# The Ring



## Edward Elgar

Has anyone actually listened to all four operas? If so, I take my hat off to you! I wouldn't have the patience! 

I watched a bit of Siegfried and I thought it was more of a comedy than an epic! Siegfried was a total nutter who set a bear on the man who'd looked after him from childhood! He'd lived with the man nearly all his life, and yet still hadn't found the corpse of his dead mother lying in the corner of his home! Wierd or what?


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## sebastianglabo

its long as hell but its marvelous music! being a horn player its hard not to like the wagner ring cycle.


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## Manuel

Edward Elgar said:


> Has anyone actually listened to all four operas? If so, I take my hat off to you! I wouldn't have the patience!
> 
> I watched a bit of Siegfried and I thought it was more of a comedy than an epic! Siegfried was a total nutter who set a bear on the man who'd looked after him from childhood! He'd lived with the man nearly all his life, and yet still hadn't found the corpse of his dead mother lying in the corner of his home! Wierd or what?


Well... there is this thing... the Bayreuther Festspiele.

...

They kind of play the whole cycle over and over, and over again.*

So I guess YES. Someone MUST have listened to all four operas.

Take your time, if you like opera you will surrender to The Ring sooner or later.

*Good bless them for this.


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## Frasier

I've heard the operas separately, seen a couple on TV but I doubt I have the aural stamina to sit through the lot over a weekend at Bayreuth. Costs a large fortune too. 

I agree with Edward Elgar's comments about Siegfried! And all on the say-so of some bird that creeps into the mise en scene!


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## IAmKing

I haven't heard all of them, what I have heard I love. 

Die Walkurie is on at the Lincoln Center next month (or was it this month) I believe... I hope to attend.


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## Caronome

I would definitely listen to all of them if some one could maybe suggest a good recording =)=)
(is there a good one with James Morris?? I'm a sucker for his Wotan!!)

~Pace e Gioia~


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## Manuel

> I would definitely listen to all of them if some one could maybe suggest a good recording =)=)
> (is there a good one with James Morris?? I'm a sucker for his Wotan!!)


Bayreuth 1952. Keilberth conducts the whole Ring, and it's awsome.


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## Frasier

Probably better to rent DVDs - or buy them as they compete easily with CDs and you do see some action (not a lot but you know Wagner. As Verdi said.....). 

Siegfried is an entirely male cast except for a woodbird who takes up a couple of minutes.


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## Chi_townPhilly

Hello! This Wagner aficionado has come out of lurk today! I agree with you, Senor M, regarding "surrendering" to the Ring. As Bill Parker once wrote: "you can waste time walking around it, but it would be better to just climb up and explore it." For preliminary explorations of the Ring, a "tour-guide" can be of help. The best one I know of of Deryck Cooke's two-CD "Introduction."


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## johnnyx

I've been listening to Solti's Ring cycle, and it is highly recommended.


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## Chi_townPhilly

*Running commentary on Ring cycle welcomed*



johnnyx said:


> I've been listening to Solti's Ring cycle, and it is highly recommended.


Kudos for striking out from base camp and campaigning towards the summit! If there are observations you wish to share, feel free to post them. In terms of scale, you have to make an interdisciplinary comparison to do justice to _The Ring_ (examples: Proust's _Remembrance of Things Past_ or Michaelangelo's painting of the Sistene Chapel). It's _that_ significant in Western Art. The exploration might raise questions, too. I'm just one person- but I'll apply what I know to responding.


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## sufeyang

碟买了好久了，只是到现在还是对这部大作提不起兴趣...


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## Krummhorn

sufeyang said:


> 碟买了好久了，只是到现在还是对这部大作提不起兴趣...


Uhuh  Care to translate this for us, sufeyang?


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## sufeyang

I just mean that I bought the CDs several years ago, but each time when I tried to get down to it ,I always lose my patience.Maybe Wagner is too heavy for me.


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## JohnM

Edward Elgar said:


> Has anyone actually listened to all four operas? If so, I take my hat off to you! I wouldn't have the patience!


Yep, sure have! - They are wonderful but you're absolutely right - what a mammoth task. Having said that, I'd much rather spend a few days savouring the magnificence of the Ring than any number of shorter Italian _opere serie o buffe..._


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## Morigan

I simply can't be entertained or impressed when I watch (or listen to) any Wagner opera. It's just so heavy, long and boring to me! I don't understand how it can be preferred to opera buffa, and no, I'm not an Italian nationalist who thinks bel canto is the only way to go.

I don't understand Wagner's idea of such a large and powerful orchestra for opera... I know I'm gonna get flames for this but I had to let it out


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## Chi_townPhilly

Welcome, sufeyang! and thanks for "Tchai-yo" (rough translation: "add more fuel," but you can correct me if I'm wrong ) to the _Ring_ thread. 
By the way, Morigan, I'll certainly disagree with your assessment of Wagner, but differences in musical taste do not merit "flames," and so you'll receive none from me.
And, so to JohnM, with whom I'd like to discuss the cycle (as well as anyone else who cares to chime in). For starters, maybe we can give our sound-bite impressions of the 4 works. I'll start:
1) _Das Rheingold_: underrated, even among Wagner fans. It is, however, handicapped by the complete absence of sympathetic characters.
2) _Die Walkure_: Wagner's most seemless welding of words and music.
3) _Siegfried_: the fulcrum. The action pivots fatalistically amongst the humor and (false) optimism.
4) _Gotterdammerung_: The architectonic majesty of the music is more than enough to make me overlook the "tubeway" plot line.


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## JohnM

I'd add to that by stating the obvious - Das Rheingold is an amazing glimpse of mythological characters and an introduction to the destructive power of greed.

Die Walkure - Hope - The most tender and moving parts of the whole cycle, for me, are contained in this opera.

