Rhinemaidens - On Stage

On Stage

From the first complete production of the Ring, at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus in 1876, it was established that the Rhinemaidens should be depicted in conventional human form, rather than as mermaids or with other supernatural features, notwithstanding Alberich's insult to Wellgunde: "Frigid bony fish!" (Kalter, grätiger Fisch!). The staging of their scenes has always been a test of ingenuity and imagination, since Wagner's stage directions include much swimming and diving and other aquatic gymnastics. Traditionally, therefore, much use has been made of backdrops and lighting to achieve the necessary watery effects. Until the Second World War, under the influence of Cosima Wagner and her (and Wagner's) son Siegfried, a policy of "stifling conservatism" was applied to Bayreuth stagings of the Ring operas. Although there had been some innovation in productions staged elsewhere, it was not until the postwar revival of the Festival in 1951 that there were any significant changes in Bayreuth's presentation of the Ring operas. Since 1976, in particular, innovation at the Festival and elsewhere has been substantial and imaginative.

In the original 1876 production, the Rhinemaidens were wheeled around on stands behind semi-transparent screens. The stage machinery and the lighting effects were designed by Carl Brandt, who was the foremost stage technician of the time. One innovation which Cosima did eventually approve was the replacement of the wheeled stands with giant, invisible "fishing rods" on which the Rhinemaidens were dangled. Wires continued to be used in the Bayreuth productions of Siegfried Wagner and, later, those of his widow Winifred, who ran the Bayreuth Festival until the end of the Second World War. Similar techniques have been used in more modern productions. In the 1996 Lyric Opera of Chicago Ring cycle, repeated in 2004–05, the Rhinemaidens were suspended on bungee cords anchored in the fly space above the stage, enabling them to dive up and down, as intended by Wagner. The Rhinemaidens were played on-stage by gymnasts, mouthing words sung by singers standing in a corner of the stage.

The 1951 Festival production, by Siegfried's and Winifred's son Wieland, broke with tradition and featured an austere staging which replaced scenery and props with skilful lighting effects. The Rhinemaidens, along with all the other characters, were plainly dressed in simple robes, and sang their roles without histrionics. Thus the music and the words became the main focus of attention. Wieland was influenced by Adolphe Appia, whose Notes sur l'Anneau du Nibelungen (1924–25) had been dismissed by Cosima: "Appia seems to be unaware that the Ring was performed here in 1876. It follows that the staging is definitive and sacrosanct." However, Wieland and his brother Wolfgang praised Appia: "... the stylised stage, inspired by the music and the realisation of three-dimensional space – constitute the initial impulses for a reform of operatic stagings which led quite logically to the 'New Bayreuth' style."

The innovative centenary Bayreuth Ring, directed by Patrice Chéreau, did away altogether with the underwater concept by setting the Rhinemaiden scenes in the lee of a large hydro-electric dam, as part of a 19th-century Industrial Revolution setting for the operas. For the scene with Siegfried in Götterdämmerung, Chéreau altered the perpetual youth aspect of the Rhine Maidens by depicting them as "no longer young girls merrily disporting themselves; they have become tired, grey, careworn, and ungainly". Since this production "the assumption of unrestricted interpretive license has become the norm". For example Nikolaus Lehnhoff, in his 1987 Bayerische Staatsoper production, placed the Rhinemaidens in a salon and had their lament at the end of Rheingold played on a gramophone by Loge.

Peter Hall directed the Bayreuth Ring after Chéreau. His version, staged 1983–86, portrayed the natural innocence of the Rhinemaidens in the simplest of ways; they were naked. Keith Warner adapted this feature in his Ring production for the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, first staged 2004–06. A Covent Garden spokesman explained "The maidens are children of innocence, a vision of nature – and as soon as someone appears they hastily throw on some clothes to protect their modesty." While Warner relies on lighting to achieve an underwater effect, Hall used a Pepper's ghost illusion: mirrors at a 45° angle made the Rhinemaidens appear to swim vertically when the performers were in fact swimming horizontally in a shallow basin.

Although the roles of the Rhinemaidens are relatively small, they have been sung by notable singers better known for performing major roles in Wagnerian and other repertoire. The first person to sing the part of Woglinde in full was Lilli Lehmann at Bayreuth in 1876. In 1951, when the Bayreuth Festival re-opened after the Second World War, the same part was taken by Elisabeth Schwarzkopf. Other Bayreuth Rhinemaidens include Margarete Matzenauer who played Flosshilde in 1911 and Helga Dernesch who sang Wellgunde there between 1965 and 1967. Lotte Lehmann, who played Wellgunde at the Hamburg State Opera between 1912 and 1914 and the Vienna State Opera in 1916, and Joan Sutherland, who appeared as Woglinde at Covent Garden between 1954 and 1957, are two of the interpreters to have played Rheinmaidens in other major international opera houses. Recorded Rhinemaidens have included Sena Jurinac for Furtwängler and RAI, Lucia Popp and Gwyneth Jones for Georg Solti, and Helen Donath and Edda Moser for Karajan.