Rahway as a New Jersey Bayreuth

Die Walküre. Charles Schneider (Wotan), Elizabeth Perryman (Brünnhilde), Joseph Mayon (Siegmund), Elisabeth Shoup (Sieglinde), Lorraine Helvick (Fricka), Steven Fredericks (Hunding), Tara Jamshidian (Gerhilde), Analía Corpas (Ortlinde), Anna Viemeister (Waltraute), Brittany Walker (Schwertleite), Roseanne Ackerley (Helmwige), Mary Hochgesang (Siegrune), Lori Rohrs (Grimgerde), Julianne Froehlich (Roßweiße); Orchestra of the New Jersey Opera Theater with Thomas Gaynor (organist)/Hugh Keelan; Dennis Oliveira (director/designer), Joseph Mayon (costumes), Taylor Droege (lighting). Rahway Theater, Union County Performing Arts Center, New Jersey, 27 July 2024

Every now and then in an operagoer’s life, the constellation of essential component elements of work, theatre, artists and occasion that differentiate a memorable evening from one more routine are so perfectly aligned as to create magic and disarm criticism. This happens with considerable regularity in the composer’s own Festspielhaus in Bayreuth, which explains why we so eagerly anticipate our annual pilgrimages up the Green Hill. We are delighted to report that such a rare chemistry occurred on 27 July 2024 at the Rahway Theater within the Union County Performing Arts Center (UCPAC) with the New Jersey Opera Theater production of Die Walküre, signifying the launch of a potent new force in the New York City area Wagnerian opera landscape. The creative visionary director of this new company is a well-regarded dramatic tenor and experienced Wagnerian Joseph Mayon, who was also the excellent Volsung hero for the evening.

Mayon had forged an ensemble of professional vocalists with varied amounts of prior experience in Wagner, but who were all inspired under his leadership and that of the seasoned conductor, Hugh Keelan, to deliver a deeply satisfying evening of music drama. There was no weak link in this cast of regionally experienced concert and opera artists, even though none, except for Mahon, had previously focused their career in the Wagner repertoire. In addition to Mayon’s especially fine Siegmund, we note for particular mention the nuanced, affecting Sieglinde of Elisabeth Shoup, the impressively imperious Fricka of Lorraine Helvick, and the powerful Wotan of Charles Schneider. It is remarkable that Schneider, a widely experienced and locally favoured artist, had not performed a Wagner role prior to this evening; even so, he was ‘to the manner born’ for this extremely demanding assignment. With more opportunity to explore further the inherent subtleties possible within this complex character, his interpretation will only grow in stature, but, already, the elements of a commanding Lord of Valhalla are all present in his attractive, well-produced Heldenbariton. The eight warrior maiden sisters of Brünnhilde made for a standout ‘Ride’ sequence, with a special mention for the strongly voiced Gerhilde of Tara Jamshidian who will star as the Siegfried Brünnhilde for the company in 2025.  

Working in close collaboration with the talented stage director Dennis Oliviera, Mayon provided an impressively smart evening of Wagner that served as the perfect capstone to this 95th-anniversary celebration season of the venerable Rahway Theater. With this production the New Jersey Opera Company team paid homage to the ‘Roaring 20s’ (1928, to be precise) – the time of the opening of this theatre, which coincided with a uniquely tumultuous moment in the American cultural landscape. This was the height of the Jazz Age and of Prohibition, complete with ‘flappers, ‘Lost Generation’ writers (such as F. Scott Fitzgerald of Great Gatsby fame), and the rise of colourful if infamous warring organised crime bosses like Al (Scarface) Capone and George (‘Bugs’) Moran. This interwar period was also notable in America, and especially in the New York City area, for a resurgence in Wagner performances, after the German opera ban during the Great War, championed by musical giants such as Walter Damrosch in radio broadcast programming, Arturo Toscanini with the New York Philharmonic in the concert hall, and Artur Bodansky at the Metropolitan Opera. In this same period was witnessed the advent of the ‘Talkies’ in multipurpose, opulent movie ‘palaces’ which were rapidly being built across America. The historic 1334-seat Rahway Theater – the centrepiece of the Union County Performing Arts Center – with its Wurlitzer pipe organ (an American Theater Organ Society-rated Level 1 Quality Instrument), ample orchestra pit, and well-appointed public spaces, is a model of such a general-purpose venue. Indeed, after the horrors of recent war and pandemic disease (i.e. the 1918–20 Great Influenza epidemic), the appetite for entertainment and culture, especially Wagner among opera- and concert-goers, was at fever pitch, and like Siegmund, Americans were running headlong through the storm and into an unknown and dangerous future.

Remarkably, Mayon and his team were able to make use of all of these ‘Roaring 20s’ associations and resonances in his production, showing off this period theatre, with its famous organ, to optimal advantage and transporting the audience back to this bygone era. The 1920s theme was carried through into an elegantly simple yet effective staging and evocative costuming, the latter smartly picking up on 1920s dress for the ‘mortal’ Volsung twins and Hunding, while presenting the demi-gods and gods in the more traditional winged helmet garb that period Met audiences would have seen. Considerable use was made of video projections and film clips to set the ‘Roaring 20s’ mood throughout, and to provide a suitably terrifying backdrop of chaos and carnage with World War I battlefield scenes for the third-act opening Ride of the Valkyries. The internationally regarded musician, British-born Hugh Keelan, who also founded TUNDI Productions, a Wagner-oriented opera company based in Brattleboro, Vermont, served as the conductor for this remarkable evening. Keelan, together with organist Thomas Gaynor, deserves particular credit for the musical success of this complete performing version of Walküre in which a reduced orchestra of about two dozen professional and talented non-professional instrumentalists from the greater New York City area were supplemented by the sound of this famous, well-named ‘Biggest Little Wurlitzer’. The presence of the organ conjured up the sounds of a 1920s popular theatre experience, as did the jazz combo which performed at intermissions.

The New Jersey Opera Theater is a company to be watched and supported. Although not exclusively presenting Wagner, Mayon has ambitious plans for a World War II-era sequel to Walküre with Siegfried planned next for 2025, and Parsifal in preparation for 2026. He is proving that intelligent, carefully thought-through productions led by well-rehearsed artists and infused with high musical standards can tackle even these supremely challenging works of the Wagner canon. Our only small quibble with the evening was that the 30-minute jazz-accompanied intermissions were all too brief. Next time, why not follow the Bayreuth model and start at 4pm (not 5pm as at present) and give us an hour to wander and revel in the local environs? Under Joseph Mahon’s and Hugh Keelan’s combined inspired leadership, Rahway and its venerable UCPAC could be transformed, if only for a brief shining moment each summer, into a New Jersey Bayreuth.