Siegfried - Despair - it seems to me that having taken time off to compose Tristan and Die Meistersinger that Wagner returned to this opera in a far less less optimistic and charitable state of mind, as the whole mood of the Ring seems to change during Siegfried. This opera seems to be built upon almost continual conflict.

Die Gotterdammerung - dense, dark, heavy. It's amazing to contrast the transformation from the opening act of Rheingold to this bitter, tragic opera. It's also rather long.....

Actually, the whole Ring tetralogy could do with being a little bit shorter (or would that be sacrilege? )


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## Chi_townPhilly

JohnM said:


> Actually, the whole Ring tetralogy could do with being a little bit shorter (or would that be sacrilege? )


The whole issue of whether The Ring specifically (and Wagner opera on general) could do with being a bit shorter is a topic that could make for a thread in itself. Generally speaking, most will conclude that Wagner is too long, but us Wagner fan-boys will say that it's just long enough

In candor, though, my belief is that 15 hours of music towards the same story-line is inevitably going to involve some _longeurs_. So, to answer your question... no, not sacrilege I believe, though, that the aesthetic impact of this can be minimized by reflecting on Robert Browning's most famous quote (from _Andrea del Sarto_): "Man's reach should exceed his grasp..."

I go back to the popularizer commentator Bill Parker, who had a more relevant observation on The Ring than many of the academics I've read. He speaks of "... the numerous recaps Wagner thoughfully works into the text as it goes along. (Some listeners hate these as holding up the action.)"


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## gp4rts

Yes, more than once. The first time was when the cycle was broadcast in the US on Public Television from the stage of the Met. At that time we had a VCR, and my wife and I decided to watch and listen a bit, but record it all for later piecemeal listening. It turned out we stayed up to end for all four, sometimes well past midnight. That was actually the first time either of us heard the whole of any of the operas.

Later we went on vacation in Seattle, Washington specifically to attend the full cycle performed in a one-week period. On the drive there, we listened to Milton Cross' tapes about the operas (purchased from The Metropolitan Opera Store), and while there attended classes on the morning of each production. Overall an excellent musical experience. Music and singing were outstanding, but we were critical of the staging.


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## Chi_townPhilly

gp4rts said:


> ...we were critical of the staging.


Staging, too, could occupy a thread all its own. I thought of framing it "_how did we get to this point?_" where we could discuss the dichotomy between the leading school of thought in modern conducting (fidelity to the score) as contrasted to the leading school of thought in staging (fidelity to everything *but* the original stage instructions!)

I agree with Deryck Cooke, who argues that the point is not "what meaning can _we_ find in the Ring?" but instead "what did _Wagner_ mean by the Ring?" I hope I live to see the day where "personal vision" staging is viewed as a quaint, _passe'_ oddity.


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## Chi_townPhilly

*Analyzing Siegfried, Part I*

I've been meaning to address this topic for a while. Now, with the story fresh in my mind, I'd like to do so.


Edward Elgar said:


> I watched a bit of Siegfried and I thought it was more of a comedy than an epic! Siegfried was a total nutter who set a bear on the man who'd looked after him from childhood!


To begin with, I'd like to explore the Siegfried-Mime relationship. As we know from the development of the story, Mime views Siegfried as a _means to an end_. That is to say, Mime cares for Siegfried for the express purpose of maneuvering him to fulfill Mime's ambitions (most notably, the acquisition of the Ring).

Now, anyone who's had a relatively unsheltered life and a reasonably active intellect (and I'd assume that statement covers virtually all readers here) has had the experience of encountering a politician, or televangelist, or "community leader," or 'life coach,' or (insert occupation where journeyman skills of deception are a resume enhancement) who had achieved some success at fooling people, *but he (or she) didn't fool you*. Something in your gut set off the alarms. Now imagine having this feeling all the time. That is how Siegfried (grandson to a god, let us not forget) feels whenever he sees Mime. [Put another way, would YOU particularly mind setting a bear on Jim Bakker, if you had the means and opportunity?]

The fact that Mime had been at the task for about two decades does not change the nature of the manipulation attempt. Among real-life humans, it's not unknown for "gold-digger" types to befriend the wealthy elderly, performing the most menial-seeming tasks such as changing their dye-dees, not out of love but for the pay-off down the road. That Mime can be patient for years and years does not change the baseness of his motivations. (And if we adopt the "traditional mythological" interpretation that dwarves have naturally much longer life-spans than humans, it's really not such a long time for Mime, either.)

A last dynamic could take the form of a question: shouldn't Siegfried feel some gratitude and slight sense of obligation to Mime, for arranging for his survival in his most vulnerable years? It would be easy to answer "yes" to this question, if it was a boolean choice between raising him with the hopes of being a pawn in a scheme and leaving him in the woods to die. If Mime's designs were not so ignoble, then (we can speculate that) Siegfried would have shown genuine gratitude. One could posit other alternatives... how about presenting him as a foundling to a willing, intact nuclear family?

I stand by my statement that Siegfried is one of the more uncongenial tenor leads in the history of opera. However, he doesn't lose me in the opera Siegfried... and the stabbing of Mime troubles me not at all. Siegfried loses me in Götterdämmerung, when he kidnaps Brünnhilde, a felonious act not excusable on the grounds of the consumption of Hagen's potion. Not at all excusable, but explicable. That'll be the subject of part II.


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## oisfetz

An awful torture: tied somebody to a chair so he/she can't move, and force them to listen to the complete Ring at full volume, without interruptions. Ending the thing,began again from
the begining,and go on and on...


