| PRODUCT DETAILS | | Wagner - Der Ring des Nibelungen / Pierre Boulez, Bayreuth Opera (Complete Ring Cycle, Parts 1-4) |  | |
Wagner - Der Ring des Nibelungen / Pierre Boulez, Bayreuth Opera (Complete Ring Cycle, Parts 1-4)
The first opera (the prologue) in Wagner's Ring Cycle, Das Rheingold, is a beautifully conducted and thoughtfully staged performance. As soon as the clouds of mist have dissipated, while the daring, long-held opening chord is still reverberating, the screen clears to show not only the River Rhine and the three maidens (dressed like prostitutes in this production) assigned to guard the gold hidden there. It also shows an enormous dam (not mentioned in Wagner's text). This is the underwater base of a hydroelectric plant, and its presence tells us two things immediately: that this production takes the story out of the vaguely medieval fantasy world in which Wagner had placed it, and that a basic theme of the four-opera cycle would be power. Alberich, the Nibelung, is willing to renounce the love of women, after stealing the gold from the Rhine, to become the ruler of the world. Another basic theme is greed. The cast is uniformly excellent. The approach of stage director Patrice Chereau carefully balances realism, symbolism, and fantasy. The two giants (Matti Salminen and Fritz Hübner) tower over the gods who are waiting to enter the newly constructed Valhalla; Loge (brilliantly played by Heinz Zednick) appears in a burst of flame; the subterranean lair of the Nibelungs looks something like a prison and something like a mass-production sweatshop. In contrast, the gods look like members of a rather aimless leisure class. Freia, the goddess of youth (Carmen Reppel), whose fate is one of the basic items in the plot, is presented as a lovely but helpless beauty queen. Pierre Boulez conducts this episode. like the entire cycle, with power and precision. Wagner's ideas of "racial purity" reach a logical conclusion in Act I of Die Walküre. Siegfried, the tragic hero of the cycle, is begotten in an adulterous, incestuous mating of Siegmund (Peter Hoffmann) and Sieglinde (Jeanne Altmeyer), a twin brother and sister. No miscegenation here. Siegfried will not be seen until the next opera in the cycle. For now, the Valkyries (after their famous, musically spectacular ride) are asked to protect Sieglinde, his pregnant mother-to-be, until he can be born. His father is killed in a fight with Hunding, Sieglinde's brutish husband, with Wotan intervening against his will to help the wronged spouse. Wotan has been forced by his wife Fricka, who is the goddess of marriage, elegantly played by Hanna Schwartz. Her victory is a striking display of Wotan's diminishing powers. Brunnhilde, Wotan's daughter and leader of the Valkyries (Gwyneth Jones), disobeys a paternal prohibition, rescues Sieglinde and hides her in safety to wait out her pregnancy. For this, she is punished by losing her divine status and being left asleep for years, surrounded by a circle of magic fire, until a hero (Siegfried, who has not yet been born) will come to rescue her. This episode is extremely well-sung, with particularly notable work by Hoffmann, Altmeyer, Schwartz, Jones and Donald McIntyre as Wotan, while conductor Pierre Boulez and director Patrice Chéreau work smoothly together to define the opera's overall form and continuity. Siegfried is the most eventful of the four Ring operas: the hero of the cycle grows to maturity, forges his father's broken sword Notung, kills the dragon Fafner and the dwarf Mime, takes the cursed ring, frees Brunnhilde from the spell that has kept her asleep, and falls in love with her. It is all presented, powerfully and as efficiently as the self-indulgent text will permit. Not seen in the cycle's previous operas are Manfred Jung (Siegfried) and Norma Sharp (the Forest Bird), the central figure of the cycle and one of the most peripheral. Sharp is lovely in her brief appearance. Jung is the most controversial bit of casting in the cycle; his voice and acting have been criticized, but they seem to be up to the standard for this role, Perhaps the criticism really applies to Siegfried, who is neither intelligent nor compassionate, but a naive youth who knows nothing of the world and has never seen a woman. Jung conveys these qualities effectively. Wagner's ideal hero turns out to be a bit of a proto-Nazi in his own naive way, swaggering arrogantly, killing the dragon Fafner and the dwarf Mime with hardly a second thought, and blithely assuming that he deserves all the good fortune that comes his way. Wagner may have thought he was inventing another sort of hero, but this Siegfried rather faithfully reflects his creator's personality. Jung's characterization faithfully follows the text of the opera and it is compelling for those who can take their Wagner without illusions, those who have come to terms, for example, with the self-centered, unsympathetic personality that emerges from