Negus

OperaOnline.us
It took Richard Wagner twenty-two years to complete his four part “The Ring of the Nibelungs”, “The Ring Cycle” as it is commonly named.
It was such an emotionally draining enterprise that he paused in the middle of writing “Siegfried” (1857) to relax and write “Tristan und Isolde” in 1859 and then “Die Meistersinger” in 1861. Think of a scientist pausing in the middle of writing a paper explaining multiple string theory and theoretical physics and then simultaneously beginning another paper explaining the perfect symmetry of the chaos theory. It’s not that it can’t be done, but rather that it takes an enormous intellect to actually carry it off.
In any event, Wagner eventually settled in to complete “The Ring” in 1869 and by 1874 was well on the way to completing his final composition, “Götterdämmerung” (The Twilight of the Gods). In 1876 the full work was performed at his personal theater (which he built) at Bayreuth, a theater constructed to his specifications to showcase his most challenging and lengthy work: “The Ring”.
A prolific writer and composer Wagner’s “Ring” heavily influenced the compositional landscape of both his era and musical style that followed thereafter. His music dramas unfolded as complete works that so thoroughly commingled libretto with breathtaking music and sweeping, evocative musical passages (leitmotivs) that every word, every phrase and marking given to every note is deemed by followers of his style and music to be immutably fixed.
Charles K. Moss, writing for the Carolina Classical Connection in a piece titled “Zenith of German Romanticism” described the interconnectivity of libretto and score this way: “Wagner so believed in the absolute oneness of drama and music that the two are organically connected expressions of a single dramatic idea. He considered the action of the drama to have an inner and an outer aspect: the orchestra conveying the inner aspect, while the sung words articulate the outer aspect of the events and situations of the plot.”
This was the great Wagnerian contribution to posterity: music, not just the libretto, that could be used to tell the story and guide the listener not only to what was going on on the outside, but to give insight into what was being thought and unspoken – the ephemeral.
With a musical score so intricately constructed who are we to tinker with it? “The Ring” is his masterpiece, and his followers, of which there are many, argue: if you can’t do it justice, leave it alone – so most opera houses do the latter; they leave it alone, and in leaving it alone, leave it to the big houses to tackle – which few can or do.

Fast forward to present day, Pittsburgh, July 2005.
The Opera Theater of Pittsburgh has tackled the project most opera companies shy away from. As part of its 2004-2005 season it performed two of “The Ring" operas: “Das Rheinegold” (Rhinegold) and “Die Walküre” (The Valkyrie), and next season it says it intends to tackle the remaining two: “Siegfried” and “Twilight of the Gods”.
It’s a prodigious undertaking and somewhat of a gamble for any company, let alone a small company. The “prodigious undertaking” part is understandable. Wagner’s “Ring” has what can best be viewed as a devout following that is almost cult-like in its demands that the masterpiece be adhered to as it was intended, and this requires lots of money, big names, and a large orchestra of 100-plus pieces that bills by the hour and racks up dollars with the speed of a short-circuited electric meter.
The “gamble” part is self-evident. After viewing a Jonathan Dove version of “The Ring” performed in England, The Opera Theater's artistic director, Jonathan Eaton, decided to bring the four part “Ring Cycle” -- the Dove version to America – its first showing in the United States. So where’s the gamble? Well first, it’s in English; and before you faint, add to this insult, the indignity that it’s a condensed version of the eighteen hour cycle Wagner envisioned. In the Dove version of “The Ring” there are cuts – and not small cuts, either, but big cuts, whole sections, gone! The Dove version runs eleven, not eighteen hours.
It’s not the end of Western civilization as we know it, but to Wagnerites, it’s the next worse thing.
Maybe this is an exaggeration that needs further explanation.
An undertaking such as this, with all that’s at stake, deserves to be understood, and so, with that in mind: helping us understand it better, The Opera Theater of Pittsburgh offered to have the conductor, Anthony Negus talk about it before heading back to England. Maestro Negus conducted this version several times in the past. Clearly, if he doesn’t understand its strengths and weakness, and can’t give Wagnerites and opera companies a reason to at least consider what Dove has offered, nobody can.
To start, Maestro Negus is not a novice conductor or Wagner neophyte. He has been studying Wagner and his music since he was thirteen years old and has conducted the full “Ring Cycle” in major European opera houses including Bayreuth. Like most Wagnerites, he had to be sold on the idea before he agreed to do it. “I only heard about it at the time. I never actually heard the version then.” The “then” he is referring to is the late 1990s when Jonathan Dove was asked by Graham Vicks and John McMurray of the Birmingham Opera Company, to write a few small transitions. “My initial thoughts then were,” Negus explained, “I’m not sure about this at all.”
By 2000, however, Dove’s little known version had found some legs, opened and drew a curious audience, of sorts. “I got called by the director of the new [Dove] production using the new version at the Longborough Festival in Oxford,” Negus explained, “and he said that the conductor had withdrawn; that they had already done Rheingold and Die Walküre and were about ready to start Siegfried and revive Die Walküre, and would I be interested.”

Negus says he “jumped at the chance” to do it, figuring “this was my opportunity to really prepare my own musical version.” In 2002 he conducted the full Dove cycle three times, then in 2004 repeated the cycle again twice.
Nobody else was doing it, but this didn’t dissuade Negus who, because of his knowledge of the score, began to see its merit. It wasn’t “the real thing” – his words – but it was good enough, he thought to be performed. “I was enjoying it hugely,” he said, “because I recognized what an extraordinarily satisfying Wagnerian experience it was.” Indeed, he says, “as a Wagnerian person myself I was able to add one or two of my adjustments which helped it as well.”
More on these “adjustments” later.
When Jonathan Eaton saw this version in Longborough, he approached Negus, an old friend, and asked if he would be willing to come to America -- Pittsburgh, specifically, and conduct the same version for an American audience. “I thought that would be so exciting,” Negus said, and accepted.
In putting together the American production some changes had to be made. First, the orchestra that was reduced to eighteen musicians in the Dove version was bumped up to 37 different musicians for each performance by Negus. This employed almost the entire Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. And an organ was added to fill out the sound. “Originally the organ was to enhance the sound of the strings,” Negus explained, “If you look at the Wagner score there are long passages of either horns or bass clarinet or bassoon -- held peddle notes underneath – well in this version the [limited number of players] are busy, they’re not always free to hold these important peddle notes.” That’s where the organ comes in. “That was an important function for the organ,” he said, that worked effectively. “I made him [the organist] a whole list of places where I wanted him to play and also to indicate what he was to be representing, like clarinets or tubas, that sort of thing.”