected the presentation of the music in this "Ring," so far. Mr. Gergiev drew an organic, rhapsodic and often riveting performance from the orchestra and the generally impressive cast. But the effect of the production was ultimately exasperating. In the opening scene of "Das Rheingold," the Rhinemaidens were joined in their underwater dwelling by somnolent podlike creatures and slithering dancers covered with dangling illuminated strands, like exotic animals in coral reefs. The imagery was exotic, maybe a little too Day-Glo, yet rather entrancing. The magic gold the Rhinemaidens guard was contained in (or actually was?) an imposing sphere with golden latticed walls, which at first looked otherworldly and beautiful. But when the lighting brightened, and the sphere was wheeled into full view and spun around, it rattled and suddenly looked sadly makeshift, like some huge drably painted Whiffle Ball.

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Hovering over the realm of Wotan and the gods were three enormous suspended sculptures, like gigantic petrified mummies. Again, I tried to give myself over to the totemic impact of the imagery. But the actual structures looked as if they had been made from papier-mâché. Fasolt and Fafner, the fearsome giants, were amusingly depicted as massive men of solid rock with movable arms for punching; the minuscule heads of the actual singers protruded from on top. They were like Stone Age versions of the rock-'em, sock-'em toy robots popular today. Again, though, the playful effect was undermined by the flimsy look of these granitic giants. This "Ring" production, introduced in 2003 in St. Petersburg, was built to be taken on the road, which no doubt put constraints on the designs. The larger question: Who directed this production? Like some conductors before him, Mr. Gergiev, who is listed as the production supervisor, may think he grasps better than any director how to stage the operas he knows so intimately. Not a wise idea. His indisputable talents are musical. At a time when the national characteristics of orchestras are increasingly homogenized into an international sound, the Kirov Orchestra seems distinctively Russian, with its dusky colorings, reedy and plaintive winds, mellow and weighty brass, and thick, expressive strings. Occasional mishaps in solo lines hardly mattered for all the urgency, nuance and texture of the playing. Mr. Gergiev is an impetuous musician who gives in to bolts of inspiration. His performances of a score seldom come out the same way twice. He may have less feeling than some great Wagnerians for the architectonic structure of these operas. And at times, as in the scene in "Die Walküre" when Siegmund and Sieglinde slowly discover that they are siblings and fall desperately into each other's arms, Mr. Gergiev dared to take spacious tempos, emphasizing tenderness over intensity, sometimes to a fault. But moment to moment, he drew rapturous playing from this orchestra of musicians who by now know what their idiosyncratic conductor is striving for.

Richard Termine for The New York Times The soprano Mlada Khudoley as Sieglinde in 'Die Walküre."

With his gravelly voice and earthy delivery, the tall and calmly charismatic bass Alexei Tanovitsky sounded as if he had stepped out of a performance as Boris Godunov into the role of Wotan. The mezzo-soprano Larissa Diadkova, who has performed Fricka at the Met, again proved terrifying in the role, singing with abandon, power and smoky colorings. The baritone Nikolai Putilin was a wonderfully bellowing Alberich, and Vasily Gorshkov, with his agile and cutting tenor voice, conveyed the cleverness of the demigod Loge, a master of machination as well as of fire. Though the tenor Oleg Balashov may have been a little vocally undersized for Siegmund in "Die Walküre," he brought a virile sound and crisp delivery to his performance and worked in poignant sympathy with his lovely and vulnerable Sieglinde, the soprano Mlada Khudoley, the vocal standout of the production so far, who has a lush, sizable and luminous voice. The Brünnhilde, Olga Sergeeva, who has sung the role at the Met under Mr. Gergiev, seemed to be pushing her voice worrisomely at times. There were rough patches and a few whelps in place of high notes. Still, she gave an impassioned and often subtle account of this touchstone and demanding role. With two more operas to go, this report on the Kirov "Ring" is provisional. Why do I suspect that trios of totemic mummy men will hover over the stagings of "Siegfried" and "Götterdämmerung?" Cycle 1 of the Kirov Opera's "Ring" concludes with "Siegfried" on Friday and "Götterdämmerung" on Saturday. Cycle 2 is presented tonight through Thursday, both at the Metropolitan Opera House, Lincoln Center; (212) 721-6500 or metopera.org.

Copyright by the New York Times 2007