his wife Cosima's voluminous and blindly adoring diaries. According to director Patrice Chereau, "Götterdämmerung undoubtedly presents a world in which no values exist any more... a world in which it is difficult for anyone to believe in anything any longer." It is truly, as its title proclaims, "The twilight of the gods." Siegfried is tricked, drugged, and treacherously murdered by power-hungry humans, deceived into betraying Brunnhilde, who remains faithful without hope. An air of weariness and decadence pervades the action and much of the music (though the score includes two of Wagner's finest instrumental inventions: Siegfried's Rhine journey and his funeral music.) A new note is the introduction of a chorus of humans (effectively used by Chereau) for the first time in the cycle. The heyday of the gods is over; now, world domination is sought by a human family, the Gibichungs. The cursed ring is stolen from Brunnhilde, who has kept it as a token of Siegfried's love. Siegfried, who has taken the ring in disguise, has been drugged and deceived into wooing Gutrune, a Gibichung. Brunnhilde is forced to marry Gunther, another Gibichung, but still faithful to Siegfried she commits suicide on his funeral pyre. The fire spreads to destroy Valhalla. The ring, snatched from Siegfried's dead hand, is dropped into the Rhine, where it is restored to its rightful place, and the situation returns to the normality of the time before Das Rheingold. The Gibichungs, new to the cycle, are well-portrayed by Franz Mazura and Jeanne Altmeyer, and Fritz Hübner is impressive as the treacherous Hagen. Gwemdolyn Killibrew stands out as Brunnhilde's ally Waltraute. As always, Pierre Boulez conducts with a clear vision of the total work. --Joe McLellan
Manufacturer: Deutsche Grammophon
Price: $68.17
 Wagner - Der Ring des Nibelungen / Pierre Boulez, Bayreuth Opera (Complete Ring Cycle, Parts 1-4)
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| User Reviews |  | Bad Review/Legendary Stage Production/Terrible Video Direction
rating: 4
This Bayreuth centennial production of Wagner's Ring is historically one of the most celebrated and scandalous in the entire history of the festival. It's strengths and weaknesses have been well documented for over thirty years, from the controversial staging by a young filmmaker to the consistancy (or lack of) of the cast.
Although the cast is a group of some of the best Wagnerians at time, it is sometimes painfully obvious that not every generation has a Nilsson/Flagstad/Melchior caliber of singer, but over all the music is served well. Gwyneth Jones in particle was inconsitant vocally, her upper register at times sounding worn, flapping in the breeze uncontrollably. On a good day however, she could sing like an absolute goddess. Here she is NOT a goddess, but her high notes don't flap either....at least not too much. Her strongest point in this production is her stage acting...she is intense and unashamedly committed to Chereau's direction. Her Siegfried, Manfred Jung, is serviceable and not much more, which isn't neccesarily a bad thing considering the demands of the role. Jung also stepped in at the last minute a few years later and saved the Solti/Hall Ring when Reiner Goldberg fizzled out. Also notable is a young Peter Hoffman as Siegmund near the start of his short operatic career. Overall the singers may not be great, but they are good.
Chereau's Marxist 19th century setting is definitely not to everyone's taste, but at least he has specific ideas that work, for good or bad.
While Chereau's direction is cutting edge and exciting, it is Brian Large's camera work that is the major flaw in this set. He has been called the most musical video director today with a keen eye for detail, but detail can be nothing and even destroy art if you miss the forest for the trees. To completely ignore the entire production because of a fascination with the second tenor from the left, or to ignore Desdemona's death just to get an extreme close-up of Placido Domingo's right eye and nostril, or to edit out the end of Don Carlos because we have to see Nicolai Ghiaurov in close up pining away, is downright heinous. While close ups add to the theatrical experience when done correctly at appropriate times, it should NOT be done at the expense of the entire production. At times I wish they had set up a single camera dead center with the entire stage in view...and left it alone. It is absolutely maddening to be forced for eternity to watch a small fraction of the drama with a flicker of flame in the corner of the screen, or obvious stage action just off-camera. Thank heavens BJ didn't direct something like Ben-Hur or no one would ever know who won the chariot race since the camera would be zoomed in on some Judean Noble-person in row 47.
Overall, this is a memorable document of one of the high points in Bayreuth's controversial history, permantly marred by subjectively selective camera work.
