NEW YORK — The Metropolitan Opera’s high-tech, low-energy production of Wagner’s four-opera “Ring,” which returns for three cycles this spring, has been notable mostly for its snafus. At its first performance — “Das Rheingold,” back in 2010 — the set’s massive array of seesaws malfunctioned near the end, spoiling the gods’ climactic ascent across a rainbow bridge.
Another time, the Microsoft Windows logo flashed across the stage instead of the sophisticated projections that distinguish the cycle’s many locales. One performance of “Die Walküre” that was being broadcast live to cinemas worldwide was delayed nearly an hour because the “Machine,” as it became known, wouldn’t cooperate. And that’s not counting the loud creaks and whirs that accompanied its every move.
But while the Met claims that the costly Machine — conceived by the production’s director, Robert Lepage — has been tamed, the technical troubles always struck me as distractions from the real problem. All of Lepage’s spending and innovation resulted in a cycle that was dull, and out of touch with Wagner’s intricately drawn characters and plot.
The singers seemed genuinely undirected, lost in front of the set’s imposing mass; the production team was scrambling to make the effects work, but it appeared that relatively little attention had been given to the acting. There were no discernible relationships charted onstage, no drama, no attempt to transmit — let alone interpret for our time — complex themes of power, sacrifice and societal collapse.
Indeed, though the set design meant that some singers spent long stretches in a kind of trough, the effects, while wonky, may have been the best part. At the beginning of “Das Rheingold,” bathed in blue light, the 20 enormous planks levitated in silence. Wagner’s long, low E flat began. Then, like the music, the machine began undulating — first slowly, then faster. It truly was the river Rhine.
The opening storm of “Die Walküre” similarly came to life: We were in a sky full of dark, rushing clouds; then in the middle of a forest during a snowstorm; then inside a hut glowing with firelight. It was sweeping and evocative.
A production crowded with visual stimulation, in which the singers seemed to be left to their own devices? This “Ring” reminded me, more than it probably intended to, of the Met’s hyper-realistic Franco Zeffirelli spectacles of the 1980s. Like Lepage, Zeffirelli creates grand spaces in which stick figures are moved around. The shows ignite when you have compelling performers and sink when you don’t.
This revival — which Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manger, is mounting after many thought the Machine, last seen in 2013, would be mothballed for good — does indeed have some compelling casting. Christine Goerke, as Brünnhilde, promises more vocal confidence than Deborah Voigt had when the production was new; Greer Grimsley and Michael Volle will each make a capable, articulate Wotan; Philippe Jordan returns to the Met for the first time since 2007 to conduct.
Things may well go more smoothly this time around. But will this yet be a Wagner we can believe in?
— ZACHARY WOOLFE
‘Prisoner of the State’
“How he mocked me,” a villainous official laments, explaining why he locked away the political prisoner he now wants killed. That chilling line rings out in “Prisoner of the State,” the new David Lang opera that re-imagines Beethoven’s only opera, “Fidelio”; the New York Philharmonic will give its premiere on June 6. Beethoven’s theme feels as resonant as ever in a country grappling with questions about mass incarceration; immigrants separated from their children at the border; whether the president is answerable to the law; and how inmates were quietly kept without heat or light for days in a federal jail in the middle of New York City.
The opera, directed by Elkhanah Pulitzer, will serve as the finale of Jaap van Zweden’s first season as the Philharmonic’s music director, and he will conduct a cast that includes the moving bass-baritone Eric Owens.
— MICHAEL COOPER
Bang on a Can
Among its other skills, the Bang on a Can organization is smart about fundraising. By soliciting fans to help them commission new works, the collective ensures a reliably expanding repertory for its in-house chamber ensemble, the Bang on a Can All-Stars.
The latest batch of these “People’s Commissioning Fund” pieces comes to the Ecstatic Music Festival at Merkin Concert Hall on March 6. Fresh music by Nicole Lizée and Pulitzer Prize-winner Henry Threadgill will share a bill with vintage works by Annie Gosfield and Glenn Branca, who died last year. The evening’s theme is music for dancing, which Threadgill has previously explored with his Society Situation Dance Band. If you can’t make it to the concert, you can tune in for a live webcast, on newsounds.org.
— SETH COLTER WALLS
MITSUKO UCHIDA
It’s easy to forget that the piano is a percussion instrument when it’s played by Mitsuko Uchida. She animates it with both symphonic might and enchanting lyricism — a perfect fit for the vast emotional range and singing melodies of Schubert. Uchida recorded one of the finest cycles of Schubert’s sonatas, and she has been revisiting portions, the late works, in a survey at Carnegie Hall. That comes to an end this spring, with two recitals on April 30 and May 4.
Endings are very much part of both programs. They are almost stages of grief: The Sonata No. 20 in A (D. 959) contains an abruptly tumultuous passage, like a petulant tantrum, then the heart-rending Sonata No. 21 in B flat (D. 960) offers bittersweet acceptance.
— JOSHUA BARONE
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.