When it comes to the opening of Wagner’s Das Rheingold, Mark Twain probably put it as well as anyone: ‘Out of darkness and distance and mystery soft rich notes rose upon the stillness, and from his grave the dead magician began to weave his spells about his disciples and steep their souls in his enchantments.’ As at Bayreuth, so in Dalston. At the start of Julia Burbach’s production for Grimeborn, a man stumbles into a back alley and, rummaging through discarded boxes, finds a pair of headphones. And there it is: that deep, eternal E flat. Don’t some people say they can hear an all-pervading global hum? Wagner’s world is turning, and for good or for evil the old sorcerer is weaving his spell again.
Staging any part of the Ring cycle in the handkerchief-sized Arcola Theatre might sound like a stretch, but Wagner handles the hard bit, and even in Jonathan Dove’s reduced 18-piece orchestration (conducted with quiet command by Peter Selwyn), he can move universes with the shift of a harmony.
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