From the beginning of time to the twilight of the gods, and from deep under the Rhine to the gates of Valhalla, Das Rheingold, the opening installment of Richard Wagner’s Ring Cycle, covers huge expanses of time and space. It also ordinarily takes nearly three hours to perform. On Sunday, June 27, at 2:30 p.m., Opera Santa Barbara will deliver the whole story in less than two hours thanks to a well road-tested adaptation by Graham Vick and Jonathan Dove, and to the determination and ingenuity of maestro Kostis Protopapas and director Crystal Manich.
Protopapas and Manich, who were responsible for the last major production of the quarantine-abbreviated 2020 season with Il Postino a year ago in March, are making a triumphant return to the Lobero with this great Wagner opera, thereby becoming both the last group to produce there for an in-person audience and the first to do so now that we can gather indoors again. Ticket sales are capped at 50 percent of capacity, with groups who come together in adjacent seats yet separated from other parties.
For Protopapas, who was one of the most vocal advocates for the rapid and safe reopening of theaters during quarantine, the opportunity to do Das Rheingold now and under these conditions represents a silver lining to the frustrating period of COVID constraints. “It’s been on my wish list for a long time,” said the conductor of the Vick/Dove adaptation. “The plot is accelerated, and the story moves forward cinematically, with lightness and humor.” Prior to 2020, the shortened version would have been an unlikely choice for the company due to established expectations concerning venue and production values. “Reopening in this way gives Opera Santa Barbara a chance to break out of a mold that wasn’t good for us anyway,” said Protopapas, adding that considerations of scale and scope would have dictated that to do Wagner’s Ring at all would have meant mounting an expensive full production at The Granada Theatre, rather than this chamber version with just 12 singers and 18 musicians.