THE RING : New production at the Met offers much stimulation for the ear, little for the eye : The Ring

Everyone said it was the musical event of the season. No one, of course, claimed it was the dramatic event of the season. Dramatic events don’t happen these days at the Metropolitan Opera.

It , in this case, was Richard Wagner’s sprawling, forbidding, treacherous, foolish, potentially devastating tetralogy, “Der Ring des Nibelungen.” This, believe it or not, was the first time the Met had ventured the whole damned thing as the composer intended: in four uncut, consecutive performances spanning a single week.

The “Ring” is no rarity in New York. It has been a part of the repertory at the Met since 1885. Many individual installments have been ventured over the years, usually out of chronological order, spread out over long intervals and generously pruned by editorial shears. The last short-term full-cycle presentation took place a half century ago, and that had been severely truncated.

Certain houses far from Manhattan have not been so timid. In recent seasons, one could encounter a full, post-modern “Ring” in Seattle and a complete neo-Romantic “Ring” in San Francisco. Still, for local chauvinists, nothing really important can happen until it happens here.

It happened here from April 24-29, with Luciano Pavarotti in Donizetti’s “Elisir d’Amore” inserted as a bizarre bel-canto antidote before and after the Wagnerian scherzo called “Siegfried.” It happened again between May 1 and 6.

For those who could not afford a ticket (the best four-night package cost $620) or those who could not beg, much less buy, a seat (even black-marketeers had little to offer outside Lincoln Center), the Met promised distant compensations. PBS will host a prime-time telecast on consecutive nights in June, 1990, and Deutsche Grammophon is producing nearly original-cast recordings. Still, everyone who was anyone wanted to be in the glamorous 4,000-seat house that Franco Zeffirelli once likened to a big, American juke box.

This new “Ring”--the culmination of 2 1/2 years of frantic preparation, casting crises, popular acclaim and general critical disdain--overwhelmed in sheer length. All “Rings” do that.

Without intermissions, the playing time exceeds 16 hours. The valedictory “Gotterdammerung” last Saturday began at 6 and ended just before midnight. Then the shouting began out front.

There was a lot of shouting. Wagner performances, even perfunctory ones, are cathartic experiences. They are endurance contests that ride massive crescendos to massive climaxes. Audiences are zonked by the music and moved by the story, even if it is told in quaintly trivial terms. They are awed by the superhuman feats required of the principals.

At the end, the survivors congratulate each other for their own stamina, and admire the artists for theirs. Getting to the final cadence and the ultimate celebration of redemption through love may not be half the fun. Still, the denouement always makes the tortuous, torturous trip worthwhile.

Ever since World War II, most major opera companies have taken the “Ring” very seriously as modern theater. In the hallowed hall of Bayreuth, the composer’s grandson, Wieland Wagner, carefully scraped away numerous decades of nationalist barnacles. He tolerated no lingering references to a master race and no empty, quaintly comical rituals. Concentrating on the devices of symbolism and abstraction, he reduced the “Ring” to timeless, ageless verities.

The world of shrieking Valkyries bedecked with helmets, hulking villains clutching spears, feisty gods, creepy dwarfs, semaphoric mermaids and nature-boy heroes had reached its own twilight. Or so we thought.

Wieland believed that the Wagnerian myths had to be re-invented for contemporary audiences. His knew that his grandfather’s ideas remained vital, but the accompanying trappings had taken on cartoon connotations. After Wieland’s untimely death, some imitators tried to do things his way, without the benefit of his vision. His more successful successors turned to sociological, psychological and political alternatives.

A tree no longer had to look like a tree. Literal props became expendable distractions. A deity didn’t have to look like a fat baritone with an eye-patch. Character supplanted caricature.

A critical historical perspective became essential. The lust for power could be reflected in the turmoil of the industrial revolution. The Gibichungs could be Nazis. Valhalla could rise above Wall Street. The narrative could unfold with elements of parody as well as poignancy

Loge, the erstwhile god of fire, could be a crafty lawyer. Wotan, king of the gods, could be Wagner himself. Siegfried, the dumb bully who almost saves mankind, could be L’il Abner.

The revolution didn’t always work. Some new ideas distorted more than they clarified. Some extraneous concepts contradicted the music. Some innovations trivialized the source. Still, one could take comfort in certain basic intellectual or emotional compensations.

