In the “Ring” cycle at Theater Basel, it dawns on the gods. Benedikt von Peter’s over-ambitious Wagner direction is at its strongest where it creates clear scenes and dispenses with any additions.
Wotan is now building less large, but his Valhalla is burning: At the Basel Theater, the battle for world domination in Wagner’s “Ring” comes to an end with Benedikt von Peter’s production of “Twilight of the Gods”.
Ingo Höhn
“Back from the ring!” Wotan shouts at the end, after arguing with Alberich over the circlet that promises world domination. Hagen actually sings these four notes – Wotan and Alberich no longer appear at the end of Wagner’s “Twilight of the Gods”. But these details are not so important for the director Benedikt von Peter. What doesn’t fit is made to fit, even if the logical connection sometimes falls by the wayside. Here at the Theater Basel, the two old white men with shaggy hair are sitting at the long table and looking blankly into the audience. Wotan and Alberich do not look happy at the end of this “Twilight of the Gods”, but rather exhausted and depressed.
The ring has also become so unimportant that Wotan slips it off his finger. His daughter Brünnhilde, whom he has rejected, does not ride her horse Grane into the self-ignited fire as in Wagner’s original – she has no desire to sacrifice herself. She and her father set fire to the model house in the Walhall castle of the gods. And then walks into the auditorium with the other protagonists and the choir to the transfiguring final sounds, which are appropriately celebrated by the Basel Symphony Orchestra under Jonathan Nott.
A new beginning is possible, says this final image. At the end, the finale of the Basel “Ring des Nibelungen” – the last one at the house was around forty years ago – was celebrated with ovations by the audience in the unsold theater. And the director Benedikt von Peter smiles relaxed into the audience.
“Wake up, Brünnhilde”
Like the composer who initially wrote the libretto for “Twilight of the Gods” under the name “Siegfried’s Death,” the director thinks of the four-part “Ring” from the end. Brünnhilde’s intended emancipation from her patriarchal father of the gods, Wotan, makes her the central figure in his directing concept (co-director: Caterina Cianfarini). Instead of sleeping in the circle of fire and waiting for her savior Siegfried, Brünnhilde haunts the dark stage at the beginning of the Basel “Twilight of the Gods” with a furrowed brow. A voice from off-screen calls out: “Wake up, Brünnhilde.”
Brünnhilde looks at her family history from the outside, but at the same time she is part of it. This repeatedly causes logical breaks, for example when, as a mute character in the first act, she painfully observes Siegfried’s infidelity in his courtship of Gutrune, but later still rejoices as soon as she hears Siegfried’s horn sound. The recorded texts don’t help either.
Brünnhilde (Trine Möller) no longer feels like sacrificing herself for the salvation of the world. The orchestra in Basel sits under the grille behind her.
Ingo Höhn
Rather, they are disturbing because they break the musical tension and use sentences like “Where are you, Siegfried?” and “Where did all this begin?” seem all too kitchen-psychological. Trine Möller still knows how to give the character urgency. In depth, her slender, yet stable soprano still lacks volume, but her role model shows many nuances between lyrical and dramatic, between introverted and extroverted. A defensive woman with a rich inner life.
On Natascha von Steiger’s stage there is an open single-family house and five bare trees, most of which fall victim to the chainsaw. Immediately after the prelude, in which the three Norns looked into the future in tattered, glittering dresses, the parade van drives up, just as Siegfried (with a bright, shining, somewhat monochromatic tenor, which only loses its radiance at the end: Rolf Romei) sees Brünnhilde released from sleep on her mattress and then poured herself a coffee. The Gibichungen Hall is being set up; things are very human there. Gunter swings the cleaning feather, Hagen (with a powerful but unbalanced bass: Patrick Zielke) imitates Siegfried’s horn call on the vacuum cleaner pipe. The dark men are a party community, their guns shoot streamers.
As in the previous “Ring” parts, Wotan occasionally looks by with a grin. The characteristic giant puppets as doubles of the protagonists also return; they are also available in a manageable size, but they are redundant either way and distract from the musical events, which, thanks to Wagner’s leitmotifs, constantly create references to the prehistory. The child revenants of Siegfried and Brünnhilde also appear dispensable.
Waltraute (Jasmin Etezadzadeh, at the table) tries in vain to change Brünnhilde’s mind. She brought her Valkyrie sisters with her in Basel as reinforcements.
Ingo Höhn
However, when Siegfried rides to the Rhine on a real horse, accompanied by the dragon, toad (Alberich) and wolves (the Wälsungen couple Siegmund and Sieglinde), it unfolds great theatrical power. The scenes that are most successful are those that do without refractions, such as Waltraute’s visit (with a powerful, dark, expansive mezzo: Jasmin Etezadzadeh) to Brünnhilde. The other Valkyries are there as silent figures and increase the intensity. The enormous effect in such moments comes not least from the spatial proximity of the singers to the audience.
Orchestra from the pit
This presence is made possible by placing the orchestra in an extended, covered space under the stage, meaning the playing area extends to the first row of the audience. The sound from the depths enters the theater space through a grille in the stage floor. This is vaguely reminiscent of the covered pit in the Bayreuth Festival Hall, because in this way the music, like there, comes directly from the stage. The soloists move in the middle of, or more precisely: on top of, the orchestra. This is fascinating, especially since the balance is singer-friendly. The downside of the coin is that the orchestral sound loses its plasticity and tonal colors due to the positioning despite slight amplification – a compromise that was consciously accepted.
Unfortunately, a lot goes wrong in the aforementioned orchestra pit on the opening night. The very first use of the brass is out of sync, it rattles. The coordination with the choir is also shaky, and the horn section is not having its best day. Hits like “Siegfried’s Funeral March” lack rhythmic precision. But the woodwinds do their magic and the cellos sing. Jonathan Nott knows how to develop large arcs and make the melodic lines flow. However, the eloquent drama and eloquence of Wagner’s musical drama occur too rarely. All the additional texts, silent characters and puppets don’t help either. Two performances of the complete Basel “Ring” cycle are planned for May and June 2025.