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## Chi_townPhilly

Nice to see that someone has taken up the rod of Rod in the latest edition of "wind-up-the-Wagner-fan." Great... it's good to know that I don't have to go to "Mayhem" to be exposed to quotes of such quality.


oisfetz said:


> An awful torture: tied somebody to a chair so he/she can't move,


 I guess that means that interruptions for meals are out of the question.


oisfetz said:


> and force them to listen to the complete Ring at full volume,


 if I listened to angels and archangels and the choirs of the hosts of heaven "at full volume," I'd risk losing my hearing. It would, however, have no bearing on the quality of the music-making involved.


oisfetz said:


> without interruptions.


 I guess that means no bathroom breaks. However, if you allow for meals, volume that doesn't damage the cochlea, and intermezzos of biological necessity, I could listen again...


oisfetz said:


> and go on and on...


 Still, as the spirit of Merlin says to Arthur in "Excalibur," "a dream... for some- a nightmare for others!"

And with that, little o, I wish you the best of Wagner-free dreams. Yeah, I know, I know about the Rossini quote about "beautiful moments and awful half-hours." I think the last word on that attempted witticism belongs to Mrs. Philly, who said:

*"An opera composer criticizing Wagner is like a hockey player criticizing Gretzky."*


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## Chi_townPhilly

*Analyzing Siegfried Part II/The abduction*

As we know from plot development in *Götterdämmerung*, Siegfried winds up drinking the potion that makes him forget he ever saw a woman, becomes irredeemably infatuated with Gutrune, and, with Gunther & Hagen holding the promise of uniting with Gutrune as reward, they induce Siegfried to abduct and procure Brünnhilde for Gunther.

Now, we've all had our misadventures in the playfield of Cupid, but multiple felonies crosses the line. How to explain it? Well, do you remember the lyrics of the Meat Loaf song "I would do anything for love (but I won't do that)?" In Siegfried's case, he would do anything for love, and he _would_ do that! Does this make his love somehow stronger? Well... no- for civilized society, to be induced to do those things is something we'd take as evidence of a breech of trust and affection. For Siegfried, now, he doesn't take it that way. Speculation as to his thoughts is limited only by one's imagination. Perhaps he's seen acquisition of women by abduction as part of his "Rhine-journey." (Don't forget-- this is how Hunding came by Sieglinde back in *Walküre*.) Then he concluded that it would be all right "just this one time." Maybe the curse of the Ring affected his judgement (this, I think, is the most ready explanation to the thought expressed most directly by Berger (Wagner Without Fear) that Brünnhilde's "runes-of-wisdom" must have been cast in reverse!). Possibly, Warrior Siegfried falls prey to the epigram that "he has the greatest hammer in the world, and to him everything now looks like a nail."

Keep in mind that *Tristan und Isolde* was completed prior to *Götterdämmerung*, and in the former work, it's common-enough interpretation that Isolde's potion acted as amplifier and not attitude enplacement. Perhaps the potion completed a corruption that was only inchoate prior to the Ring and the manipulations of Hagen.


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## RicardoTheTexan

Wagner is really, REALLY an acquired taste. In order to appreciate the Ring, you REALLY have to become intimately familiar with his rival's (Verdi's) operas, then follow through by listening (and falling in love) with his technical successor's (Puccini) operas, and THEN get back to Wagner. For instance, Act One of the Valkyrie and Act Three of Ziegfried inspired most verismo composers, including Puccini. Boheme and Tosca in particular owe a lot to those two acts.


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## Guarnerius

Ho-Yo-To-Hooo to All Wagnerites! 


You-hooo! Yep, it is me, who can announce I'm a Wagner devotee and enjoy listening (and watching) the complete Ring tetralogy from the beginning to the end at least couple of times in a year (guess a short "natural" cuts R permitted during that long journey?). Yep, it takes some concentration, but apparently I'm the most patient person in Europe. A practical method is to divide for the same day's progam two parts from the beginning (Rheingold and Die Walküre), and leave the rest (Siegfried and Götterdämmerung) for the next day.

I like the characterization on Ring by JohnM, describing it's nature changing in different parts of the monumental tetralogy. And I appreciate CTP's throughgoing analysis, too. Must confess, the greatest shock I have experienced in my lifetime was to C the horrible, unforgivable act of Siegfried - this "supposed-to-be hero" brutally kidnapping Brünnhilde and stripping off the pursued ring from her!  It doesn't help me to think that he was subordinated to Hagen's magical potion. D'oh! Why he had to act like a stupido and trust that treacherous Hagen?! Yep, I know, it "is written to happen so in the manuscript"!  Hmmm...but still I feel tremendously disappointed, even if I have passed my teenage at least couple of years ago. 

Thanks to its hypnotical excitement the Ring has got a special attraction to keep up a listener's interest from the beginning to the end. Surely these dramatic themes of this serie of "psychological thrillers"can offer great challenges for dramatic arts, too. Generally speaking, all the masterworks and their attraction R constructed from various factors, mysterious mythical plot, fantasy-like scene, but before everything, in Ring it is the huge (megalomanic) musical power and artistic genius of construction (die Leitmotivs).

Not to mention the plot, it deals with the fundamental themes like love, lust, revenge and other crucial contradictions between life and death. And those basic questions of humanity and morals R up to date still today, even if the time has changed. In the end of Götterdämmerung there is a strong sense of longing farewell and joy of waiting to C again. That's the genius in music writing - to make the listener return to the composition and start enjoying it once again, perhaps discovering some new details unCn before.

My own favourite recordings for the integral set R relatively "modern", by Haitink/SO des BayerischenRF (EMI) and Levine/MET (DG). Both have their advantages, but in my opinion no disadvantages, like them very much!


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## Chi_townPhilly

There is much of value in the preceding post:


Guarnerius said:


> Must confess, the greatest shock I have experienced in my lifetime was to C the horrible, unforgivable act of Siegfried - this "supposed-to-be hero" brutally kidnapping Brünnhilde and stripping off the pursued ring from her!  It doesn't help me to think that he was subordinated to Hagen's magical potion. D'oh! Why he had to act like a stupido and trust that treacherous Hagen?! Yep, I know, it "is written to happen so in the manuscript"!