Usually something gripping and provocative could compel attention on the stage. The director often forced the audience to think, to participate in the unfolding drama, to view Wagner’s conflicts in a different light. Even the most wrong-headed impulses exerted a certain cleansing appeal.

One saw lots of wrong-headed ideas in Harry Kupfer’s controversial “Ring” in Bayreuth last summer. That was the high-tech neo-socialist exercise in which theWotan family looked like fugitives from

“Mahagonny.” Siegfried became a garage mechanic, the rainbow bridge was a neon elevator and decadent capitalists sipped booze while watching the apocalyptic immolation on television.

One could hate Kupfer’s “Ring.” That was easy. But it wasn’t boring.

The vaunted Met “Ring,” budgeted just below $4 million and staged by Otto Schenk, was boring.

Schenk set the clock back 50 years and cast himself essentially as traffic cop. He allowed Gunther Schneider-Siemssen to create kitsch-realism sets that could have been lifted from a very old edition of the “Victor Book of the Opera.” His quaint artifacts included a blobby would-be dragon that might have gotten lost in Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood.

This accommodating designer not only knows better, he has done better. Take, for example, the semi-modern “Ring” he concocted for Herbert von Karajan in Salzburg and at the selfsame Met in the 1970s.

Rolf Langenfass contributed rag-bag costumes that managed to look old-fashioned, mod and ugly all at the same time. Gil Wechsler oversaw some nifty lighting effects that remained strictly decorative in context. All this would have been funny, if it hadn’t been so sad.

This, after all, was a lazy “Ring,” a picture-postcard “Ring,” a dull “Ring,” a reactionary “Ring.” The action on the stage wasn’t wrong-headed. It was empty-headed.

And yet, paradox of paradoxes, this also was a “Ring” that often sounded wonderful. James Levine may still have a little trouble sustaining tension between the grand climaxes, but he makes those climaxes very grand indeed.

He does grasp, moreover, the gargantuan architecture of the piece, does savor the arching cantilena, does have an ear for telling instrumental detail. He even demonstrates the courage of his leisurely convictions and, a few pardonable lapses aside, has trained the Metropolitan Opera orchestra to play like an ensemble of virtuosic heroes.

He conducts the “Ring” with majestic ardor today. He will, no doubt, conduct it with overwhelming pathos tomorrow.

The cast could boast no Melchior, no Flagstad, no Varnay or Nilsson. Given the current international shortage of great Wagnerian singers, however, the Met was able to assemble an imposing contingent of reasonable facsimiles.

Most reasonable of all was Hildegard Behrens, a Brunnhilde whose radiance and expressive urgency made certain limitations of vocal resource seem irrelevant. Most promising was James Morris, who does little to define the contradictions of Wotan’s character but sings with freedom and generosity unequaled since the best days of Hans Hotter.

Most disappointing was Toni Kramer, latest and not the worst in a long line of ersatz- Siegfrieds. Strong, always earnest and occasionally inept, he held his own to the bitter end. That is more than can be said of some would-be Heldentenors.

Heroic matters may improve next season, when the role is passed to Siegfried Jerusalem. The brightest light in Kupfer’s Bayreuth, he appeared here only as a hearty, hardly mercurial Loge.

The villainous duties were well managed by Matti Salminen--the towering, black-voiced and occasionally strained Hagen who also growled lustily as Fafner and Hunding. Graham Clark introduced a marvelously crafty, even funny Mime, forcefully complemented by the aging Alberich of Franz Mazura.

Helga Dernesch brought intelligence, authority and a somewhat frayed mezzo to the stances of Fricka and Waltraute. By now she must have sung just about every female role in the “Ring.”

The distinctly incestuous Walsungen were Ellen Shade, a sympathetic if small-scaled Sieglinde, and Robert Schunk, a burly Siegmund who managed to sing consistently flat all night long. That takes talent.

The possibly incestuous Gibichungen were Kathryn Harries, a radiant Gutrune, and Anthony Raffell, a stolid if powerful Gunther.

Dawn Upshaw chirped appropriately as the disturbingly amplified voice of the Wood Bird. Birgitta Svenden chirped inappropriately as a surprisingly sexy Erda. The assorted junior gods, Rhinemaidens, Valkyries and Norns looked silly but sounded competent.

The Met certainly mustered no “Ring” for the brain. This hardly was a “Ring” for the eyes. At best, and at its best, it was merely a “Ring” for the ears.