Kosky and Pappano continue to surprise and delight

On a bad day, Wagner’s Siegfried can degenerate into a series of overly wordy dialogues between characters in whom one fails to become emotionally invested. At Covent Garden last night, Barrie Kosky, Sir Antonio Pappano and their forces were not having a bad day.

It’s a measure of the acting qualities of the singers and Kosky’s ability to direct them that not only was every interaction gripping, but that each revealed the psychology between its two protagonists in new and interesting ways. Starting with Peter Hoare as Mime and Andreas Schager as Siegfried and Mime: although the pair heartily loathe each other, the loathing is mixed with an intimacy born of their years together that their mutual hatred can’t quite erase. Hoare was the very incarnation of incompetent malice, but for all that, we know how the dwarf became what he is and we cannot suppress a level of empathy. Schager, for his part, plays Siegfried neither as the brute nor the simpleton that we often see, but as an unstoppable force of optimism that never falters through the whole opera.

More telling still, in the context of the Ring cycle as a whole, are Wotan’s (aka the Wanderer’s) dialogues with the Nibelungs. Christopher Maltman’s Wotan is going to seed (as Victoria Behr’s costume cleverly emphasises) but he is in desperate denial of this and Maltman deploys the full force and nuance of a superb bass-baritone to bluster and project authority – he thrills in his ability to trick the dwarves, neither of whom, unlike Fricka in Die Walküre, can call him out – and then becomes a sad and lost figure indeed when the bluster hopelessly fails with Siegfried. Christopher Purves projected obdurate evil as Alberich, unable to get the better of Wotan but confident that he can bide his time and win in the end. Only the Act 3 duet between Maltman and Wiebke Lehmkuhl’s Erda didn’t quite fire on all cylinders, with us being informed that Lehmkuhl was singing in spite of being unwell.

The same feeling of discovering new things in the opera was engendered by Pappano and an Orchestra of the Royal Opera House at the very top of their game. Among many individual highlights, I was taken aback by the depth of orchestral anguish when Mime realises that Siegfried is about to return to find Nothung still unmade. In the relation of Sieglinde’s death in childbirth, both the music and Hoare’s miming of the event were harrowing. Pappano’s balance and timing was perfection: instruments could be heard as brightly and colourfully as you could wish for, and yet we had no difficulty in hearing the singers, even with heavy brass interventions nearby. Tempi never felt rushed even when passages like the preludes to Acts 1 and 3 were building up to enormous climaxes.

Unlike previous episodes, Kosky and set designer Rufus Didwizus opt for very different sets in each act. Mime’s hut is worthy of Baba Yaga, on stilts high above the stage: his steel forgemaster’s helmet serves as anvil for that famous Nibelung pounding rhythm. The forge is a magnificent concoction of pulleys, wheels and steam boilers: Heath Robinson with added steampunk. In a proper coup de théâtre, when Schager pulls Nothung triumphantly from the forge, one gets the distinct impression that the sword has grown since Walküre – it’s now a fully fledged shining medieval broadsword (although I do wish that opera singers would stop grasping magic weapons by their supposedly razor-sharp edges).

Fafner’s lair is in a dark snowbound landscape, Soloman Howard’s costume dazzling with spikes and gold. In Act 3, Brünnhilde’s rock has turned into a dazzling meadow, evoking Wotan’s hope that Siegfried and Brünnhilde’s love will bring redemption and regeneration to the world, the first point of sunlit brilliance so far in the cycle. Five hours into the opera, Schager’s energy levels were undimmed, and Elisabeth Strid gave us gorgeous, peaches-and-cream tone while giving the most sympathetic and credible rendering I’ve ever heard of Brünnhilde’s joy at waking up to her beloved inseparably mixed with horror at the loss of the immortal powers of which she has been stripped. This is a Brünnhilde as wonderfully far as you can get from the stereotypical Brünnhilde with over-stretched voice and horned helmet.

Not everything worked. The fight direction between Siegfried and Fafner was mundane, and Kosky’s use of “Old Erda”, the constant presence of an elderly, naked woman (actor Illona Linthwaite), felt forced and not as consequential as earlier in the cycle, although it allowed for another coup de théâtre as Lehmkuhl emerged from the voluminous folds of the (briefly non-naked) Old Erda’s gown.

But cavils aside, the revelatory orchestral performance and in the characterisation of the singers make this a Siegfried for the record books. There aren’t many tickets, but try and bag a return.

