L.A. Ring Festival Launch 14 April 2010 at LACMA

The Festival was launched with a party at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on the evening of 14 April 2010.

Here are some video clips of that launch:

- daKAH Hip Hop Orchestra played Wagner as the Rhine Maidens found a table at the party, 

- a Wagner Horn call announced the beginning of the Festival,

- conductor James Conlon spoke at the launch,

- the Verdi Chorus added their voices to the party,

- leader of the Festival, Barry Sanders spoke,

- the Rhine Maidens sang the siren song,

- the food scene was lively and appealing,

The several hundred party-goers brought together art groups, civic leaders, and educators in the Los Angeles are.  An auspicious beginning of the coming Festival through June 2010.

Filed under: Festival 2010, Los Angeles culture, LA Ring Festival 2010, Los Angeles Ring Festival, Ring of the Nibelung

Press Conference January 5, 2010

January is Los Angeles Arts Month, and the 2010 kick-off celebration was a press conference at the REDCAT auditorium in Disney Hall. Much of the press conference touched on the LA Ring Cycle, and over 100 cultural Ring partners were represented. My Flip camera caught all 45 minutes of the gathering and some of the clips are now on YouTube:

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa spoke about the relationship of the arts community and the City of Los Angeles:

Barry Sanders, leader of the Ring Festival and one of the posters on this blog, spoke about the Festival:

And here’s the official logo of the Festival:

Logo for the LA Ring Festival

Filed under: Festival 2010, Los Angeles culture, Related culture, Ring of the Nibelung

Two Seminars on the “Two Rings”

Two seminars are now open for enrollment:

- a 2-day seminar on June 11 & 12, 2010 open to the general public via ticket sales
- a 4-month graduate seminar from January to April in the 2010 Masters in Humanities program at Mount St. Mary’s College

Both seminars take place on the Doheny campus (downtown Los Angeles). Both seminars are called “Two Rings: Wagner & Tolkien.” The June 2010 seminar is a compressed version of the 4-month graduate seminar.

Here is the downloadable syllabus for the 4-month graduate seminar. Information on admission to the graduate program is here. This graduate seminar meets all-day on six Saturdays from January to May and focuses on the myth and imagery of the Ring in the epics of Tolkien and Wagner, in Norse sagas and 20th-century fantasy.

The 2-day seminar is on June 11 & 12, 2010 (9 am – 4 pm) and welcomes all opera and fantasy fans who wish to discuss the Two Rings. The college campus will host the lectures and discussions in the historic gardens of the Doheny campus in downtown LA. Sign-up for the June 2010 seminar does NOT require admission to the Masters Program but is open to members of the general public who have purchased tickets. Information and tickets (Paypal) for the 2-day workshop / seminar is at: http://www.msmc.la.edu/ringseminars

For more information on either or both seminars, email Dr. Mike Heim: mheim@msmc.la.edu or mike*at*mheim.com

Filed under: Festival 2010, ideas for celebrating the Festival, Lord of the Rings, Los Angeles culture, Related culture, Ring of the Nibelung

“Star Wars” Ring?

Here’s why the LA Opera Ring is being called the “Star Wars Ring.”

These are the Valkyries with their Light Sabers. This still shot conveys the idea, but to get a fuller visual impression, you can view the video clip on YouTube.  Only in the theater, however, with live action and motion do you get the full impact of this performance.  Think of sparklers in the dark. 

Note the “dead bodies” like mummies at the feet of the Valkyries. These are the fallen warriors who are chosen on the battlefield to become heroes sung and celebrated in the halls of Valhalla. (Implied comment on contemporary heroism?) The “bicycles” are the horses ridden by the Valkyries. These bikes later become the torches spinning around Brunnhilde when Wotan condemns her to the protection of the Magic Fire Circle. Red electric lights are mounted on top of each bike as the bikes turn each on their own axis.

And there in the center is Wotan in one of his incarnations, pulling the Valkyries on ribbon strings. Sometimes Wotan will appear on the stage in several simultaneous incarnations. This particular incarnation has Wotan wearing a floppy-brim hat, the Wanderer’s Hat that usually adorns him at the beginning of the opera Siegfried during the Riddle Contest with Mime. Here the lack of a head enhances the mysterious quality of Wotan the Wanderer as his power and purpose diminish and he gradually gives way to inevitable failure and the growing Twilight of the Gods.

Filed under: Festival 2010, Reactions & Reviews, Related culture, Ring of the Nibelung

Freyer’s Valkyrie Is Stunning!

Freyer’s Valkyrie last night was a stunner! It opened, for me, the greatness and appropriateness of this particular staging of the Ring Cycle. The performance began to gel at the end of the opening scene as Siegmund and Sieglinde move visibly closer to one other across the vast scenic ring at center stage. Previously, the performance continued with the oratorio-like withholding of physical gestures where the human body plays a minimal role in the midst of large-scale puppets, light-sabers, and magic-surreal props. 

As the bodies of Siegmund and Sieglinde touched, the connection of evocatively deep emotive music came together and the magic began. The cold 21st-century distances between on-stage characters also melted at other moments, reminding us of the power of Wagner’s long, belabored, sometimes boring build-ups to a single gesture or action that then push the release button to bring the audience to tears. This magical tension-release works smoothly and hypnotically in Freyer’s glittering spectacle. 

Other similar moments include the ride of the Valkyries, Wotan’s farewell to Brunnhilde, and the final Magic Fire Circle. Even those who first booed Freyer’s daring Rheingold had to rise to their feet in applause after the Magic Fire Circle shone in radiant splendor at end of the last act. 

