Wagner – Vorspiel from Das Rheingold

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Even six years of living in this town still brings its fair share of “firsts” as last evening I attended my first opera, Wagner’s Das Rheingold, the first part in the massive four-part Ring Cycle that my little town is undertaking with both great ambition and reckless economic abandon.

While the music sits firmly in the mid- to late-19th century Romantic tradition (a musical adjective that all too often sends many of my friends running to the hills), the costumes of last night could only be described as nothing short of dreamlike Tim Burton-esque-with-a-hint-of-Star-Wars. In other words, as one of my frequently opera-going colleagues put it, “eurotrash”.

In all honesty, the opera was amazing, even if it bordered on sensory overload. Complex romantic chord progressions, layers of character and thematic leitmotifs, redonkulous costumes, and supertitles that were only visible on an adjacent wall of the auditorium made the 160 minute performance quite an endeavor to follow. But I guess that’s what opera is basically like.

My only complaint is that I discovered that in opera, since the actors and singers must take the entire stage, the orchestra is thusly relegated to a pit, which significantly limits the scope and power of their volume. The pre-recorded clips played at the conductor’s pre-performance talk were themselves louder than the musical strains coming from the opera itself, a reality which I found a bit disappointing.

Oh well. One down, three to go, and although I won’t get a chance to see any of the rest of this here in LA this year, it might just be worth it to check out the next part, The Fellowship of the Ring Die Walküre, when the San Francisco Opera takes this on for themselves next summer. Apparently, it will have a California Gold Rush theme. Interesting.