Siegfried at the Royal Opera House

wagner_charicature.jpgTom Service [The Guardian, 3 October 2005]

The third act of the Royal Opera House’s new production of Wagner’s Siegfried, the third instalment of director Keith Warner’s Ring cycle, is a victory for hollow style over substance, full of complex symbols but little emotional insight. Lisa Gasteen’s Br¸nnhilde and John Treleaven’s Siegfried fulfil their destinies together in the final scene as two gargantuan silhouettes on the revolving white square that has been a leitmotif since Die Walk¸re. This should be the climax of the evening, but Stefanos Lazaridis’s designs and Wolfgang Gˆbbel’s lighting take the focus away from Wagner’s music.