Skeptics of the LA Cycle will be fewer now that Freyer’s Valkyrie has revealed more of the full conception. Freyer has created a truly 21st-century design, building on the post-World-War-II Bayreuth productions by Wieland Wagner and – as has been pointed out by others – drawing also on Star Wars, Star Trek, and 20th-century sci-fi classics. It’s quite a wonderful cultural surprise to witness an anti-Romantic 20th-century staging that combines a 21st-century search for useable classical gestures. Add to that the sweet, warm, precise conducting of James Conlon and the amazing voice of Placido Domingo: Wow! It’s thrilling to behold.

Filed under: Los Angeles culture, Reactions & Reviews, Ring of the Nibelung

Talk about the Die Walkure Reviews

The reviews are starting to come in for Die Walkure  at the LA Opera.   Seems Angelinos are becoming more comfortable with the staging and enjoying the full opera  experience more.    

 As Mark Swed LA Times Music Critic says the cries of bravo downed out the few naysayers.  “ This Freyer production is not to everyone’s taste; no product of any merit, confrontational or conventional, is or should be.  “ 

So true!  However, the entertainment capital of the world deserved and expected a production that warrants conversation.  I am just glad the chatter is moving away from solely being about the staging and back the production as a whole.    

Filed under: Reactions & Reviews

Freyer Painting at the Broad Museum (LACMA)

A watercolor by Achim Freyer, visual designer of the LA Ring cycle, hangs in the current exhibit “The Art of Two Germanys: Art in Berlin during the Cold War.”  The exhibit celebrates Berlin’s enormous pent-up, always-on-the-edge-of-violence mood during the Cold War period. Giant wall photos of anti-nuclear street protests at New York City’s Grand Central Station stand opposite gild-framed portraits of US President Ronald Reagan whose stone-wall demeanor is cordoned off with red ropes at the end of a long red Hollywood-style red carpet.

Freyer’s  contribution to the museum exhibit is a large watercolor with several strips of solid sea blue (yes, solid watercolors!).  The effect is similar to a small Rothko, an abstract expressionistic beauty based on subtle shadings of banded color, in this case the single color of light ocean blue. The title is “Seascape.”

The exhibit’s several rooms in the Broad building at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) features shocking moments too, easy reminders of Germany’s 20th-century tragedies. If you lived in Berlin during the Seventies, as this writer has, you will find much to ponder in the paintings that retrieve the memories of Rudi Dutschke, the Red Army Faction, the life of Turkish “guest workers,” etcetera. 

Included in the exhibit is a wall-size Wagner-inspired painting by the noted Anselm Kiefer. Kiefer’s mead-hall vision in “Germany’s spiritual heroes” – has a lower border that is darkened by a flame that threatens to ignite the whole wooden structure. The name “Wagner” leads the list of names that include Goethe, Mechtild of Magdeburg, et al.  Another Wagner-related painting “Brünnhilde Sleeps” by Anselm Kiefer is online at:  http://tinyurl.com/Br-nnhilde-Sleeps

More about the exhibit at: www.tinyurl.com/freyer

Filed under: Los Angeles culture, Reactions & Reviews, Related culture

Die Walküre is coming

Very excited for the second opera in the cycle.

I am hoping that this performance will generate as much hallway and dinner party conversation as Das Rheingold. We need the city abuzz about the work of Wagner and LA’s interpretation of this classic.

Filed under: Uncategorized

Each Performance is New!

Since posting about “visual humor,” another visit to Achim Freyer’s Rheingold showed how alive and changing the theater performance can be when compared to  recordings or DVDs.

The visual joke mentioned last week no longer appears with the same intensity this week. The circular door in the floor did not open in the new performance. The ropes seemed to pull, but the door did not lift to show the interior of the Nibelung Cave. The gestural drama that took place in the Cave with the dwarves and Mime  did not happen inside the dark interior but took place directly on the stage. Was that a permanent change of performance strategy? Or was it the result of some mechanical glitch that prevented the door from opening? 

The second time around showed the freshness and cogency of the staging. Having been dazzled and puzzled on first visit, the second visit allows the audience to better grasp the symbolic connection of costume and gesture to Wagnerian meaning.  The staging introduces a visual reading of the Wagnerian text, adding another layer. 

This new layer provokes thought without distracting from Wagnerian meaning. It refreshes the opera’s significance by creating non-realistic paintings of the themes. The result is something like a series tableaux that illuminate the text. A novel and profound experience!

Filed under: Uncategorized

Visual Jokes in Freyer’s Production of Das Rheingold

The Achim Freyer production has some hilarious moments (yes, sardonic humor in a Ring production!).

My favorite visual joke is in the Subterranean Cavern where Alberich and Mime (Scene 3) are venting anger on one another, Alberich is abusing Mime, pulling him by the ear, and Mime in turn castigates his slave workers in the mines with cruel whip lashes.   Mime turns toward his gang of brow-beaten miners and raises his hands several times,  his hands gesturing up and down exactly like a conductor with a large orchestra. The mine dwarves are frantically making agitated gestures as if they were hacking away at bizarre musical instruments. All this pantomine is awkwardly synchronized with the actual music (the musicians in this production are completely hidden by a black cover over the orchestra pit). It’s as if the orchestra with conductor suddenly appear on-stage and make themselves present in the myth. 

James Conlon probably smiles every time this scene comes around. It’s very funny once you notice it!

Filed under: Reactions & Reviews, Ring of the Nibelung, Ring of the Nibelung, visual jokes