As Longborough Festival Opera reaches the third stage in its Ring cycle, it is once again a matter of wonder that any sense of Wagner's forbiddingly epic enormity is swept away by the essential clarity of director Alan Privett's concept. Both words and plot were delivered with a immediacy in itself refreshing and often witty, allowing conductor Anthony Negus to reveal the further motivations and machinations embedded in the infinite layers of Wagner's musical characterisations. Kjell Torriset's set contrasts hard scaffolding with the softness of fabric, Guy Hoare's lighting adds depth, and the balance of stark simplicity against the richness of the score, with all its psychological and metaphorical allusions was always artful.
In Daniel Brenna, Longborough has a young Siegfried of irrepressible physical and vocal energy. Tall and impetuous, his journey from petulant youth towards manhood and love was wholly confident, only less convincing expressive lyrical moments betraying debut nerves. The final scene when he awakens Alwyn Mellor's voluptuous-sounding Brünnhilde to ultimate rapture had a slight gaucheness, only partially implied by Wagner. All the frustration and angst of Siegfried's relationship with the wily Mime (Colin Judson), and of Mime with Alberich was cleverly handled. Philip Joll as the Wanderer – the god Wotan in disguise – was always forceful and imposing, if indeterminate of pitch, while Evelyn Krahe was a very fine Erda and Julian Close a fearsome Fafner.
Key to the integrity of this staging is the role of the three Norns, the mythological spinners of the thread of life: an almost constant presence in head-to-toe black, subtly choreographed by Suzanne Firth, observing and assisting, moving props and scenery, they point up the centrality of the emotions with great economy of line. Negus's profound musicianship carries the day and the audience rightly roared its approval.