David Karlin | 17 März 2026

Invigorating and mesmerising staging, with Schager outstanding as Wagner’s hero

First among equals here is Christopher Maltman’s velvet-toned, coldly calculating Wotan; formerly a smug CEO, he has let himself go and is now a Jackson Lamb lookalike in a grubby mac and cardigan. He’s almost as unkempt as Peter Hoare’s straggly Mime, who bashes out his trademark rhythm on his tin hat. Waiting in the snow outside Fafner’s lair in the grey, dark second act, Wotan and Christopher Purves’s bitter Alberich argue like tramps on a park bench. It’s a stark contrast with Soloman Howard’s Fafner, who, costumed by Victoria Behr, wears a fabulous suit of glittering stalagmites, as if the Rheingold has been growing on him in crystals. It looks as if he’s covered himself in glue and rolled in Christmas decorations.

Wiebke Lehmkuhl gives sonorous voice to Erda, and when Brünnhilde is finally awakened Elisabet Strid sings her in a gleaming soprano, fresh-sounding if slightly earthbound. All, however, are eclipsed vocally by an extraordinary house debut in the title role from Andreas Schager, his clarion tenor seemingly calibrated to a louder, freer, clearer setting than anyone else’s. It’s invigorating: he sings tirelessly, and there is never the sense that Pappano is having to restrict the orchestra to accommodate him. On the contrary, the playing captures all the complex colours of Wagner’s score, bringing out its moments of light but never underplaying its swathes of shade. Pappano and Kosky seem absolutely of one mind here, and it’s gratifying to see and hear the unfolding of a Ring cycle that’s so serious in its intent yet so deft in its touch.

Erica Jeal | 18 Mar 2026

The Royal Opera’s Ring cycle continues with a first-class Siegfried

The curtain goes up on an elderly, naked woman swaying back and forth on a swing. This is Erda, Mother Earth, silently observing as gods, men and dwarfs despoil nature in their mutual greed.

She has been a fixture in Barrie Kosky’s ongoing production of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen, so it is no surprise to see her back for the third instalment, Siegfried. While other directors tie themselves in knots trying to unravel the Ring’s many themes, Kosky has plumped for one that troubled the composer deeply: man’s destruction of the natural order in pursuit of material gain.

Nature is always close to hand in Siegfried, though not always as expected here. In designer Rufus Didwiszus’s sets, Fafner’s lair is strangely buried in midwinter snow (why should Siegfried want to relax under the lime tree in a snowdrift?). Conversely, Brünnhilde’s rock is covered by a meadow of rainbow-coloured flowers, through which she and Siegfried frolic as though in the Garden of Eden. How considerate of Erda to keep watering the plants in the nude.

Although this Ring has been reluctant to nail down any particular time period, Siegfried opens like a scene from a Brothers Grimm fairy tale, with Mime living in a picturesque tree house and his forging equipment a fantastical conglomeration of machines.

The opera’s first act has never gone better. The forging of Nothung sends sparks flying on cue and the fractious relationship between Siegfried and his substitute parent Mime is brilliantly played. This is a pair who have suffered each other for years, familiarity breeding contempt as the bolshie teenager empties the dinner saucepan over his guardian’s head.

Few Siegfrieds look the right age and Andreas Schager is no exception, game though he is at acting up the adolescent. Schager’s great selling point is that he is a genuine heroic tenor, not an over-promoted character singer, and he is still singing as strongly after nearly five hours as he was at the start. For stamina and security, the Royal Opera has not seen his equal in half a century.

Schager’s scenes with Peter Hoare’s craven, wheedling Mime, a virtuoso portrayal which is second cousin to Gollum in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, could hardly be more entertaining. At the close this Siegfried is also rewarded with the springtime freshness of Elisabet Strid’s radiant but light-voiced Brünnhilde, gambolling among the flowers.

Another encounter that bristles with insights comes between Christopher Maltman’s Wanderer and Christopher Purves’s Alberich, the Wanderer now so relaxed in his acceptance of fate that he casually munches on potato crisps. Maltman may not have the vocal amplitude of a Wanderer like the warmly humane Donald McIntyre or the titanic John Tomlinson, but he is impressively punchy and understands every word he sings.

Soloman Howard’s Fafner, sporting a glittering gold coat from his spoils, sings a suitably grave death scene. Wiebke Lehmkuhl crawls out from beneath Erda’s voluminous skirts (why is she now clothed?) for the Earth Mother’s one vocal scene. Sarah Dufresne sings a light, airborne Woodbird, while her words are mouthed, karaoke-style, by Erda, one of a few ideas that do not quite work.

All are swept along by Antonio Pappano’s swift-paced, highly detailed conducting. The musical cut-and-thrust of Siegfried suits him well and there is not a dull moment here. He also gets first-class playing from the Royal Opera orchestra, not least the violins in their treacherously exposed ascent up to the summit of Brünnhilde’s rock.

In this Siegfried, Kosky’s Ring has lost some of its earlier clear-headed consistency, but gained in flair, and the production’s ecological message remains firmly on track. It is a sure bet that naked Erda will be there at the very end.

Richard Fairman | 18 March 2026