Wagner and Masks, by Katherine Syer, after a lecture given at LACMA for the LA Ring Festival and Achim Freyer's Ring

Mime and Loge converse in Nibelheim. From Das Rheingold, Los Angeles, 2010, directed designed (together with Amanda Freyer) by Achim Freyer


[Adapted from a presentation delivered as part of the LA Opera “Ring Festival” at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, June 12, 2010]

The production aesthetics of the recent Los Angeles Ring

 set it far apart from any other North American production of Wagner’s tetralogy to date. One aspect that has divided audiences and performers alike is the director/designer Achim Freyer’s ubiquitous use of masks and puppet forms. Freyer is not the only director to resort in the past quarter century to such devices, which have gained in popularity in opera/theatre production more generally. In the Ring, Wagner himself never called for masks for his singers. His theoretical writings nevertheless alert us to ways he thought about masks and his keen interest in matters of disguise and deception — core elements of the Ring dramas. Many modern critics are appalled by the use of masks for opera singers, both for aesthetic and vocal reasons, and believe that it is antithetical to Wagner’s dramaturgy. Wagner’s theoretical interest in masks undermines this critical stance. Simultaneously, contemporary directors have discovered in masks a powerful expressive tool that reaches well beyond what Wagner recognized as the boundaries of dramatically suggestive costuming.
Read the full article on the Berkshire Review for the Arts!

Michael Miller