When you’re staging an opera, dispensing with the singing to focus on the plot is a risky proposition. After all, the singing is pretty much the point, and the plot is usually, as my grandmother would say, nuttier than a sack of pecans.
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Conceived and codirected by Blake Montgomery and Joanie Schultz, the Building Stage Ring cycle is far shorter than the original at six hours, including two intermissions and a dinner break. That’s still long enough to turn your ass to mush, but short enough to squeeze into a single day. Each of the four operas becomes a brisk, action-packed one-act lasting less than 90 minutes. This relative brevity (relative to Wagner and geological time, anyway) makes it easier to see and appreciate the structure of the cycle as a whole—and the production’s resourcefulness and energy, along with the directors’ dogged focus on propelling the plot forward, tighten and transform Wagner’s libretto into a cracking good yarn.
Set off against that round-robin is a juicy romantic story line that pits love against authority as destruction looms. Wotan’s daughter Brünnhilde (a strong, steady Darci Nalepa) defies her father’s orders by abetting a love affair between twins, and so he banishes her to a rock surrounded by fire. It falls to the fruit of the twincest, Siegfried (an appealingly guileless Nick Vidal), to rescue and marry Brünnhilde. He does, but further intrigue and betrayal in the final section lead to his murder, her suicide, and ultimately the end of the old order.