There is definitely something of the "plot imperative" in this turn of the action. Then, it falls to apologists (like me) to "retro-fit" an explanation according to that imperative. The sheer scope of the Ring, combined with its recasting (most notably from a 'Feuerbachian*' to a 'Schopenhauerian' persective) have led to some contradictions in the finished product.


Guarnerius said:


> ...in Ring it is the huge (megalomanic) musical power and artistic genius of construction (die Leitmotivs).


Yeah... and nowhere are the Leitmotivs more masterfully applied than in * Götterdämmerung*. In fact, I'll opine that, whatever one may think of the story-line, *Götterdämmerung* is the most _musically_ sophisticated of the "Ring" operas, or of all Wagner operas, for the matter of that. (*Parsifal* gives it very close competition.)


Guarnerius said:


> My own favourite recordings for the integral set R relatively "modern", by Haitink/SO des BayerischenRF (EMI) and Levine/MET (DG). Both have their advantages, but in my opinion no disadvantages, like them very much!


You can check out the SchizophRINGia thread for my viewpoint on favored versions. I'll leave the "bilge-battles" over which version is or is not a flawed interpretation to those other places. (In fact, my primary quarrel in the SchizophRINGia thread is that one particular "authority" attempted to entertain multiple (and mutually exclusive) viewpoints.

*In earlier, 'Feuerbachian' form, Siegfried achieves Divine Ascension and is welcomed into the pantheon of gods...


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## Dividend

Wagner is the best. Profound story, the best music ive heard. But yes, it requires some patience. But so do a book


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## Yagan Kiely

> I simply can't be entertained or impressed when I watch (or listen to) any Wagner opera. It's just so heavy, long and boring to me! I don't understand how it can be preferred to opera buffa, and no, I'm not an Italian nationalist who thinks bel canto is the only way to go.


Wagner's music asks for and requires Bel Canto singing. It is retarded singers who think they have the shout and scream every note that don't.



> Wagner is the best. Profound story, the best music ive heard. But yes, it requires some patience. But so do a book


I honestly prefer R.Strauss. But Wagner is definitely up there.


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## Chi_townPhilly

A recent issue of _Opera News_ reveals that Lorin Maazel is the latest to join the "Wagner should have collaborated with a librettist" camp. Still, I agree with this:


Dividend said:


> Wagner is the best. *Profound story*...(emphasis mine),


... because, upon reflection, don't Wagner Operas contain the best-formed stories in the entire repertory?


Yagan Kiely said:


> I honestly prefer R. Strauss, but Wagner is definitely up there.


Funny thing about that... R. Strauss's professional musician father was an virulent anti-Wagnerian- a rather ironic biographical tidbit in the family bearing Germany's "next phase" of program Romanticism, with R. Strauss later being dubbed "Richard II." I remembering reading somewhere that R. Strauss's development profited when he "stopped listening to his father's words and started listening to his namesake's music."


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## Yagan Kiely

Yeh, his father was one of the French Hornists in the premier of Tannhäuser? Tristan? Something anyway.


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## tristanjove

*Wagner's Ring*

A psychodrama of archetypal types, a fascinating mixture of extreme sensuality and high intellectualism, the eternal story of love verses power, an allegorical epic of the failure of traditional values, full of forbidden eroticism, sublime emotion, violent materialism, pure spiritualism, and plenty more! All expressed, somewhat fantastically and literally, with Wagner's motive laden music, which acts as a psychological mirror to the action, and also to the listener's mind.
Not without it's faults- it can be self-indulgent, vulgar, overbearing, boring.
Wagner's poetry and plot can sometimes be too slow, and overlabour the point. But some of his characterisation is inspired. And the psychological interactions are incredible.
But most of all, his music, when fully developed in the later works, fully realises the pure and immediate expression of the human condition by everchanging, always familiar yet always new infinite melody, drawn by dazzling, virtuoso orchestration which remains a major influence on music and culture in general.


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## Yagan Kiely

I can't find any Wagner that's boring honestly. But if you look at a lot of Wagner's operas with the forest in mind, they appear a bit wanky. If you look at each and EVERY tree, they are masterpieces.


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## Chi_townPhilly

Thanks for the observations, *tristanjove* and *YK*. To be sure, any great composer benefits from a more detailed analysis, but what one uncovers in a detailed perusal of Wagner has no ready parallel anywhere else in music (or maybe all of Art, for that matter).

I think one discovers fairly quickly whether the overtures and "bleeding chunks" have some manner of personal resonance. If they don't, odds are longer than the odds concerning most composers that a reassessment will occur. If they do, there remains the chance that one will increase exposure and eventually embrace entire music-dramas in appreciation.

A _Grove Dictionary_ entry on Wagner says "[p]redjudice affects judgement of Wagner more than that of almost any other composer." Except for a possible quibble regarding the use of the word 'almost,' the statement seems incontestable on its face.

Before I leave, though, I want to submit a quote from a finer mind than mine, Bernard Shaw, who cautions against intimidation concerning Wagnerian details:

...encouragement is addressed to modest citizens who may suppose themselves to be disqualified from enjoying The Ring by their technical ignorance of the music. They may dismiss such misgivings speedily and confidently. If the sound of music has any power to move them, they will find that Wagner exacts nothing further.
From: The Perfect Wagnerite.


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## JBI

I've got them on DVD from the Met conducted by James Levine (with a huge celebrity list to boot) and I have sat through 3 in one day. I don't recommend that, but it can be done. Think of it as watching lord of the rings, but with music, and better writing. The first one is by far the slowest (in my opinion). By the end of the 2nd Opera though, my first time I couldn't even move I was so shaken. And yes, Morris's Wotan is fantastic beyond belief. His Sachs isn't bad either, and his Hollander is pretty solid.


