Uninspired Kitsch: Götterdämmerung in Stuttgart

Götterdämmerung, by Richard Wagner, recorded live on 3 October 2002 and 12 January 2003
Staatsoper Stuttgart
Saatsorchester Stuttgart, cond. Lothar Zagrosek
Directed for the stage by Peter Konwitschny
Brünnhilde: Eva-Maria Westbroek; Siegfried: Albert Bonnema; Gunther: Hernan Iturralde; Gutrune: Tichina Vaughn; Hagen: Roland Bracht; Alberich: Franz-Josef Kapellmann; First Norn: Janet Colins; Second Norn: Lani Poulson; Third Norn: Sue Patchell
Audio: DD5.1, DTS 5.1, PCM Stereo
Video: 16:9 anamorphic
Length: 269 mins.
Studio: EuroArts TDK SWR
Rating: *1/2

Watch this Stuttgart performance of Götterdämmerung with your eyes closed. And when Albert Bonnema sings Siegfried, wear ear plugs. You might enjoy it better. His whiny and adenoidal singing (if one can call it that) grates on the ears.

     Act 1 is nauseatingly kitschy. Bonnema, clad in furs, romps around the stage holding his hobby horse (representing Grane). Later, when he puts on Brünnhilde’s armor before leaving the rock, he cuts a ridiculously bosomy figure. And after imbibing the love potion handed out by the Gibichungs, he promptly demonstrates his ardor by mounting Gutrune, who shoves him aside.

     The Norns are three uninspiring bag ladies. Westbroek does a credible job as Brünnhilde (with an idyllic backdrop straight out of Nazi-era movies), but she is overripe for this role and grimaces excessively. Gunther looks perpetually perplexed, Hagen is nothing more than a dull bureaucrat, and Alberich is a ghost with abnormally long fingers who expires in Hagen’s lap. There is a lot of drinking going on, and the Tarnhelm looks like a button.

      Zathrosek’s luscious, artful conducting is completely divorced from the onstage shenanigans, as though we were watching or listening to different performances. The sound and picture quality are excellent. One objectionable aspect of DVDs produced in Germany is that the men’s names, no matter how insignificant, are always listed before the women’s, however primary. And this DVD is no exception.

– Dalia Geffen