Seattle Opera offers magnificent 'Ring' revival

SEATTLE — Like a towering fir tree that survives after the primeval forest around it has vanished, the Seattle Opera's production of Wagner's "Ring" cycle now stands alone as the only traditional depiction of the epic music drama on an American stage.

And tall and proud it stands, indeed.

The current revival of the production by Stephen Wadsworth, inspired by the forests of the Pacific Northwest, is as magnificent to look at and imaginatively staged as at its premiere in 2001. The cast, seen in the first of three cycles that ended Friday night, includes some world-class performers, several returning from previous years, along with two new singers in key roles who succeed despite vocal limitations.

This "Ring's" reappearance comes just three months after the Metropolitan Opera retired its deliberately old-fashioned "Ring" to make way for a more avant garde production by Robert Lepage. Los Angeles, meanwhile, is assembling a highly abstract and symbolic "Ring" by German artist Achim Freyer; Washington and San Francisco are sharing an "American Ring" by Francesca Zambello, which includes scenes set in a Manhattan skyscraper and a trailer park.

That leaves Seattle as the U.S. destination for Wagner enthusiasts who want to see his four-part "Der Ring des Nibelungen" performed over the span of a week in a production that sticks closely to the composer's original vision. That's not to say radical reinterpretations can't be faithful to the spirit of the work. Or to suggest that the Seattle production is a slavish imitation of the first Bayreuth production mounted by Wagner himself in 1876.

Wadsworth and his design team (sets by Thomas Lynch, costumes by Martin Pakledinaz and lighting by Peter Kaczorowski), working closely with Speight Jenkins, the company's general director, have given us a "Green Ring" that emphasizes the destruction of the natural environment by the gods, dwarfs, giants and other creatures who battle for possession of a magical golden ring. At the cycle's end, after the heroine, Bruennhilde, sends the world up in flames, nature is reborn in a final tableau that shows the forest blooming into new life with saplings sprouting from a dead tree. That ending was tweaked after the 2001 premiere to make clearer that the gods themselves and their home, Valhalla, are destroyed as well.

Unchanged, but as spectacular as ever, is the very first scene of the opening opera, "Das Rheingold," set at the bottom of the Rhine River, with the three Rhinemaidens in harnesses suspended from the flies that allow them to simulate swimming while singing full-blast.