Berlin Philharmonic turns to second part of Wagner's 'Ring' cycle

AIX-EN-PROVENCE, France — "Die Walkuere" holds the raw material of Wagner caricature: horned helmets, spears, endless scenes and "Ride of the Valkyries." But Sir Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic swept past all that Monday with a cleanly staged, beautifully played performance at the Aix-en-Provence Festival.

The production, the second in a four-year presentation of Richard Wagner's "The Ring of the Nibelung" cycle, is a landmark for conductor Rattle and the orchestra, which has not done a "Ring" since the late 1960s under Herbert von Karajan.

The approach taken by Rattle and director Stephane Braunschweig was contemporary without frivolous excesses: relatively spare sets and uncomplicated staging and costumes made the music the center of attention. The audience certainly liked it, giving Rattle an ovation even between acts.

He and the orchestra launched the shimmering opening bars with an insistent rhythmic drive that they maintained through the next five hours. Despite the length — with intermissions of 25 and 45 minutes — the strong orchestral performance kept the dense, mythological story moving ahead.

In brief, "Die Walkuere" narrates the love of Siegmund and Sieglinde, and Siegmund's subsequent combat with Sieglinde's husband, Hunding. Bruennhilde, one of the Valkyries who gather slain heroes from the battlefield to bring to Valhalla, defies Wotan, her father and chief among the gods, by defending Siegmund.

Wotan, however, will not be defied; he shatters Siegmund's sword and lets him be killed by Hunding, then punishes Bruennhilde by turning her into a mortal and putting her in a deep sleep, surrounded by a wall of fire, with the story continued in the next two operas, "Siegfried" and "Goetterdaemmerung", to be performed by the Philharmonic here in 2008 and 2009. Last year, they did the opening "Das Rheingold."

Understated and intimate are not words often applied to Wagner operas, yet some of the most striking parts of Rattle's approach were exactly that. Eva-Marie Westbroek, who earned the loudest cheers from the audience as Sieglinde, sang with lovely restraint as she and Siegmund (Robert Gambill) began their love duet in the first act, her voice played off against hushed brass chords.

Likewise, Eva Johansson's Bruennhilde softly addressed the doomed Siegmund in Act Two, ("Siegmund! Sieh auf mich!"), and some of Bruennhilde's quieter exchanges with the angry Wotan, magnificently sung by Sir Willard White, had almost a chamber-music quality.