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## shsherm

I went to a performance of the Los Angeles Philharmonic today(5-4-08). One of the works on the program (the second half) was Dawn and Siegfried's Rhine Journey, Siegfried's Death and Funeral Music, and Brunnhilde's Immolation from Gotterdammerung sung by Lisa Gasteen and played in a concert version by the LA Phil conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen. The opera performances have the music coming from the orchestra pit rather than the stage. The music seems more forceful in the concert version.


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## Badinerie

When I was unemployed in the late seventies, I made my self available of our local public libraries record collection. My neighbors were subjected to Solti's Ring cycle more than once. I'm more with agreement with Debussy nowdays. Its strictly highlights only...


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## Chi_townPhilly

Well- the good news is that New York's _Metropolitan Opera_ will be presenting the entire Ring cycle next season. The bad news, unfortunately, is that they've made the decision to treat Wagnerians as "touches" or "marks" rather than as a valued part of their opera community. Let me explain:

Initial sales for a Ring series is limited to subscribers to other opera series (minimum 6 other [lesser quality, IMHO] operas), or "Patron" status (contribution of $2000.00 or more). O.K. a little onerous so far- but it's not uncommon to offer the better seats to the people who put out the big-time Benjamins. But stay with me here...

Each "Ring" opera, in addition to its ticket cost, also carries a "special contribution" cost, which is, in effect, a Wagnerian "surcharge." It is the first time that the Met has done this- and it amounts to price discrimination on Wagner performances.

Oh, and one more thing-- in a decision reminiscent of the "bad old days" of sports event blackouts, the Ring cycle Music Dramas will be excluded from the nationwide HD theatre-casts. Obviously, the Met is counting on enough "marks" to pony up these extra bills. If this happens, it will work out the way they planned. However, _I_ will not be one of those "marks."

The MET has proven aggressive in their importuning efforts towards me. It was my special pleasure to inform them that their pricing decisions have made it FAR LESS (rather than more) likely that I will ever contribute to them.

Come the fall, I've resolved to be more involved in seeking out live-music performances. My quest, however, will NOT involve the MET. Not now.


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## Chi_townPhilly

When Decca released their "Wagner/Bayreuth Festival" 33-cd set (for c. $65), I thought "this might not be the last salvo in the Wagner budget competition." Today, I got word that opera d'oro is launching the Furtwängler/Scala "Ring" for c. $45. Since the latter is saddled with mono sound and a noisy audience (I guess _any_ audience would sound noisy, when contrasted to the patrons of Bayreuth), the former remains much the better buy. Still, it's enough to make me wonder "what next on the Wagner release front?"


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## Chi_townPhilly

Chi_town/Philly said:


> ...it's enough to make me wonder "what next on the Wagner release front?"


I guess I got the answer to this question today.


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## Elgarian

For many years, Wagner was the only opera I could tolerate. Just to see what it was like, I'd bought a record of highlights (Rita Hunter as Brunnhilde), disliked it, but somehow kept returning to it, and eventually ended up playing it every day.

So I was hooked. I scraped together every penny I could (this was back in the 70s) to buy a complete set - Bohm's Bayreuth live version (Solti was out of reach financially) - and played it and played it, night after night, head stuck in the libretto. Went to see Rita Hunter and English National Opera do _Gotterdammerung_, which I think remains one of the supreme musical experiences of my life. Years later, when cash was in better supply, I added the Goodall ENO set to the collection, but somehow it never quite gripped me in the way Bohm had.

In those days, I either listened to one of the operas complete, or not at all, but as the years went by I became far less purist, and now don't think twice about putting on the 2CD set of Solti highlights, or the Bohm highlights for that matter. Over half a lifetime Wagner gradually just permeated my being. I'm not sure I understand it in any way I could express sensibly (I've read Donington's book but I'm not convinced that it changed the way I listen). What I love is the _flavour_ of it - just hanging out there with 'the guys', listening to those tunes weaving in and out of everything, laden with what seem to be meanings beyond words, all experienced against that vast mythic backdrop. It's true that these days I'm more likely to be listening to Massenet than Wagner; but I'd never have found my way to Massenet if I hadn't ploughed such a deep Wagnerian furrow first.


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## Weston

My first and only opera experience was a year or two ago sitting down to watch the complete Ring cycle, the 1980 version with Pierre Boulez and the Orchester der Bayreuther Festspiele. Hey - if I want to explore something I don't just dabble! I rented the DVD's and watched them a few days apart. I must say I was completely fascinated and soon forgot I was even watching / listening to an opera. I found Donald McIntyre's Wotan to be quite over the top in a good way.

This production goes from vaguely traditional costumes and sets in Das Rheingold, evolving to more modern costumes and sets by the end of Gotterdammerung. It would have been nice to have seen a more traditional staging for my first time, but I guess no one does that any more.

I'll never forget the experience - so I'm not inclined to repeat it any time soon.


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## Elgarian

Weston said:


> I'll never forget the experience - so I'm not inclined to repeat it any time soon.


I know that feeling. The productions I saw were those done by English National Opera (Goodall) in the 1970s, and the sets were minimal but hugely atmospheric. They seemed timeless - as if the events were unfolding (appropriately enough) in some alternative dimension of existence. That became definitive, for me - so that listening to the Ring, ever after, I 'saw' those sets in my mind, and like you, I wouldn't want those images disturbing.


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## Chi_townPhilly

Thanks for the posts, *Elgarian*.


Elgarian said:


> (I've read Donington's book but I'm not convinced that it changed the way I listen).


