![]() The problem was solved by drafting in Gina Lapinski, an associate director in this production who had rehearsed the singers in their gymnastics, and while she turned circles and mouthed the words on stage, Sarah Heltzell sang the part from the pit. Gauze and lighting make it look as though they are indeed underwater. The three Rhine maidens are suspended from a kind of trapeze, pivoted at the waist to allow them to spin their bodies through complete circles or, assuming a horizontal position, to imitate swimming. ![]() Finding a substitute voice from within the cast of the Ring cycle was not difficult, but no understudy could be expected to master the actions required in this super-realistic production. “One of our Rhine daughters has eaten some bad fish and got sick,” announced Speight Jenkins, the general director of the Seattle Opera before the curtain went up on Wagner’s Das Rheingold. Review by Michael Portillo of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen performed by Seattle Opera, for The New Statesman, August 2005.
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