As I left the Hummingbird Centre following the production, I sent a little wish heavenward, which I hope will be heard — for despite the demise of the Wagnerian gods in Götterdämmerung, God is not dead. "PLEASE LET THE ARTISTIC TEAM COME TOGETHER AND RETHINK PARTS OF THIS PRODUCTION BEFORE IT IS PLACED ON THE STAGE OF THE NEW FOUR SEASONS CENTRE FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS IN SEPTEMBER!"

Musically, Götterdämmerung shines. Maestro Richard Bradshaw's interpretation of the score is perfect. It is beautifully nuanced with all of the right emphases placed where required. The score is allowed to breathe and also to give the singers their needed space. The COC Orchestra responds with well-honed ensemble playing. Bradshaw's vassals, borrowing a term from Götterdämmerung, are loyally at his command.

Bradshaw also chose his singers well for his Götterdämmerung. There are, of course, the two central figures in this final episode of Der Ring des Nibelungen (Ring of the Nibelung). Frances Ginzer reprises the role of Brünnhilde. Her fine soprano voice delighted us in this role in the COC's productions of Die Walküre (The Valkyrie) in 2004 and in Siegfried in 2005. German heldentenor Christian Franz returned to sing the hero Siegfried, whom he so ably performed in the selfnamed production last year. We meet them first in Götterdämmerung in the second scene of the Prologue, but more of that later.

The first scene in this prologue belongs to the three Norns, the three fates from Nordic mythology, whom we see weaving the rope of destiny that allows them and the goddess Erda to see the future. In the current production, they are not winding it — as is usual — around the old World Ash tree that we saw in a withered state in Walküre and Siegfried. Instead, as they pass the rope's strands back and forth, it is attached to high steel towers. Above the Norns, the rope's multiple strands give the impression of power or telephone lines. This is one of the many what I call 'confused' metaphors in this production. These lines remain with us throughout the entire production in a kind of brutal reference to the modern world of communications.

Of course, since this is the final episode in Wagner's huge tetralogy, the rope breaks and the Norns lose their ability to foresee what lies ahead. But we know, if we remember the leitmotifs from previous productions of the Ring Cycle, because we hear the musical themes of the cursed ring, Siegfried's horn and his sword, Northung.

Danish contralto Mette Ejsing, who sang Erda in Siegfried, is the First Norn. Her sister-Norns are sung by Beijing-born mezzo-soprano Guang Yang and German soprano Brigit Beckherrn, both in their COC debut. Their voices harmonize well as they, in Wagner's way, summarize for the audience of what has gone before and why the World Ash Tree has withered. The three, in their trench coats of varying length, gray for Yang and Ejsing, brown for Beckherrn, set the tone of the production, where gray is the dominant shade. Only a piercing red light in the dark background and the red of the rope break up this gray world.

After the rope breaks and the Norns absent themselves with the words, "Zu End' ewiges Wissen!/Der Welt melden Weise nichts mehr./Hinab!Zur Mutter! Hinab! (Eternal knowledge is at an end!/The wise will report nothing more to the world/Down! To mother [Erda]!Down!)", the scene shifts to Brünnhilde and Siegfried.

He sits, as if lost in thought, on a rumpled bed in the foreground of the stage while Brünnhilde lets him know she understands that she has to let him go to perform new deeds. Her Valkyrie dress hangs on a line to one side, while she is dressed in a long negligee and open, flowing dressing gown. Siegfried wears trousers, shirt and a long leather coat. It is a hard scene to view because it conveys not the love that supposedly binds them, but the aftermath of a casual sexual encounter that has now come to an end.

The tender touching of searching fingers at the end of last year's Siegfried production is not transferred to director Tim Albery's Götterdämmerung, though they briefly reach out to each other. Wagner's overwrought lyrics elicit no spark between these two performers despite some fine singing. Most of all, Albery's direction fails to draw out any kind of heroic image from the hero, and Franz seems unable to overcome the initial inertia of that scene. His Siegfried just slinks off stage with a haversack slung over one shoulder and his trusty sword, Northung, in hand after he gives Brünnhilde his ring and she, in exchange, gives him her steed, Grane, though the horse is never seen.

Act I takes us to the Hall of the Gibichungs, where we meet Hagen (LEFT), half-brother of Gunther and Gutrune. Swedish bass Mats Almgren sings the cunning Hagen. This tall Swede, in his debut with the COC, is, without a doubt, the most powerful performer in this production. He moves, catlike, across the stage, and his voice commands our attention whenever it is heard. Gunther (baritone John Fanning), although the older of the two brothers, defers to Hagen, whom he thinks wiser then himself. Fanning has the perfect voice for the role and he performs ineptitude exceedingly well, as he lets Hagen dupe him, his sister (soprano Joni Henson), and later Siegfried: a duping that will lead to all of their doom.

