Opera
Ballet & Dance
Drama

New production

2004. 3-4
'Der Ring des Niebelungen' Dritter Tag
Götterdämmerung

Music and Libretto by Richard Wagner
Opera in 3 Acts with prologue
(in German with Japanese supertitles)

OPERA HOUSE

   

<STAFF>

Conductor

Jun Märkl

Production

Keith Warner
Set and Costume Designer David Fielding
Lighting Designer Wolfgang Göbbel
Stage Manager Sugahara Takahiro
Chorus Master Misawa Hirofumi
Chorus New National Theatre Chorus /
Nikikai Chorus Group

Orchestra

NHK Symphony Orchestra
Produced by New National Theatre, Tokyo /
The Federation of Japan Opera Foundation
Cooperation Richard-Wagner-Gesellschaft Japan
Special Cooperation POLA COSMETICS, INC.

<CAST>

March - April
2004

Friday
3/26

Saturday
27

Monday
29

Wednesday
31

Thursday
4/1

Sunday
4

Siegfried

Christian Franz

X
X
X
X

John Treleaven

X
X

Brünnhilde

Gabriele Schnaut

X
X
X

Susan Bullock

X
X
X

Alberich

Oskar Hillebrandt

X
X
X
X
X
X

Gunther

Roman Trekel

X
X
X
X
X
X

Hagen

Hasegawa Akira

X
X
X
X

Jyrki Korhonen

X
X

Gutrune

Kurano Ranko

X
X
X
X
X
X
Waltraute Fujimura Mihoko
X
X
X
X
X
X

Woglinde

Hirai Kaori

X
X
X
X
X
X
Wellgunde Shiratsuchi Rika
X
X
X
X
X
X

Flosshilde

Obayashi Tomoko

X
X
X
X
X
X
Erste Norn Nakasugi Tomoko
X
X
X
X
X
X

Zweite Norn

Koyama Yumi

X
X
X
X
X
X
Dritte Norn

Midorikawa Mari

X
X
X
X
X
X

<PERFORMANCES>

Mar-Apr 2004
Friday
3/26
Saturday
3/27
Monday
3/29
Wednesday
3/31
Thursday
4/1
Sunday
4/4
2:00pm
X
X
4:00pm
X
X
X
X

Doors will open 60 minutes before the opening of performance.


<ADVANCE TICKETS>
Available from Sunday 25 January, 2004 at 10:00 am.
To order tickets, please call +81-3-5352-9999(10:00am.-6:00pm.).
Internet ticket reservation available through the following Website.(Japanease only)
http://t.pia.co.jp/
http://eee.eplus.co.jp


<TICKET PRICE>

Type
Seat S
Seat A
Seat B
Seat C
Seat D
Seat E
Price
¥23,100
¥18,900
¥14,700
¥11,500
¥7,350
¥4,200

Seat Z(¥ 1,500) is sold only on the performance day at the Box Office and exclusive Ticket Pia Offices.

AIDAWhat is Wagner’s Der Ring des Niebelungen?
(Miyake Yukio, Music Critic)

Wagner’s tetralogy Der Ring des Niebelungen (The Ring of the Niebelung) is a musical extravaganza taking more than 10 hours to perform. Heavenly gods ruled by Wotan, ground-dwelling giants, one of whom is Fafner and Niebelung dwarfs, led by Alberich, who live beneath the earth, contend fiercely for the Ring that is believed to give its holder the power to rule the world. The hero Siegfried is ordained to save this cursed world but is suddenly entrapped and killed by Hagen, son of Alberich. And when Siegfried’s wife Brünnhilde, daughter of Wotan, plunges into the flaming funeral pyre, fires and floods destroy the rule of the gods. Thus the Ring can be interpreted as a story that illustrates the entire process of the collapse of one period in human history from its beginning to its end. Although through the Ring, Wagner pessimistically viewed the 19th-century capitalist society, in which love was lost and only power and wealth were pursued, his caustic criticism is still valid in the present day. From the bough of the World Ash Tree, Wotan cuts and shapes the shaft of a spear, causing the tree to wither, and Alberich steals the gold from the Rhinemaidens, forswears love and forges the Ring from the gold. In other words, the Ring also deals with the concept that the beginning of the fall of the world lies in the usurpation of Nature, a theme found in reality. For this reason, it is quite natural that stage direction plays an important role in the production of the Ring, given that the setting is not bound by any particular time or place.

<Synopsis and Highlights>
In the Prologue of Götterdämmerung, the three Norns, guardians of fate, recall the events that have led up to the beginning of this final opera of the tetralogy and then prophesize that the end of the gods is at hand. Siegfried and Brünnhilde, united in requited love, sing together ardently, “Getrennt---wer will es scheiden? Geschieden---trennt es sich nie! (Apart, who shall separate us? Separate, we shall never part!)” as Siegfried leaves her for deeds of valor, but the “betrayal,” which is to separate the two, is already imminent.

