Hi-Tech Nonsense and Mr. Loaf at the Met

Richard Wagner’s “Das Rheingold,†the first opera in Robert Lepage and Carl Fillion’s restaging of Richard Wagner’s massive, four-opera marathon of passion, greed, trickery, betrayal, heroism and death, is a washout.

   As seen and heard in last Saturday’s HD broadcast, the much ballyhooed production was all lumbering set made up of metallic panels like piano keys that twisted and turned to represent the river Rhine, or a stairway down to Nibelheim under the earth, or steps up to Valhalla, the new castle of the gods. And there was a light show ­— sometimes good, as in evoking the rhythms of the river or the hot, fiery Nibelheim forges, sometimes off the mark as in giving us a rainbow bridge that looked like a highway.

   What we had been promised by Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, in a self-congratulatory welcome to the broadcast, was state-of-the-art, high-tech projections and stage wizardry that would bring this mythical story to life in new, magical ways: an “Avatar†for the opera world, I suppose. What we got was a weak rehash of Lepage’s ideas for Cirque de Soleil and his 2008 “Damnation of Faust†at the Met.

   The Rhinemaidens here are mermaids simulating swimming underwater while flying — and singing — on wires high above the stage. Projections of bubbles come from their mouths. Then they come to rest and make strange, squealing noises as the dwarf Alberich steals their gold ­­— by putting it in a bag and walking offstage —  to start the tragic story on its way to Gotterdamerung.

   Body doubles appear frequently to walk up vertical walls or down nearly vertical stairs. And Loge, demigod of fire, frequently walks backward, pulled by visible wires, up a steeply raked surface. Toward what purpose, who knows?

   And that is the real trouble with the production: Despite its high-tech hype, it deals with the characters in a straight- forward, old-fashioned way that reveals nothing about them individually. They mostly stand to sing then move about without purpose. There are no new thoughts or revelations about motivations.

   In the broadcast, the singers seemed good, some even terrific.While Bryn Terfel, the famous Welsh bass-baritone, sang an adequate Wotan, he often seemed tentative. But who wouldn’t in a frightful costume and Veronica Lake wig that made him look like the rock singer Meat Loaf? (Full disclosure: Mr. Loaf is my cousin.) Stephanie Blythe was a full-voice Fricka, though her 19th-century gown resembled one Montserrat Caballe used to wear to minimize her girth.

   How odd, then, that Richard Croft, the Loge so good on the screen, was booed during curtain calls. It turns out that in the opera house, he couldn’t be heard past the front orchestra.  Nor could the Rhinemaidens.  Nor could several of the other singers who seemed so good and clear in the broadcast. So what we get in theaters is not what the audience gets at Lincoln Center.

     “Das Rheingold†will be repeated at the Mahaiwe Oct. 17, at 1 p.m. Tickets are available at the box office, 413-528-0100, or online at mahaiwe.org.