Guest Post--The Rheingold Process, by DAS RHEINGOLD'S Woglinde
My name is Jillian Finnamore. I am singing Woglinde—one of the Rhinemaidens—in Das Rheingold. Our upcoming production is the first installment of the full Ring Cycle, performing through November 2024.
We’ve now completed three full weeks of rehearsal and have begun to run the entire opera. This week we continue run-throughs and then begin rehearsing with the orchestra.
Our production is blowing me away. I’m amazed at the casting done by Artistic Director Ben Woodward. Each cast member is stunning in their particular roles. It requires much to lead an opera company, and Maestro Ben Woodward is not only a wonderful conductor and visionary, he’s also an artist who understands the requirements of a safe space in which to rehearse.
Our director—Caroline Staunton of the Berlin Staatsoper—has been working with all of us to access the authentic emotional truth of our roles. It has taken time, safe space, and amazing directing to access these truths in the music and libretto.
During the second Berlin lockdown—all seven months of it--tenor Howard Hutt and I rehearsed intensively with both Caroline and Ben in what became, in many respects, a bit of an unofficial young artist program. For three months, we worked together several times a week to bring out the emotional truths in both our audition arias and the operas Tosca, Un Ballo in Maschera, Madama Butterfly, and La Bohème. Through that transformational process, both Ben and Caroline became trusted members of my personal artistic team.
I can’t even begin to describe what my experience has been like as a woman to meet a director who fundamentally understands music and text in a direct manner and without the pre-conceived norms of patriarchy. In my personal journey, I have long studied ancient forms of femininity in order to seek beyond the lens of patriarchy and remember what it means to embody power, vulnerability, and sexuality as a woman.
And yet, when working with Caroline, I still find myself shocked at the level of socialized patriarchy that still exists within me. Our Rhinemaiden scene, for example, has shifted from three obnoxious women who torment poor Alberich, to three women who protect each other while Alberich is attempting to violate them. Because the Rhinemaidens have traditionally been made so one-dimensional, it took Caroline to help us see the obvious truth in the scene.
Each scene in the opera now carries this level of emotional truth. I am thrilled to be a part of this kind of art, to create on this level.
Come to our show. It will rock your world.
