Of course, "unofficial" descriptions have been in the wild for sometime (as indeed the odd photo) but Gramophone have now come out of the closet and provide a more "official" description, based on dress rehearsals of Rheingold. A brief description follows and a link to more. As expected, this does indeed suggest that the themes are very similar to
Fulham Opera's ongoing
Ring Cycle. Coincidence? Well you never know. Do not read if you like surprises.
"...each installment has a separate locale: Texas (
Das Rheingold), Baku (
Die Walküre), East Germany (
Siegfried) and Wall Street (
Götterdämmerung)."
"...the curtain rose on a sleazy roadside inn along Route 66 called The
Golden Motel. The stage swiveled to reveal a Texaco petrol station and a
convenience store/bar. The flag and emblem of the Lone Star State put
to rest any doubt about where we were supposed to be. The Rhine Maidens
lounged by the motel pool, drying their laundry and barbecuing. Alberich
dove into the shallow water in speedos and cowboy boots to retrieve the
gold, but not before munching on a Bratwurst (he didn’t so much as eat
it as spit the chunks out into the water) and squirting himself with
yellow mustard. Much of the onstage action throughout the evening was
simultaneously filmed and projected onto a large video monitor: a
voyeuristic technique that suggested reality TV or a soap opera. The
gods were up in their motel room, rolling around in bed. Wotan might
have been a gangster or pimp and Fricka and Freia, busty, blonde and
caked with makeup, could have been Divine’s slimmer cousins. Generally
speaking, the costumes and wigs would not have been out of place in a
Saturday Night Live
sketch about Las Vegas hustlers in the 1970s. Donner, with his cowboy
hat and moustache, faced down a tattooed, crowbar-wielding Fafner with a
pistol while the goddesses barricaded themselves in their room. At one
point, it seemed that the giants were going to put a dent into Wotan’s
vintage black Mercedes, which was easily the swankiest prop of the
evening".
"There was quite a bit of action in confined spaces, such as the motel
room or the convenience store/bar by the petrol station, with most of
the interior details only visible via the video screen. The counter bar,
for instance, was decorated with posters from B-movies that had the
word ‘gold’ in the title, a pinball machine and a jukebox that a bunch
of presumably drugged-out extras danced to (silently, of course) in the
final scene."
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