I suspect that it hasn't, and that's a _good_ thing. Now, what follows should be preceded by the disclaimer "in my dilettante opinion..." The Howitzer responsible for the hulking derelict wreck where once stood Donington's 'Jungian interpretation' of _The Ring_ can be found in the "Objectivity in Interpretation" section of Deryck Cooke's _I Saw the World End_. Sample passage:
The defect of Jungian interpretation is that it imposes its own categories on the work interpreted... in HAMLET, say, Ophelia would have to be Hamlet's anima, Claudius his shadow, and Gertrude the Terrible Mother, and the whole work would have to be treated as a therapeutic development of the psyche; likewise, the last stage would have to be nobody's actual death, but a general rebirth, except for the shadow, which would disappear, leaving the psyche in one final healthful state of transformation- and the peculiar quality of the masterpiece HAMLET unilluminated. 
BWAHHAHAHaha!

I feel as though I'm in sincere agreement with you on the recordings front. My good friend *Guarnerius* and I used to talk about how it's much more significant to talk about the special qualities of Wagner than to get into a "recycled water" battle about whether this version or that is the best gateway for musical understanding. Oh, I have preferences, to be sure- and have discussed them spiritedly. However, the more I listen, the more I recognize that a number of versions of _The Ring_ are suitable for getting a measure of the genius of the work. I understand that price has been (and will be) a barrier to the acquisition of some. In such cases, I think we should heed the French proverb and not let the best become the enemy of the good. I believe that Solti, Keilberth, Böhm, and Janowski all make for good "live-with it" versions. No question there are others, too- I just haven't heard them all the way through.

One position I do hold passionately, though, is that Wagnerian sonorities are such that it's a disservice to one's own enjoyment to settle for a non-stereo version the the _Ring Cycle_- and mono cycles should be reserved as an alternate option for those who aspire to collect multiple versions.


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## Elgarian

Chi_town/Philly said:


> Thanks for the posts, *Elgarian*. I suspect that it hasn't, and that's a _good_ thing. Now, what follows should be preceded by the disclaimer "in my dilettente opinion..." The Howitzer responsible for the hulking derelict wreck where once stood Donington's 'Jungian interpretation' of _The Ring_ can be found in the "Objectivity in Interpretation" section of Deryck Cooke's _I Saw the World End_. Sample passage:
> The defect of Jungian interpretation is that it imposes its own categories on the work interpreted... in HAMLET, say, Ophelia would have to be Hamlet's anima, Claudius his shadow, and Gertrude the Terrible Mother, and the whole work would have to be treated as a therapeutic development of the psyche; likewise, the last stage would have to be nobody's actual death, but a general rebirth, except for the shadow, which would disappear, leaving the psyche in one final healthful state of transformation- and the peculiar quality of the masterpiece HAMLET unilluminated.


Thanks for such a thoughtful response.

May I join you in the dilettante corner (with all the reservations about my limited understanding that that implies), and wholeheartedly agree with you? The example you quoted is a clincher, isn't it? And it perfectly demonstrates how destructive it can be to cling to every element of a theory that may be generally or broadly useful in its basic principles, but can only be taken so far. I mean, I'd by no means want to throw out the Jungian babies (the notion of the collective unconscious and of the archetype, say), along with the Jungian bathwater; but much of the rest does, for me, obfuscate rather than clarify. Or at least, as far as I understand it - which isn't far.

To tell the truth, I gained far more from reading John Culshaw's _Ring Resounding_. Not only did it send me back to the music, again and again (his enthusiasm was so infectious), but also it turned my vague wish to own the Solti set into something more like a need (still unsatisfied, except for highlights).


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## jhar26

I think I like the one that is generally regarded as the least interesting Ring opera the most - Das Rheingold. It's not as long winded and more action packed than the other three. I kinda enjoy Die Walkure also. I only listened to the other two once (I have the complete Solti cycle on cd). It's an awesome piece of work, I'm sure - but maybe it's all a bit over my head and I won't blame my own lack of patience or understanding on Wagner. I can manage to listen to the whole cycle when I limit myself to one act per day though - gotta try that again someday.  

But Das Rheingold I really like. I even have it on DVD in a (thank God) traditional production friom Otto Schenk with James Levine conducting - very good. I said "thank God a traditional production" because otherwise I would probably have been done with The Ring for good. It's already a complicated/demanding work enough without some smart *** producer feeling the need to force his no doubt nonsensical interpretation of the thing down our throats.


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## Elgarian

jhar26 said:


> I think I like the one that is generally regarded as the least interesting Ring opera the most - Das Rheingold. It's not as long winded and more action packed than the other three.


I had to smile in recognition when I read this - because _Rheingold_ is by far the one I most frequently listen to, too, and for pretty much the same reason as you. The truth is that for long stretches of time, I'm just not up to the task of absorbing _The Ring_ properly, but _Rheingold_ somehow stands apart from the rest - you can listen to it as a separate, more or less self-contained unit, in a reasonable length of time, can't you? So for me, it's more a case of recognising my own frailty and lack of stamina but wanting a bit of Ring-flavoured excitement, rather than really thinking of it as a 'favourite' section.


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## Chi_townPhilly

*More on the MET Ring cycle*

Received the MET calendar last weekend... three performances (2 of _Rheingold_ and one of _Die Walküre_) have been designated "non-cycle" performances and are thus spared the 'Wagner surcharges.' [Gee... thanks for throwing us a bone, MET.]

I couldn't help but notice that the schedulers reserved nearly 6 hours for _Götterdämmerung_. eek Even WITH two healthy half-hour intermissions, that's still minutes shy of a 5 hour "Twilight." That's closing in on Goodall-grade s...l...o...w.

Someone who's been exposed to Levine in this work could let me know... is this _usual_ for him?!


