It takes some nerve to initiate a Ring cycle in a country house setting with relatively modest resources in comparison to the major opera companies. But this is Wasfi Kani who is surely following the model set by Longborough Festival’s two complete Ring cycles achieved within the last 20 years. Now, she has recently launched Grange Park Opera’s Wagnerian epic, its four music dramas due for completion in 2029. And for this first instalment of family greed and corrosive power she has secured a terrific all British cast and the Orchestra of English National Opera – well most of it anyway. And at the helm of these London players is Harry Sever whose Wagnerian credentials include collaborating with Anthony Negus who has built Longborough’s reputation as the Bayreuth of the Cotswolds.
The opera house at West Horsley Place may not yet be known as Surrey’s Bayreuth, but if this performance is anything to go, queues will be forming across the fields when the entire cycle is mounted in 2030. Undoubtedly, this Rheingold is in safe hands and enjoys some insightful direction by Charlie Edwards supported by handsome costumes from Gabrielle Dalton whose expensively dressed cream-coloured Gods and dusty, bowler-hatted giants neatly delineate social distinctions within a late Victorian or Edwardian era. Meanwhile, her check-trousered Alberich could belong to 19th century Music Hall. Edwards is also responsible for the imaginative designs suggesting Wagner’s mythological realm. Behind a gauze curtain Rhinemaidens frolic, video projections convey Alberich’s transformation from dwarf to dragon and toad, while flickering geometric patterns neatly cover the scene change from Wotan’s stylishly furnished home down to the underworld that is Nibelheim. Its industrial grime is redolent of a Dickensian iron works that could come straight out of Hard Times. There’s no marble staircase to reach Valhalla, merely a builder’s stepladder left by the giants. If there’s any slight miss-step, it’s the intermittent, yet overdone playing with a dodgy fuse box, though its tampering does eventually make sense when a neon lit ‘rainbow bridge’ brings a palette chart of colour.
Designs and costumes aside, what separates this Rheingold from Barrie Kosky’s ecological slant at Covent Garden or Calixto Bieito’s futuristic interpretation at Opéra Bastille is the emphasis on class and family seen through the lens of an emerging nouveau riche. And what a dysfunctional family Wotan’s clan is. In this respect there’s a thought-provoking directorial intervention when Rachel Nicholls’s finely portrayed Freia (feisty and compliant) eventually becomes a willing hostage of the giants, huddling in the arms of Matthew Rose’s rich-toned Fasolt, and bringing echoes of the Stockholm syndrome. And with a mother such as Fricka (gloriously sung by Christine Rice) who is more interested in balancing her accounts for the Giant’s building work than protecting her sister, it’s little wonder Freia has found some comfort with her abductor.
There’s nothing disturbing there, unlike Alberich’s abuse of his dishevelled minion Mime (Adrian Thompson in fine fettle) who shocks him with an electric current whilst trapped in a metal cage. While the resultant screams remove all our earlier sympathy for Alberich, there’s plenty for Mime who later gets his come-uppance and chuckles to himself as he transfers Alberich’s horde of gold to the giants. As the wily Loge, Mark Le Brocq, brings something of his Longborough Festival characterisation with a twitching hand, but his ease of movement and vocal projection is perfectly poised, especially convincing in his ambivalence of a demi-God. Equally reliable is James Rutherford’s Wotan, his warm baritone carrying effortlessly across the stage, as does his portrayal of a man whose destiny he still hopes to control. Amongst the remaining cast, David Shipley persuades as the murdering Fafner; Thomas Isherwood and James Schouten make an impact as the brothers Donner and Froh, while Sara Fulgoni as the Earth goddess Erda impresses as she emerges from the stalls in a coup de théâtre. Ailish Tynan, Olivia Rose Tringham and Charlotte Bateman make a winsome trio of Rhinemaidens. But if anyone left a lasting impression it was David Stout’s shape-shifting Alberich.
In the pit Harry Sever controlled the music’s ebb and flow well, but with reduced string numbers (just eight first violins) balance was an occasional issue notably in the Prelude and climaxes elsewhere never quite soared. That said, things bode well for the remainder of the cycle – best apply early for next year.
David Truslove
Das Rheingold
Music & libretto: Richard Wagner
Cast and Production Staff:
Wotan – James Rutherford; Fricka – Christine Rice; Loge – Mark Le Brocq; Donner – Thomas Isherwood; Froh – James Schouten; Freia – Rachel Nicholls; Erda – Sara Fulgoni; Fasolt – Matthew Rose; Fafner – David Shipley;Alberich – David Stout; Mime – Adrian Thompson; Woglinde – Ailish Tynan; Wellgunde – Olivia Rose Tringham;Flosshilde – Charlotte Bateman
Director & Set Design – Charlie Edwards; Costumes – Gabrielle Dalton; Movement – Lynne Hockney; Fight Director – Billy Bilham; Lighting – Tim Mitchell; Video Designer – Dan Light; Orchestra of English National Opera; Conductor – Harry Sever
Grange Park Opera, West Horsley, Surrey, 20 June 2026
Top image: Rheinmaidens (Ailish Tynan, Olivia Rose Tringham, Charlotte Bateman)
All photos © Marc Brenner