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my initiation,
rating: 4
My main reason for reviewing this is to criticize the Amazon sin-opsis given on this page. The references to Nazism are completely out of place. please, save this for some secret meeting somewhere. Sure, I'm aware of Wagner's "jews in Music" and whatnot. But Jesus didn't cause the Hundred Years War, did he? I don't know, maybe he did. Basically, I think the review is slightly objective but too whiny and cranky little baby stuff..."oh, siegfried didn't ask the dragon's permission to kill it" boo-hoo....When will it ever end? And why mix in the 'racial purity' joke about the incest element? That isn't funny to me, because it is completely out of line with the scenario. The incest has nothing to do with the supposed Nazi blood purity schlogg. Okay, Parsifal definitely has some overtones in that direction. but the incest is more about proto-alchemical manifestations of the sub-kawnshiss....anyway. I really dig this video, never saw it on DVD...and this official Amazon review was pretty insulting, It's writer is probably a real whining dish rag
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TWO MAJOR DEFECTS MAR AN OTHERWISE SPLENDID PRODUCTION
rating: 4
I enjoyed this Ring cycle a great deal, but I had two huge problems with it. First, this Ring cycle rips all four installments out of their mythological context and sets them in the 19th century. The result is an absurd mish-mash of mythological and realistic elements that obscures the cycle's meaning and, above all, its magic. Take the great set-piece with Hagen's men in "Gotterdammerung." Hagen's vassals are here a citizen militia rounded up from the local proletariat. How absurd is the sight of these French-looking working class townspeople singing in German and wielding long, primitive spears while being instructed by Hagen, dressed in suit and tie, to "kill a boar for Froh, and sacrifice a goat to Donner, but slaughter sheep for Fricka"? What are these mythological gods doing in this setting, and why are 19th century working class people sacrificing to them? Or take Siegfried: in one scene he's dashing about with his sword and primitive hunting horn while in the next he's elegantly strolling about in a tuxedo. Wearing a tux doesn't preclude you from also being a hunter, but that's not how it comes across here. The result is ridiculous. The sets are equal parts realism and surrealism, making for a confused locale. The hunting scene where Siegfried is murdered by Hagen happens in front of a drab, industrial-looking hydraulic dam. Are we in industrial France, in pastoral Germany, in the legendary world of mythology, or in some strange hybrid dimension that weaves in and out of all three? The result is neither one thing nor the other, very half-baked and confusing. According to Chereau, the director, he was working from two principles. First, being primarily a director of nonoperatic theater, he wanted to intensify the music drama's dramaturgical elements--which in my opinion he does splendidly for the most part. For example, the emotionally charged finale where Brunnhilde has the body of Siegfried burned and jumps into the flames is wonderfully staged; I couldn't have asked for better. (Although I did have some problems earlier in the cycle with the lovers rolling around on the floor, and with some excessively histrionic hand gestures that I found unnecessary.) But Chereau is led astray by his second working principle. He explains in the documentary (it's part of the box set and worth watching), "Wagner used mythology to tell the story of his time, the politics of his time." Starting from this (in my view dangerous) premise, Chereau brings out the latent political content that he (Chereau) claims is implicit in the text. I feel this is where Chereau, probably under the spell of George Bernard Shaw, goes astray. As I understand it, Wagner's main concern was in creating archetypes rather than "real" people in "real" contemporary settings. The Ring cycle is not "verismo." If Wagner wanted to set the Ring in his own time and place, he would have done so. Wagner wasn't shooting for "realism," but Chereau IS shooting for it (hence so many of the conflicting tendencies of his production). It's very unfair for Chereau to categorically state that Wagner's "real" intention was to tell the political story of the late nineteenth century, as though the mythology were merely a vehicle or an expendable by-product. On the contrary, Wagner wanted to do away with the usual settings of so much 19th century opera. Making the Ring about the class warfare and ills of the industrial revolution sinks the play into the morass of a politics that is certainly more Chereau's than Wagner's. While a reaction against the industrialization of society is surely implicit in Wagner's romanticism, Chereau inadvertently undermines it by replacing so much of the nature scenery with industrial realism. He has the Rhinemaidens literally crawling out of the gutter (as prostitutes), rather than simply letting them personify the Rhine. Another problem with this Ring cycle is the casting of Siegfried, who here looks more like a middle-aged Barney Rubble from "The Flintstones" than a young mythological hero. Manfred Jung, who plays Siegfried, has a great voice, but lacks the stage presence to pull off the role. The result is a Siegfried that is more comic than heroic, though I do recognize that I'm being a bit unfair to Mr. Jung as my objection to him has more to do with his appearance than with his formidable vocal talent. If this had been audio-only, I might not have objected to him. However, despite its setbacks, this production still holds its own, thanks above all to the strong cast and the inspired conducting of Pierre Boulez, one of the greatest conductors of our time. Except for Siegfried, there is no weak link in the cast. Gwyneth Jones, as Brunnhilde, brings an otherwordly quality that is just what the part requires. On a technical audio-visual level, this set is great. It's visually stunning and the sound isn't bad, although I've heard better done in the '70s. I used my amped Sennheiser 650 headphones and it sounded fine. If the production had stuck to a mythological setting and not tried to transpose it to the 19th century, making it about the class struggle between the aristocracy and bourgeoisie and then between the bourgeoisie and proleteriat, and if it had cast a better Siegfried, I would undoubtedly be giving this Ring cycle five solid stars. As it is, it's definitely worth watching and even owning, but remains muddled in artistic conception as far as its staging is concerned. On the other hand, many people like the updated setting, so it's a matter of personal taste and choice and not of production value as the quality of this production is undoubtedly high. [Update: After listening to the Levine and Barenboim Cycles on DVD, this Boulez Cycle remains my favorite, despite Chereau's interpretation.]