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## shsherm

Today (09-21-08) I attended a meeting of the Wagner Society of Southern California. A DVD of a documentary which appeared recently on European television was played. This program was about the Beyreuth Festival and had archival footage of Wagner's funeral, Hitler attending the festival and the attention lavished on him when he was there, and most amazing of all parts of a performance of Parsifal from 2006 which featured a Nazi theme including many Nazi flags and banners with swastikas on them which are in fact banned in Germany and for which special permission from the German government was needed in order to use them. This was a production from ARTE. Unfortunately the program was in German and we had a translator who would occasionally stop the program and provide some interpretation. I studied German in college but certainly am not conversant in German. If anyone is interested in the Beyreuth Festival this program is a must.


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## Atabey

Böhm,Keilberth,Krauss,Knappertsbusch and Janowski are my top 5 ring cycles.Haitink also conducts superbly but he is let down by his singing cast.


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## Bach

The Ring Cycle - possibly the greatest single musical composition? (assuming all four opera constitute one work)


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## luyan1985

Ther ring of wagnner definetly has been classic masterpiece.And his work always was distinctive and marverlous.splendid otrestra and hamorney as well.But I really think the works of his were extremenly long sometimes which not necissary.But the work still give me too much.howerver I haven't finished yet.


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## msegers

Whew! I just read through this whole thread at one sitting - maybe the equivalent of half a Wagner opera? It was really a learning experience, drawing on the listening, reading, thinking, the experiences of the participants. 
This is my first day of membership, and already, I enjoy this forum. So many forums (on all manner of topics) just turn into snarling sessions. A hearty bravo to all of you! Or, better still, more appropriate, a repeat of Anna Russell's "Analysis"?


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## Chi_townPhilly

msegers said:


> Whew! I just read through this whole thread at one sitting - maybe the equivalent of half a Wagner opera? It was really a learning experience, drawing on the listening, reading, thinking, the experiences of the participants.


Thanks!


msegers said:


> So many forums (on all manner of topics) just turn into snarling sessions.


You mean like "If you prefer conductor X's version of the _Ring Cycle_, then you must be some sort of untutored bumpkin Philistine who has no true understanding of the stab of Wagner's artistic vision"? You'll have to go to the person whom 007 and 'Q' answers to to get _that_ kind of talk.


msegers said:


> A hearty bravo to all of you! Or, better still, more appropriate, a repeat of Anna Russell's "Analysis"?


Yup, Anna Russell is a bit of fun. When she passed away not long ago, the Wagner Society of New York newletter eulogized her.


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## Almaviva

I keep hoping for the ideal Ring. I know that probably such a thing doesn't exist. But for me, the ideal ring would have the following characteristics:

1. Energetic conductor with good tempi
2. Spectacular singing by at least 80% of the cast
3. A really good looking Brünnhilde and other sexy female characters like the Rhine Maidens
4. Good acting
5. TRADITIONAL STAGING, dammit!

I'm all for modern staging in many operas when it is tastefully done and doesn't change radically important aspects of the opera. But the Ring for me is another matter. I can tolerate the problems with the Met Ring exactly because its staging is traditional. Not that I want static staging (and the Met production was too static) but I just want the Ring to be depicted the way it was intended, in a mythological land where there are giants, and dragons, etc. I don't want the dragon that Sigfried needs to slay turned into a locomotive or helicopter or some other "brilliant" idea from some stage director who wants to be noticed.

I think that opera stage directors that do the kind of stuff with the blood everywhere ought to be shot.

One of my favorite operas, _Benvenuto Cellini_, was staged in what I believe is its only DVD version with some characters turned into robots, one of them looking like C3PO from Star Wars? I mean, come on! Why did the idiot who directed that mess think that putting a robot on stage would be cool??? Did he want to pay a tribute to George Lucas? What does C3PO have to do with Berlioz or Cellini? By the way, that production, of course, had a helicopter too!!

Edit: previous prefacing text retained in _this post_.


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## mamascarlatti

Almaviva said:


> 1. Energetic conductor with good tempi
> 2. Spectacular singing by at least 80% of the cast
> 3. A really good looking Brünnhilde and other sexy female characters like the Rhine Maidens
> 4. Good acting
> 5. TRADITIONAL STAGING, dammit!


I'm not bothered about the traditional staging but a bit of magic wouldn't go amiss. I liked Rheingold from the Met but it all went downhill from there. That dragon!

I'd also really like a young handsome Siegfried who could both sing the role and manage to make this essentially problematic character a little sympathetic.

I completely agree with Philip Kennicott's view in this article in Opera News about the challenges that modern audiences face with this character.



Elgarian said:


> The Four Most Irresistible Words used on classical music forums!


:lol:


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## Almaviva

mamascarlatti said:


> I'd also really like a young handsome Siegfried who could both sing the role and manage to make this essentially problematic character a little sympathetic.
> 
> I completely agree with Philip Kennicott's view in this article in Opera News about the challenges that modern audiences face with this character.
> 
> :lol:


I read the article, and don't agree with it at all. So, Sigfried treated Mime cruelly? Come on, Mr. Kennicott, Mime was evil, wanted to kill Sigfried once he did the dirty job for him, only planned to exploit Sig for his own gain, while whining and pretending to be a caring foster parent. Mime got what he deserved.

And Sigfried, odious? For me Sigfried is the biggest victim in the cycle. He is naive, idealistic, has a good and sincere heart, is easily maneuvered by cunning others, and in his most trusting state he is murdered while having his back to his murderer. Sigfried was born to be exploited (that's what Wotan planned for him), and his trusting nature was his undoing.

Sigfried is one of these Wagnerian heros who are mildly mentally retarded, naive, and pure, therefore everybody takes advantage of them. He has no free will, he is a tool. Is this the character that Mr. Kennicott thinks symbolizes Wagner himself and his entitlement and megalomania? Wagner would have to, instead, display a very low self esteem if he tried to project his own self into Sigfried.

