Note: This is a review of the performance on Sunday 4th May 2025, drafted soon afterwards but delayed in posting.
After the opening instalment of the new Barrie Kosky Covent Garden Ring last season my views were mixed. This is a much stronger addition which, if only the director could be persuaded to some judicious re-staging and trimming for the full cycle could be really outstanding.
The environment retains the rather spare look of the Rheingold but we do, thank goodness, get an impressive amount of real fire for the closing moments. That third act, once we're down to just the principals and Valkyries is the strongest piece of directing I've seen from Kosky - one which focuses in on the characters and their emotions. He thus ensures that the sister/father-daughter relationships really hit home. In particular, as the Wotan-Brunnhilde scene unfolds Kosky gets that electricity from touch or the lack of it which I've argued for years is one of the most powerful tools directors have.
Kosky also brings this careful direction to bear at points in the first two acts, but on both those occasions fussy and sometimes confusing elements interfere. The Siegmund-Brunnhilde scene suffers worst - this should be directed as a really tightly focused encounter between them. Here the tree trunk from Rheingold reappears and we're back to performers popping up from its holes or having to navigate their way over or around it. As a result the scene fails both dramatically and musically to build the kind of tension it can. In Act One Kosky seems a bit unclear as to when he wants audience or Siegmund to notice the sword. The sword is well concealed until Siegmund's spring monologue at which point lighting and movement seemed to me to suggest he might have seen it (& I certainly spotted it at that point) - but going back afterwards the text suggests to me that really Siegmund shouldn't see it until Sieglinde points it out. Hunding's house is an unpersuasive construction signified by a single flat with two doors and if you stop and think about the position of those two doors and what is supposed to lie behind them, plus the location of the table/chairs it makes increasingly less sense. The handling of that table/chairs is mistaken - if you're going to have a full scale meal then put them on stage from the beginning - it makes no sense given the apparent size of the Hundings' living area that they're kept stacked off stage. Kosky then gives himself further problems by resorting to the cliche of having Hunding kick over the furniture to ensure we know he's angry, and Sieglinde then clearing the mess up when it seems pretty clear that Hunding wouldn't willingly leave her alone with Siegmund and I'm fairly sure the music doesn't require him to do so. Lastly, Hunding's Act One costume is bizarre, particularly giving him a gun - I puzzled over how that was going to work in the fight but needless to say Kosky reverts to giving Hunding an axe to match Notung. The last is the right decision but then why give Hunding a gun to begin with, and why on earth would he abandon it for an axe when the gun would clearly secure victory far more easily.
Kosky's most significant misstep is the determination to have the naked Erda wandering around in nearly every scene, sometimes along with other characters revolving on one of two tiny revolves (it's a case in miniature of NT Olivier revolvitis). The Erda device should be completely cut - it adds nothing and is often unhelpfully distracting. We can work out that the world is at stake without it (& indeed I do wonder if you don't know the work and you haven't seen the Rheingold quite what you would make of it). There's also a textual problem created by having her hear most of the Wotan-Brunnhilde Act Three confrontation. In the Wanderer/Erda scene in Siegfried she tells him to ask Brunnhilde's advice and seems surprised to discover what Wotan has done in this opera - it'll be interesting to see if Kosky tries to deal with this in how he stages that scene or just ignores it.
Musically this is a very strong evening. I felt Christopher Maltman (Wotan) had really come on from Rheingold and was a consistently commanding presence physically and vocally. In particular he paced Act Three really well - finding the necessary punch in his opening anger while still retaining sufficient weight and warmth for the conclusion - his "Leb wohl" was deeply moving. There is a lot to like in Elisabet Strid's Brunnhilde - she's a compelling stage presence, like Maltman carrying easily to the Amphi - and she sings impressively in Act Two. I thought she tired a little in the latter stages of Act Three but that's a small point. The human trio give a fine account vocally of Act One with Natalya Romaniw's Sieglinde especially standing out for me. Soloman Howard's Hunding also deserves particular credit for his fearless handling of his death. The Valkyries are a superb ensemble - their massed outbursts thrilling. In the pit the Orchestra played magnificently and I was far more persuaded by Pappano's reading than in Rheingold - just occasionally in the latter stages of Act One and the Brunnhilde-Siegmund scene I thought he let the tension drop but that may have been an effect of staging issues. Act Three was a seamless, totally compelling whole.
Altogether, for all my quibbles, this is a very strong evening of opera and bears encouraging signs for the rest of the cycle.
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