Wagner's "Die Walkure" a new production Americanized and updated by Francesca Zambello

Die Walkure/Nina Stemme as Brunnhilde/San Francisco Opera

The spunky Swede sings her own mythology as Wagnerian heroine Brunnhilde

Valkyries ride high in San Francisco’s Americanized and 20th century version of Wagner’s Die Walkure, with the sisterhood of warriors flying World War II planes instead of winged horses and spearheaded by Brunnhilde, sung with spirit and all-American independence by Swede Nina Stemme. Girls' night out continues as Ring Cycle director Francesca Zambello brings this new production from Washington DC. San Francisco will be the first to present the entire Ring Cycle including the finale Gotterdammerung next summer.

Speaking of girl power, the audience also gets a sneak peek at the soprano destined to sing the title role in Anna Nicole Smith at Covent Garden next February, the statuesque Eva-Marie Westbroek, pictured below. David Gockley scores with Eva-Marie's San Francisco debut.

Eva-Marie Westbroeke/Die Walkure/San Francisco Opera

For a slideshow of the new production click here:

Zambello's "Die Walkure" opens

Zambello's aeronautic setting makes a dynamic scene with great entrances by parachute, to the applause of the audience. SF opera had planned on using supernumerary women to fly but ended up using stage hands who put their lives in their own hands, a good sign. The anticipated Act II with the sisterhood and their rally cry captures the camaraderie and fist-in-the-air bravura of these spirited daughters of the god of Valhalla, complete with flying ace goggles and breeches and boots. I rate it five goosebumps.

Runnicles returns

Donald Runnicles returned as a conquering hero to conduct, after leaving San Francisco after his Verdi Requiem last year. San Francisco welcomed him home as he received an enthusiastic response from the packed house. Moreover I sat on the orchestra's left near the big strings, the musicians eminating Wagner's ominous and forboding dark notes and leitmotifs of doom and the wind under hooves, wings and Runnicles' baton.

Moving out of the pit to the stage, Michael Yeargan designed industrial looking, austere sets, from the heights of a Manhattan CEO's office to the depths of a sub-freeway junkyard with old tires and a car seat.

The Valkyrie lair, although austere, looks monochromatic gray and neutral suggesting vintage black and white war photos or films. Jan Hartley designed the projection including the aerial scenes of flight above the clouds. Zambello also makes good use of Gockley's new media center with projection of Siegmund's frenzied escape through the forest. It's all a blur and that's what the audience sees, from his point of view, as he comes upon a cabin for refuge, warmly lit from within. The Ash Tree growing inside the cabin remains as in the original German version; The sword in the tree remains hidden until Sieglinde tells of it.

Mark McCullough designed the lighting.

Meanwhile. Portions of the original libretto probably had to be stricken though to accommodate the update. Since the original Act II opens with the commaraderie but the banter is all horse talk, the exchanges either need to be updated to chatter about planes or deleted. The original libretto has lines about keeping one Valkyrie steed away from another; How one mare carries the foal of another Valkyrie’s stallion.

Horse sense?

Kind of funny considering interbreeding, incest and adultery are the issues of the day. However, interbreeding is not only commonplace but planned in the pedigreed animal world. Perhaps father Wotan’s acceptance of illegitimacy, twin incest and adultery is just a worldly horse sense. As with marriages in the small world of royal families, it’s a practical matter and arranged so royal privilege in the romance arena is expected?

In any event, regarding Valkyrie Brunnhilde and her noble steed Grane. Usually horse and rider move as one and share a bond of companionship. The relationship of a pilot to his plane may have the same type of movement as one unit but the flesh and blood companionship would be missing.

The Cinderella theme

This matters because in Siegfried, our heroine Brunnhilde awakens from her father’s spell of endless slumber like Cinderella, and gives her valiant war horse Grane to her rescuer and hero and lover, Siegfried. It’s a selfless act of love and trust as well as gratitude. So without the horsewoman sharing her horse, there will probably be some change in that chemistry even if the third installment, Siegfried, has moved on in time beyond the pilots. The third installment does move on in time to what I have been informed is a non tie-dyed, non-cheesy 1970s setting.

On the wings of love

It also matters because in Die Walkure, Brunnhilde has fled on Grane. She escapes from her father’s wrath and from Sieglinde’s pursuers, the fellow hunters of Sieglinde’s murderous husband Hunding. Brunnhilde rescues her sister the victim Sieglinde by flying away on Grane and the mighty equine arrives back at the sisterhood spent. It shows the valiant effort at rescue by his rider, Brunnhilde. However a plane doesn’t get out of breath or sweat or heave or collapse, although it can take a few bullets and run low on fuel. That’s a more military sacrifice though and the pilot probably doesn’t own the plane. A pilot may be brave but the plane is only a tool not an extension of the flier.

The plane probably would make a difference in Gotterdammerung when Brunnhilde flies her horse into the burning flames of Valhalla as she razes the kingdom. The finale, the fourth installment, Gotterdammerung or the Twilight of the Gods, will be near present day.

