Toronto. (North America).(Die Walkure by Richard Wagner)(Opera Review)

On April 4, 2004, Canadian Opera Company took a historic step with the premiere of its new production of Die Walkure, the beginning of the first-ever Canadian Ring cycle. The Canadian Ring takes a different tack than most in assigning a different stage director to each of the four operas. What will unite the cycle are the designs of Michael Levine, veteran of COC's internationally acclaimed productions of Bluebeard's Castle/Erwartung and Oedipus Rex/Symphony of Psalms.

Judging from Die Walkure; directed by filmmaker Atom Egoyan (seen April 8 and 14), Levine has created a design eminently suitable to multilayered interpretation. All three acts take place in what seems to be a collapsed theater. Catwalks with lighting instruments have crashed into the floor, and the floor itself has crumbled to reveal a circle of earth beneath. Here, the ash tree that conventionally supports Hunding's dwelling has been felled and sectioned. Behind this scene of desolation are two enormous white coffered doors, one slightly open, that come to represent Valhalla. The homeless, shabbily clad humans live rough, while the gods dress in Victorian elegance. The gods' grandeur, wrought at the expense of man's penury, has plunged the world into crisis. Levine has created a space where the action can be viewed simultaneously as myth, theater and ritual.

Egoyan makes a few metatheatrical gestures. Hunding interacts with the Walsungs conjured up by Siegfried's narrative. During "Was keinem in Worten ich kunde," Wotan buries replicas of the sleeping Siegmund and Sieglinde. When Brunnhilde appears to Siegfried, he tears away the shroud she ...