Met's "Die Walküre' in HD-Live Cinema

I wish I'd never heard of the Met's Nibelungen Ring "machine." If we could ignore that 45-ton, $16 million contraption and all of its surrounding publicity, the performance of Die Walküre seen and heard in HD surround-sound stood on its own as a dramatic and musical treat.

Walküre is above all a story of personal relationships, and almost all the scenes show two characters in intimate dialogue. (The opera has no chorus, and the Ride of the Valkyries is a rare "big" moment.) With Gary Halvorson directing for live TV, the Machine was mostly out of the picture, allowing the close-up shots to embrace Wagner's intimate story, and consequently enhance Walküre's genuine drama.

Nevertheless, I'm puzzled by the choices Robert Lepage made for his production. I have loved his previous work in film (like The Far Side of Moon), for the Cirque du Soleil and at the Met Opera in Berlioz's The Damnation of Faust. In the Las Vegas show KA he unleashed spectacular flying entrances and flaming explosions. But in this Walküre he avoided such effects. In Damnation he used video projections of galloping steeds; but in Walküre, where we'd expect that, he flinched.

Two dozen moving parts

As you may have heard, this production involves 24 moving metallic planks. They twist and turn and rise and fall, suggesting trees, walls, stairways and mountaintops. Sometimes they don't work— the live telecast was delayed more than a half hour because of a faulty computer chip in one of the boards. A few of the effects are entrancing, but others look gimmicky. On the whole we'd be better off unaware of them.

The best visual moments: At the start of Act I, the planks suggested trees in a forest as Siegmund was being chased by enemies carrying lanterns. Then, during the Ride of the Valkyries, the eight sisters straddled individual beams as if riding horses, holding reins as the planks rose and fell while the faces of horses were projected on them. In Act II, the planks suggested a mountain, and Wotan and Fricka made impressive entrances over the horizon.

The biggest disappointment occurred when Wotan prepared to put his daughter to sleep, surrounded by protective flames. Lepage had Bryn Terfel lead Deborah Voigt into the wings; then the stage displayed an overhead shot of the mountaintop, with a body-double for Brünnhilde lying head-down.

Brünnhilde as tomboy

Lepage's direction of the personal drama was better. Deborah Voigt played Brünnhilde like a feisty tomboy, a teenager discovering her identity, in awe of her father but compelled to disobey him when he has given up his true desires. She sang with accuracy and urgency.

Bryn Terfel's Wotan— the world's most powerful being, yet in fear of losing everything— was properly arrogant yet clearly adoring toward his daughter. When he stripped Brünnhilde of immortality for disobeying him, it was clear that his heart was breaking. His farewell to her was gorgeously sung.

Terfel still leaves room for vocal growth. With age, one hopes, he may develop more of the dark sonority of Hans Hotter and James Morris. Terfel's Wotan already conveys memorable lyricism and anguish.

Better than Domingo

Jonas Kaufmann, playing Siegmund for the first time, was a revelation. Wagner asked that his heroes sing with Italian-style legato, but I've never heard this achieved so well. Even Placido Domingo, with his Latin heritage and his background in the Italian repertoire, didn't fully achieve it when he sang Siegmund. Kaufman was tender and lyrical; he also exuded sufficient power when he remembered his father— "Wälse! Wälse!"— holding the G flats and G naturals for extraordinary length.

Eva-Maria Westbroek, a Dutch soprano, was a strong Sieglinde, although she could have used some edginess to her singing to suggest Sieglinde's desperation, along the lines of Leonie Rysanek of blessed memory. Hans-Peter König was menacing as her husband, Hunding.

Stephanie Blythe was a powerful presence as Fricka. She arrived in a chariot that looked uncomfortably like a wheelchair, but she displayed authority as queen of the gods. Blythe portrayed Fricka's anger without sounding like a nag. Bryn Terfel's Wotan resisted her demand that Siegmund and Sieglinde be punished; then he fatalistically yielded to the inevitable that had been predicted by Erda at the end of Das Rheingold.

James Levine led a rich and nuanced performance by the Met orchestra, making this one of the best-sounding Walküres ever.