Re: What kind of forum member knows no fear?
The Guardian singles Pieczonka out as the "vocal highlight" of Das Rheingold. But the reviewer savages the staging: Of Siegfried he says "The scene in which Stephen Gould's Siegfried slays Fafner the dragon should be an excuse for theatrical pyrotechnics, but Dorst and Schlossmann can't even rustle up a decent stage effect. All they manage is a desultory fart in the mist." and, " at the moment, this Ring Cycle is better with your eyes shut." The idea of sprinkling the set with gratuitous skateboarders and the like, situating the world of the gods in a parallel universe to our own, didn't get much critical support from reviewers either. Director Dorst, an 80 year old playwrite who'd never directed an opera before, got quite a bit of savaging from quite a few critics. I hope the lumps and bumps in our productions get ironed out before reviewers like this are set loose in Toronto early next month.