Act I: When the hero Siegfried visits the castle of the Gibichungs, he is given a magic potion that destroys his past memories and quickly forgets Brünnhilde, falling in love with Gutrune. He and Gunther swear an oath of blood brotherhood, and Siegfried promises to win Brünnhilde for Gunther. All this is a plan by Hagen, son of Alberich. Meanwhile, Waltraute comes to Brünnhilde to beg her to return the Ring to the Rhinemaidens, but Brünnhilde refuses to yield the Ring that Siegfried has given her as a token of his love. As punishment for not relinquishing the Ring, Brünnhilde is forcefully taken by a man in Gunther’s form (Siegfried has used the Tarnhelm to disguise himself), and the Ring is wrenched from her finger. This is perhaps the cruelest of scenes in the Ring, even if the circumstances under which Siegfried was given the magic potion are taken into account.

Act II: The dialogue between Alberich and Hagen makes it clear that Götterdämmerung represents a proxy war between Alberich and Wotan. In front of guests who gathered to attend Siegfried and Gutrune’s wedding feast, Brünnhilde bitterly accuses Siegfried, saying she is his real wife and that she was taken advantage of by him on the night she was forced into the cave. Siegfried, who protests that he followed the tradition of proposing marriage by proxy, has to swear his innocence on the tip of Hagen’s spear. Brünnhilde is furious with rage, Hagen is gunning for the Ring and Gunther is disgraced. The three agree that Siegfried must die.

Act III: The Rhinemaidens warn Siegfried about the curse of the Ring, but he rejects their pleas to return it to them. He is then joined by his hunting companions and begins to reminisce about his adventures. Hagen offers him a drink into which he has put an antidote to the earlier magic potion; his memory restored, Siegfried tells how he won Brünnhilde. Hagen stabs him in the back, announcing vengeance. In the hall of the Gibichungs, where Siegfried’s body is brought, Hagen claims his right to the Ring and fatally wounds Gunther. When Brünnhilde ignites her husband’s funeral pyre and plunges into the flames condemning the gods, the old world ruled by the gods is destroyed by fires and floods. Will a similar history be repeated or will a better world be the outcome after this catastrophe? The end is equivocal.

<The Tokyo Ring—Past Performances>
Das Rheingold, performed in 2001
In his staging, Keith Warner replaces the traditional ending of Das Rheingold (The Rhinegold) in the “preliminary evening” with the scene of the large hall in the newly built Valhalla. As balloons in seven different colors fall from above onto the floor of the white hall (reminiscent of a mental asylum), a display of power of the gods, a party announcing the completion of the new castle is in progress, with gods from the world over invited. Like a young business manager who has constructed a new building for his company without using his own funds, Wotan, the ruler of the gods, looks quite satisfied and, obsessed with his “Grand Idea,” sings, “So grüss’ ich die Burg (Thus I salute the fortress).” Of course, the Grand Idea is none other than letting a hero, one of his descendants, regain the Ring without getting involved himself. Passing on the bill to the next generation not yet born—a theme that rings true if ever there were one. This egotistic character of Wotan and the majestic appearance of Valhalla are sharply underscored by the voice of the Rhinemaidens, who were made homeless when the gold was stolen, singing, “Falsch und feig ist, was dort oben sich freut! (False and faint-hearted are those who revel above).”

Die Walküre, performed in 2002
The long Act II is the best part of the performance of Die Walküre (The Valkyrie). Fricka, Wotan’s wife, reveals her husband’s fraudulent acts with an incisive tongue, and Brünnhilde, his beloved daughter, is shocked to see visualizations of what happened in the past. This is the moment when her respect for and confidence in her father are shaken to their foundations. Twin brother and sister, Siegmund and Sieglinde, are the first victims to fall to the Grand Idea. Fricka, goddess of marriage, does not forgive the twin siblings for engaging in a forbidden relationship (illicit love and incest), and Wotan has no choice but to abandon the two in order to save himself. This confrontation between husband and wife and between parent and child is in fact something found in today’s troubled families, rather than something in world of the gods. Sieglinde fruitlessly looks for an exit from the stage, which is sealed like a miniature garden, while Siegmund dies a pitiful death that is nothing less than the throwing away of his life. The dignity of love possessed by Siegmund, who chose his poor sister over the glory of Valhalla in the midst of this tragedy, is handed over to Brünnhilde.

Siegfried, performed in 2003
The second act of Siegfried is exceptionally long and usually tests the staying power of even the most enthusiastic Wagnerians, but in this performance it feels very short. The folk tales set in the German woods (Märchen) are transposed into a story of a motherless family in contemporary America, and the opera is staged so that Siegfried re-forges the mighty sword, a keepsake of his real father Siegmund, using the difference in temperature between the microwave oven and the freezer. Warner’s staging presents a series of novel and original ideas at a quick tempo, not unlike machinegun fire, but they never end as mere jokes, which is perhaps what makes Warner who he is. Siegfried’s stepfather Mime tells Siegfried that Sieglinde died giving birth to him, but contrary to Mime’s words, he gesticulates that he himself raped and strangled Sieglinde. While making the audience laugh with his comical lines and gestures, Mime, just for an instant, allows the audience a glimpse of the murder that led Siegfried to subconsciously hate Mime; in other words, the audience glimpses the unknown dark side of the story of the Ring.



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