What became of the immortal steed Grane?

If it is an act of immortality which would extend to her horse Grane, does it extend to a nuts and bolts plane? Again, there’s a difference between sacrificing a plane and a living breathing companion that can suffer pain and loss and fear. Moreover horses are infamously afraid of fire and usually have to be blindfolded to be led away from a burning barn. That Grane flies valiantly into the flames of Valhalla has dramatic impact and indeed is the climax of the entire epic.

United Nations

Setting the quintessential German opera during World War II also has interesting implications. Hitler made his SS men attend the Ring Cycle. Since Americans were fighting the Germans in World War II, Americanization of the Ring to this degree presents diplomatic or United Nations results. Indeed the United Nations were formed in the opera house back when Kennedy was a news reporter and covered the formation.

Speaking of diplomacy, Nina Stemme makes a spirited Brunnhilde, apple of her father’s eye. Nina also seems appropriate as her Swedish heritage means she is telling the story of her own, the Ring arising from Scandinavian mythology. It seems there really was a warrior killed and whose wife avenged him, the Volsung saga.

Mark Delavan/Die Walkure/San Francisco Opera As for the cast, Zambello picked winners all the way around. Mark Delavan makes a wry, playful and traditionally paternal if henpecked Wotan. When he took his bow after the matinee Sunday he pretended to stomp out a rogue burning ember on the stage in a spontaneous burst of good humor.

Janina Baechle plays wife Fricka, here a large and well appointed dowager who wields heft in the Wotan household and does throw her weight around as the goddess of marriage. Scary fun, probably a good foil against Mark Delavan's sense of dark humor. He's been Sweeney Todd.

Eva-Marie Westbroek seemed genuinely humbled by the applause for her sensuous and glamourous portrayal of a vulnerable captive wife. Zambello costumed Westbroek in a slinky silk sea-green dress that showed curves and showed off the strawberry blond curls. Eva-Marie looked like a pin up girl or a Hollywood glamour queen and definitely out of place in a forest cabin with a deer head mounted on the wall. She was a conquest like the deer, sold out by her father Wotan just the way Wotan sold out sister-in-law Freya to the giant laborers. Similarly they would easily overpower and dominate and hold captive. Eva-Marie I imagine will portray Anna Nicole Smith with a sense of humanity and vulnerability at Covent Garden in February.

Catherine Zuber designed the costumes, leaving Wotan his eye patch and spear.

Christopher Ventris/Die Walkure/San Francisco Opera/Photo: Tanja Niemann

About kissing cousins

Elvis did it too.

Christopher Ventris plays Siegmund the tall and good-looking twin and lover of sister Sieglinde. Good casting here because one can sense the attraction, it’s believable, and they do look similar enough and match each other physically, in height. They compliment each other in temperaments portrayed with humility, loneliness and long- suffering. One feels for them as doomed and desperate victims and pawns, they are not depraved or scandalous beasts.

Consequently Sieglinde’s skinhead husband Hunding performed by Raymond Aceto seemed not only virile but sadistic as he menaced a shackled Siegmund. Then again if a redneck had come home to find his glamorous wife alone with a handsome stranger, would he not have dispatched the stranger and the wife on the spot instead of toying with his prey? So Hunding has a gentlemanly side or is it understood that women are just chattel and that’s the issue between men, property and not a crime of passion?

Lawrence Peck's swordplay and choreography

I do have to note the class-ism apparent in this scene, the redneck being a man-handling brute. However, even god of Valhalla Wotan will kill Hunding by breaking the son-in-law’s neck with his bare hands and without warning. Lawrence Peck choreographs swordplay and other weaponry. It’s a brutal world, mano a mano, with immasculation of men and liberation of women intertwined. Sisterhood offers sanctuary and loyalty when demands for obedience become counterproductive.

HiToJO!

Adlers sing high, fly high as Valkyrie sisterhood

On that note, Valkyries not only fly high, they sing high. Wagner calls for most of the Valkyries to sing alto. San Francisco cast Adler sopranos past and present, a joy to behold as they evolve from Merolini and come into their own. San Francisco Opera has no obligation to cast them but they need not audition.

Ortlinde: Molly Fillmore
Schwertleite: Suzanne Hendrix*
Waltraute: Daveda Karanas
Gerhilde: Wendy Bryn Harmer*
Helmwige: Tamara Wapinsky
Siegrune: Maya Lahyani
Grimgerde: Pamela Dillard
Rossweise: Priti Gandhi*

In closing, even if there is no live horse on stage, it was a surprise and a treat to see two live dogs pursue our fugitives under a freeway. I've seen live dogs on stage before such as leashed pedigree Borzois for Eugene Onegin, but these two mixes ran free all the way across on their own. I hope they got a nice treat as they remain uncredited.

Die Walkure runs through June 30 and has four more performances.

Performances run four hours thirty minutes with two intermissions, one of thirty minutes and one of twenty five minutes. .

Tickets cost $15.00 to $360 or ten dollars for standing room. .

For more info: www.SFOpera.com

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