He is an effective actor, but the strain on his voice was too much halfway through the second act. Opera “Otello” in 2008, dropped out of the title role of “Siegfried” when he arrived in San Francisco for rehearsals, devoting himself only to the heroic role in “Götterdämmerung.” Stemme, the bold and frisky Brünnhilde, went through two Siegfrieds. It can hardly be a coincidence that the women are more strongly cast in the production. Mime, the dwarf who raises Siegfried with hopes of getting him to steal the hoard, works out of a trailer in the shadow of a power plant. When we catch up with “Siegfried” and “Götterdämmerung,” we’ve reached our own time. In “Walküre,” the treasure becomes the source of wealth that built the 1930s skyscraper where Wotan, the king of the gods, has his office. The Rhine’s gold is the same metal the 49ers fought over. Gold at the bottom of any river is a problem. Zambello’s transference of Wagner’s German and Nordic mythical sources across the Atlantic is surprisingly (or maybe not so surprisingly) effortless. “Siegfried” and “Götterdämmerung,” which I saw Friday night and Sunday afternoon, were saved for this year’s complete cycle. “Rheingold” reached the Bay Area in 2008 and “Die Walküre” last summer.

In fact, all the men, in one or another, appear to have nothing but bad days in this woman’s “Ring,” Unlike Achim Freyer’s fanciful, echt-German Los Angeles Opera “Ring” last year, Zambello’s production is a mirror to America, magnifying the mess big business moguls and particularly rapacious oil men have gotten us into.ĭeveloped jointly for Washington National Opera and San Francisco Opera, Zambello’s “Ring” began with “Das Rheingold” in Washington in 2006, but that company has been unable to finance a full cycle.

Sf opera ring cycle