In various different fora (R3, r3ok and elsewhere) I've inveighed against the abysmal production values and absence of staging technique in the Mariinsky RING cycle currently
cynically pumping cash out of mug punters touring the world to lacklustre reviews. This shambles has been going on now for 3 years since the production first debuted, and it seems that the poor critical response (and its impact on box-office) has finally goaded Gergiev into a complete makeover for the production.
EVENING STANDARD
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/music/article-23710924-details/Meet+Valery+Gergiev+-+the+total+conductor/article.doA production in which Wotan is bumbling around on the other side of the stage at the moment of his heart-wrenching farewell to his beloved daughter is clearly off the rails. The "Ride of the Valkyries" (a line-up of Valkyries standing on the edge of the stage and singing the music into the auditorium whilst motionless - and doubled-up for extra volume, hello?) is a grim travesty.
How it happened that an entire RING cycle was staged without a stage-director has become the topic of some controversy in the Russian musical press. The first attempt at a cycle was booed-off when a visiting German stage-designer (who had never directe an opera ever) staged the whole of VALKYRIE on four conference-room tables. This RING was promptly cancelled, and a restart made. Popular theory suggests that talented stage-director Julia Pevsner was engaged to stage it - but that Gergiev refused to allow her to work and constantly interfered in her production. Did she jump, or was she pushed? Pevsner has maintained a diplomatic silence. Gergiev and the scenery-designer "staged" (!!) the opera between them - resulting in some of the most farcically poor work ever seen in an allegedly "international-level" opera house.
Let's hope that Gergiev's change of mind will finally make this RING cycle watchable - rather being a poorly-rehearsed simulacrum of a production churned-out to make a quick buck from the Mariinsky's increasingly dubious brand-name :(