This ‘Ring’ Is Dark, Reflective

Wagner built his epic cycle “The Nibelung’s Ring” from the ground up. Actually he dips lower than that, into the depths of the Rhine, where mermaids frolic, where magic gold glistens, and where begins the downfall of the imperious but all-too-human gods in the heavens above.

And so the cycle’s prologue, “The Rhinegold,” enters our consciousness first as a rumble of double basses, a barely audible and slowly vibrating deep E-flat. That prologue of a prologue, a 136-bars of a single orchestral chord, is a masterstroke. At the San Francisco Opera Wednesday, where “The Rhinegold” inaugurated a “Ring” Festival of four cycles, the curtain rose and the prologue was played before a pitch-black scrim that turned our eyes back on ourselves in the dimly lit War Memorial Opera House.

The San Francisco “Ring,” as thus far displayed in “Rhinegold,” and the first of the three operas, “The Valkyrie,” given Thursday night, reflects our world as much as Wagner’s. He was a 19th century political and artistic revolutionary who happened to like fine things. His dysfunctional family of gods acts like the monarchies he fought to overthrow (however much he personally schemed to sample their luxuries and sexual amorality). All of that is in “The Ring,” disguised by glorious nature music, a magic ring, dragons and evil dwarfs, supervillians, and that superhero and superheroine, ecstatic in love.

In this production, a hand-me-down from the ‘80s, now entrusted to Andrei Serban, the set looks like an antique shop on Union Street here, bits of this and that from who knows when and where. The costumes mix and match. Gods are dressed as ancient Greeks, Romans and samurai; as floozies, debutantes and vampires. Is this a parody of a San Francisco opera audience, with its parading high society? Or of Wagner fanatics, who attend in their own, homemade “Ring” headgear? Or just bad taste?

A director who dotes on controversy, Serban prides himself on coming to “The Ring” fresh, a Wagner naif who doesn’t understand the German of Wagner’s libretto (he works, reportedly, from a French translation). Yet he begins with the sets of Nikolaus Lehnhoff’s original production; with seasoned and stellar (and in some cases typically hefty) Wagnerian singers; and with a traditionally minded conductor, Donald Runnicles, who takes a lofty, lyrical and almost symphonic approach to the score. Serban’s freshness is further compromised in that the whole notion of a non-Wagnerian, theatrically French “Ring” is now cliche, Patrice Chereau having famously done that 23 years ago in Bayreuth, and been much imitated since.

With the help of set designer John Coyne and costumer Bob Ringwood, Serban adds and subtracts, producing a visual mess. Left over from the old production are crumbling ancient ruins irrelevantly framing the stage. New are such things as a large Brancusi mask, symbolizing the earth goddess Erda; and the giants, Fafner and Fasolt, as lifeless 16-foot Kabuki puppets.

What Serban has, however, focused on with rare insight is the human, interpersonal relationships of the drama. He, for instance, brilliantly ends the argument between the king of the gods, Wotan (James Morris), and his wife, Fricka (Marjana Lipovsek), in “Valkyrie,” with Fricka gently touching Wotan. She offers him a chance to make up, get beyond his anger. Self-destructively, he refuses, and his future downfall is set. Siegmund (Mark Baker) and Hunding (Reinhard Hagen) in their first encounter are not just subtly seething with anger, they already are at each other’s throats. Brilliant, too, are the conniving criminality of the nasty dwarf Alberich (Tom Fox) and the comically craven, rebellious slave Mimi (Gary Rideout) in “Rhinegold.”

The better drama and the finest, most exciting singing was in “Valkyrie,” including Jane Eaglen’s revelatory Brunnhilde. Girlishly immature (we first see her bored, sitting on Wotan’s throne, kicking her feet) yet possessed of remarkable power, she outshone everyone around her. Her encounter with another splendid big soprano voice, that of Deborah Voigt, a radiant sounding but not especially stage-worthy Sieglinde, proved a magnificent Wagnerian battle of the bands. Morris’ Wotan is a study in depression. Baker was a steady Siegmund; Lipovsek, an edgy and theatrically compelling Fricka in “Valkyrie” (indisposed for “Rhinegold,” she was replaced by a vocally fresher if less compelling Elizabeth Bishop); Thomas Sunnegardh was a particularly wily fire god, Loge.

A consistent pleasure, and the one consistency throughout the two evenings, was the orchestra. As music director of the company for seven years, Runnicles has done wonders with it, building its sound as Wagner does his cycle, from the basses up. The playing was rich and beautiful (despite some strain on the brass), with Runnicles sculpting the two scores in long, loving lines.

* San Francisco Opera’s “Ring” festival continues through July 4, $60-$190, War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco, (415) 864-3330 or https://www.sfopera.com