Over the next few weeks, almost 50 hours of opera will play out on the stage of Bendigo’s Ulumbarra Theatre, starting from Friday.
Wagner’s Ring Cycle is made up of four standalone operas – Das Rheingold, Die Walkure, Siegfried and Gotterdammerung – which together tell a sweeping, tragic story of gods, greed, love and grief. Collectively it’s over 16 hours of performance, and Melbourne Opera will be running the cycle three separate times with an all-Australian cast.
Warwick Fyfe as Wotan in Die Walkure.Credit:Robin Halls
It’s one of the most grand, epic and ambitious projects an opera company can take on, and this is only the fifth time it has been staged in full in Australia. “It’s the biggest thing you can undertake in the performing arts,” says Melbourne Opera producer Greg Hocking.
He’s not exaggerating. Staging just one of the operas in the ring cycle is a big ask – the logistics of staging all four together are almost impossible to comprehend. Not for Suzanne Chaundy, however. The director has been working towards this since 2019.
The final week has been a hectic – but precisely calibrated – flurry of rehearsals for singers, orchestra and tech. Chaundy speaks to The Age in a brief break between checking lighting cues for one opera and a chorus rehearsal for another.
A scene from Melbourne Opera’s production of Das Rheingold, which will be staged in Bendigo as part of the Ring Cycle.Credit:Robin Halls
In addition to keeping four separate stories straight in her head, she needs to ensure that rehearsals are spaced out enough to maintain the vocal health of singers, while making sure that everyone from lighting through to make-up is across every tiny detail of each opera. “I’m ready to take over the defence force,” she says with a laugh.
A scene from Das Rheingold. Staging a full Ring Cycle is ‘the biggest thing you can undertake in the performing arts’, says Melbourne Opera producer Greg Hocking.Credit:Robin Halls
She has staged two of the operas previously, sticking with a classic approach, allowing the drama of the stories to speak for themselves.
“I’m really glad I didn’t go, ‘This is the story of the Murdochs’, or whatever,” she says. “You could apply all sorts of things to it, but I think it’s so much more interesting if people bring their own experiences to it.”
Though opening night is still ahead, with the final two operas premiering next weekend and a full schedule of events and workshops between shows, Chaundy feels that the team has overcome the biggest challenges and is now in the home stretch. “It’s been as hitch-free as putting on 16 hours of opera can be,” she says, making sure to “touch wood”.
She highlights the moment when the cast and crew had finally done a rehearsal of every section of every opera and the gravity of what was being accomplished finally hit them.
“They were all going, ‘Wow, we’ve done that – we’re all going to say we did a Ring Cycle.’ It was a really joyous thing,” she says.
“It’s so wonderful, and it’s such a rare occurrence,” agrees Hocking. “We all feel quite privileged that we’ve actually got it together.”
Melbourne Opera’s staging of the Ring Cycle will be on in Bendigo until April 30.
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