Set designer Michael Levine somehow failed to bring to this setting the skills of previous productions in this cycle. A white curtain, stretching the length of the stage, cuts off the view from the 'hall' to the Rhine. It gives the impression that the production has suddenly fallen on bad times. At stage left sits a large desk with a red computer monitor screen, at stage right is a set of cheep looking red settees that look as if they had been picked up from a Sally Anne sale. The brothers are dressed in gray business suits, Gutrune in a gray skirt and blouse. She looks more like the overworked secretary of these two, then the hostess of a grand hall. There is something naive about this concept of Gibichung as the hard world of business, which appears to have no grace. It is almost a slap in the face of the hand that feeds this production.

When Siegfried stumbles more than walks into this setting with sword in hand, the whole ensemble is so ludicrous that the moment has arrived in which one isn't sure whether to laugh or cry. When he shows the tarnhelm (a cap that makes the wearer invisible or transforms him into other forms) in the form of a crown, which he pulls from his backpack, we are definitely in the land of 'confused' metaphors.

Our naive hero drinks a potion that makes him forget Brünnhilde. He then agrees to win her for Gunther. At the same time he falls madly in love with Gutrune and immediately woos her for himself. There is a scene when Siegfried and Gunther slice their arms slightly with the sword to drop blood into a drink so they can drink blood-brotherhood. Let us remember this takes place in a setting in which a computer monitor sits on a desk.

Scene three of Act I finds us back at Brünnhilde's lair, where she receives a surprise visit from her sister Waltraute (Yang). The Valkyrie has defied her father, Wotan, and left Valhalla to warn Brünnhilde of impending doom unless she relinquishes the cursed Nibelung ring that Siegfried gave her without knowing its power. This is one of the instances where two excellent voices and fine direction create one of the glory moments in this production. The only drawback, that is for those who understand German, is that Wagner's libretto reveals that he was no Schiller. Oh, for a desperately needed good dramaturge, though I doubt Wagner would have accepted any criticism.

Of course, Brünnhilde won't heed her sister, and so she finds herself taken by Gunther — actually Siegfried disguised by his tarnhelm — in a semi-rape scene, although in the end he uses the sword to prevent any hanky-panky by placing it between himself and Brünnhilde as they retire on the bed. "Nun, Nothung, zeuge du/dass ich in Züchten warb./Die Treue wahrend dem Bruder,/trenne mich von seiner Braut!" (Now, Nothung, be witness/that my wooing was chaste./To keep faith with my brother,/separate me from his bride!). And so ends Act I.

Back at the Gibichung's Hall, we see Hagen asleep in a very uncomfortable desk chair before a huge boardroom table. Two red computer monitor screens provide glaring color contrast to endless gray. This is another highlight, despite the unlikely setting, of Götterdämmerung. The wicked dwarf Alberich (RIGHT , who is Hagen's father, appears and speaks to his son, who isn't terribly proud to have such a father. Alberich tells his unhappy son that power can be theirs. Hagen tells his father: "frühalt, fahl und bleich,/ hass' ich die Frohen,/freue mich nie!" (prematurely old, pale and wan,/I hate the happy/am never glad!). Baritone Richard Paul Fink is an outstanding Alberich, vocally and in his grovelling, venal tone as he snakes across the table to reach his son's side. We must remember, when all is over, it is Alberich who will be the sole survivor. As a new world order is supposed to start, evil remains.

When Siegfried, Gunther, and Brünnhilde return to Gibichung, the boardroom table turns into a stage from which she curses her erstwhile husband, Siegfried, for having betrayed her. This is Ginzer's shining moment as she lets loose, surrounded by a horde of men in gray suits — the vassals of Gibichung — who sit on red secretary chairs, and whom Hagen called as witnesses. Hagen later tricks her into revealing Siegfried's one weak spot that will allow the wily schemer to kill the hero, and put him in possession of the Nibelung's ring.

A hunt is arranged, and all the gray suits, ties and all, go into the forest to hunt. Here is another 'confused' metaphor. Is this a boardroom plot in some capitalist empire, with the gray suits hunting their prey down the corridors of power? As for Hagen, he gets his prey, but not his reward. There is also the encounter of Siegfried with the Rhinemaidens from whom Alberich originally stole the gold for the Nibelung's ring. When we first encounter them they look like mudpuppies who then transform themselves into blue-haired sex kittens. These are soprano Laura Whalen (Woodbird in last season's Siegfried), mezzo-sopranos Colleen Skull and Allyson McHardy. Aside from quite lovely wrought singing, the overall effect of this scene achieves its aim. This can, however, not be said of the encounter the Rhinemaidens have with Hagen. Unless onlookers know what happens here, this scene will be lost on them. Some directorial and staging clarity is badly needed here.

More one does not want to tell, but it must be said that two more exquisite moments await us. Siegfried's death scene is not only well staged, but Franz finally comes through, completely convincing vocally and emotionally. The other is the final end of the story, when the crowd around the funeral pyre is transformed into the glowing, burning Valhalla, without any cheesy castle appearing in the sky. Oh, if only the rest of the production could be so seamlessly staged.

Siegfried and the Rhinemaidens

Photos courtesy Canadian Opera Company