The first act of Lyric Opera’s new production of Siegfried is a triumph for director David Pountney, who’s put the four operas of Richard Wagner’s mythic, fairy-tale-like Ring Cycle into a self-consciously theatrical steampunk setting.
There’s a big backstory. The Ring Cycle is a family drama, and its patriarch is Wotan, chief of the gods, sung (royally and on stilts) by bass-baritone Eric Owens. Years earlier, Wotan got it on with the earth goddess, Erda (mezzo-soprano Ronnita Miller); they had a child, the maiden-warrior Brünnhilde (she of the horned helmet and flying steed), who became his favorite daughter. In a previous episode (er, opera), Brünnhilde rebelled against Wotan, and he put her into a comalike sleep. Wotan also fathered a pair of half-human twins—Siegmund and Sieglinde—who, in a union promptly followed by their deaths, produced Siegfried.
Wed 11/7 and Sun 11/11, 1 PM; Fri 11/16, 6 PM, Lyric Opera House, 20 N. Wacker, 312-827-5600, lyricopera.org, $119-$299.