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The Best Video Staging of Wagner's Ring
rating: 5
As much as this production detracts from the teutonic tradition that Wagner designed the Ring for, this centenniary production of the Ring with Patrice Chereau as the director, Pierre Boulez as conductor, and Brian Large as the very talented producer, is possibly the best in the market. No, it doesn't have a cast that has the dimension and experience of the Solti or Karajan rings, but without a doubt, it is the most visually engaging and dramatically correct rendition of Wagner's tetralogy. Others would say that the Levine Ring provides the most traditional and faithful production with respect to Wagner's score, and I have no doubts that the sets used in the Met are very beautiful. This set, however, changes the concept from a legendary setting of mountains and god-palaces to a more French social hierarchy environment. The interpretation makes sense, but it isn't only this which makes this Ring come to life. It is the involvement of a very talented conductor and a cast of marvelous singers which make this Ring a most memorable moment.
Donald McIntyre may not have Hans Hotter's great voice or James Morris' great bel canto interpretation of Wotan's role, but it certainly exudes a nobility and a richness absent from other recordings. Gwyneth Jones is a marvelous Brunnhilde. For her alone would I see this Ring day after day. It is note perfect, powerful, and very dramatic. I'd say that she has the best Brunnhilde overall of the ones I've heard.
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Modern staging that makes sense
rating: 4
The first part of this Ring I owned was Gotterdammerung. In that production I noticed that the story, the impact of the drama, was made by the staging of Patrice Chereau and the acting prestations in the first place followed by the vocal performances of the singers. A kind of the other around considering the premise of opera. Having seen all four parts of the Boulez-Ring I stay with that first impression. Expecially Gwyneth Jones and Donald McIntyre are far better actors then they are singers. Their voices cannot bare the weight of the drama required in Die Walkure Act 3 (Brunnhilde and Wotan) and Gotterdammerung Act 3 (Brunnhilde)for example.
The staging, however, is superb. The great thing from this production is that Chereau, not just ripped Wagners Ring from the old German mythology, but replaced it with a world that looks like a combination of Jules Verne and ancient Greek in which an insight in the characters and their motives are given in a way that I did not see before. It is as accessible as an average arthouse movie. Many modern staging just seem to want to get away from the old bearskins and teuton heroism so much that nothing else is offered instead (except leaving the audience with Brunnhilde looking like Christiane F. for instance - Stuttgarter Opera). What I appreciated in the world of the Chereau Ring is it's own atmosphere and use of images and elements that are not just post-modern but also functional. The Wotan-monologue in Act 2 from Die Walkure and the love-duet from Act 3 between Siegfried and Brunnhilde are so cleverly directed that every line sung here is important instead of just asking time from the audience.
Another big plus for me is the conductorship of Pierre Boulez. Fast without rushing, modern with great insight, he lets the music do its work. Personally I prefer that very much over conductors who emphasis to much on the so called dramatic moments and by that destroying the natural flow of the music. With his approach Boulez shows us the richness of Wagners score, instead of converting it into something more one-dimensional.
This is a great Ring cycle and I think a great version to have if you are interested in owning a Ring on DVD.
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Wagner - Der Ring des Nibelungen / Pierre Boulez, Bayreuth Opera (Complete Ring Cycle, Parts 1-4)
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