'Here, the drama was strong, and never before had I realized how beautiful so much of the music is [...]
Not that I was surprised to find quality from Pacific Opera, which, despite being a small company, can compare with the best in the country. There is no better evidence than
in the current production - only the second Rheingold ever given in Canada! [...]'
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Pacific Opera Victoria has golden touch with Wagner
Das Rheingold offers much: compelling stagecraft, sharp musicality from a smaller-than-usual (by Wagnerian standards) orchestra and some memorable singing and acting.
[...] The most striking scenes are in the underworld of Nibelheim. Dramatic highlights included Thomas, as Alberich, gloating over his magic ring while stroking his golden treasure, followed by his oddly human anguish (“Broken! Shattered!”) when he loses all.
[...] In this production, the gold is forged into the shape of military missiles. Such overt symbolism might sound clunky, yet it works quite well. For one thing, these missiles look fantastic on stage. And they serve to link the greedy ambitions of Alberich and Wotan with the real-life aims of deluded despots, both past and present.
Adrian Chamberlain in Times Colonist,
October 18, 2014
Gordon Gietz as Loge
Todd Thomas as Alberich
Photo: David Cooper
A magnificent Rheingold from
Pacific Opera Victoria
[...] 'How brave, a small company tackling Das Rheingold! There are serious challenges, requiring a great deal of inventiveness. You need to come up with a mise-en-scène of cosmic scope to carry a story that is pure myth, with not a human being in it, but only gods and goddesses, giants, dwarves, and water nymphs, set in no real place or time and taking us from an underwater realm to the heavens to subterranean depths. [...] So, what of the Pacific Opera production of Das Rheingold? No compromises on any side: it was magnificent.'
'Wim Trompert’s direction was fluid and imaginative, avoiding for the most part that static freezing of the stage that can occur during one of Wagner’s longeurs.
[...] "the whole thing was hugely satisfying — a splendid operatic experience. I feel only gratitude to a company that can give its audience such a Rheingold. While this effort was regrettably a stand-alone production, wouldn’t it be nice to think Pacific Opera might at some future date give us the whole Ring cycle with the quality they displayed today?'
Harvey De Roo
in 'The opera experience'
on Vancouver Classical Music.
Read the review:
Susan Platts as Erda
Photo: David Cooper
Joni Henson as Fricka
Uwe Dambruch as Fasolt
Jeremy Galyon as Fafner
photo: David Cooper
Richard Wagner: 'Das Rheingold'
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