I have no problem being sympathetic to poor Sigfried. I have no idea what Mr. Kennicott is on about when he says that audiences reject Sigfried. Maybe *he* does. I don't.

And even if he had a point, since when does opera need a sympathetic leading character to be successful? Just think of Don Giovanni... Think of Rigoletto - his actions are illegal and criminal. I wouldn't trust Figaro, he's too cunning. All characters in _Così fan Tutte_ display rather loose morals. Faust is despicable, only Mephistopheles is worse than him. Armida is a ferocious witch. Norma plans to kill her own kids. Salomé is crazy and is a perv. Turandot is a sanguinary tyrant. Otello murders his own innocent wife. Falstaff is a pig. All leading characters in Die Fledermaus are mostly interested in misleading each other and cheating on each other. Boris Godunov murdered a child to climb to power. I'd be very upset if my son fell in love with a girl such as Manon Lescault.:lol: It's opera, for Pete's sake!!!

So, Sigfried has contradictory actions and feelings - no wonder, the poor guy was a product of incest - an inbred fool! - and suffered all sorts of abuse from a young age, enough to cause a bona fide personality disorder. It doesn't matter, the tragedy still goes on, and Sieglinde, Siegmund and Brünnhilde provide enough goodness, altruism, and nobility to the opera.

The Ring contains all sorts of ambivalent motives and actions, both by the gods and the humans, as intended - it's an allegory of humankind.

Mr. Kennicott is betraying himself as an anti-Wagnerite. So, if Siegfried flops, the Ring becomes "just like any other opera?" Yeah, right. Come again, what other opera is he thinking about that includes 16 hours of continuous and gorgeous music?

Mr. Kennicott, I'm sorry to break some bad news to you: the Ring will continue to endure. LOL


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## mamascarlatti

Almaviva said:


> Sigfried is one of these Wagnerian heros who are mildly mentally retarded, naive, and pure, therefore everybody takes advantage of them. He has no free will, he is a tool. ...
> 
> So, Sigfried has contradictory actions and feelings - no wonder, the poor guy was a product of incest - an inbred fool! - and suffered all sorts of abuse from a young age, enough to cause a bona fide personality disorder. It doesn't matter, the tragedy still goes on, and Sieglinde, Siegmund and Brünnhilde provide enough goodness, altruism, and nobility for the opera.


None of this would matter if he is not always being addressed as "glorious hero" and praised for his heroic actions by the other characters. That's where the problem lies, not in in his weaknesses per se. No one says Don Giovanni is a "hero", so we are willing to forgive his foibles and accept it as part of opera, as you say. (And at least he's sexy).

I do agree with you that the Rng will endure, but for me it has to be despite Siegfried. I just have to grit my teeth about him.


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## Almaviva

mamascarlatti said:


> None of this would matter if he is not always being addressed as "glorious hero" and praised for his heroic actions by the other characters. That's where the problem lies, not in in his weaknesses per se. No one says Don Giovanni is a "hero", so we are willing to forgive his foibles and accept it as part of opera, as you say. (And at least he's sexy).
> 
> I do agree with you that the Rng will endure, but for me it has to be despite Siegfried. I just have to grit my teeth about him.


You know, all this praise for the glorious hero is their way to tame him and use him. Like my father used to say, if you want someone to tame your wild horse for you, you start by telling the guy that he is an excellent cowboy. :lol:

I think it is very clear in the opera that Sig is basically a good and naive guy who gets used, manipulated, fooled, and finally killed. Whatever boasting he does is just because he is stupid enough to believe in what they say to him in order to manipulate him and use him for their own purposes.

So he is made by order, with specific handicaps - he'll be fearless. Actually fear is a very useful survival strategy, but they make him like following a recipe for a cake - I can depict some of his various abusers and tormentors saying...

Wotan:

"Hmm, let's see, he can't be too smart or he'll figure it out so lets inbreed him and make him be born of a brother and a sister. Hmm... he needs to be strong so lets raise him with lots of hardship and exercise so that he works out a lot. Let's not tell him who he is, we'll separate him from his father (better still, we'll just kill his father) and from his mother, and he'll live ignorant and isolated so that he doesn't develop the sense of fear. Naive like this, strong, and fearless, he'll slay Fafner, get the ring, and won't even want to keep it for world domination. Oh, and we'll make sure we keep repeating how great a hero he is so that the fool will develop these ideas that he should go and slay dragons."

Hagen:

"He is supposed to be this big macho hero, but we'll slip a magic potion into his water and steal his wife from under his nose while the fool keeps praising us - the very people who did this to him - and keeps being loyal to us. Hey, while we are at it, we may as well marry him to our sister Gutrune who is kind of stuck in terms of finding a good man for her and is getting past her prime age. Oops, he's starting to come to his senses, oh well, too bad, le'ts just kill him, then."

I can't really understand why and how people would still blame poor chap Sig for anything. He's the victim!


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## mamascarlatti

Almaviva said:


> I can't really understand why and how people would still blame poor chap Sig for anything. He's the victim!


Procurement? That's the bit that really disgusts me, moral sense or not.


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## Almaviva

mamascarlatti said:


> Procurement? That's the bit that really disgusts me, moral sense or not.


But he did it under the influence of the magic potion! It wasn't his fault! Then when he starts to come out of the trance and remember (and would surely try to rectify it) they kill him!


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## Elgarian

mamascarlatti said:


> I do agree with you that the Ring will endure, but for me it has to be despite Siegfried. I just have to grit my teeth about him.


Are we supposed to 'like' Siegfried at all? He hasn't _earned_ his hero status - it's been thrust upon him by Wotan in the first instance: he's been prepared, almost manufactured, for his role as hero. Then he's brought up by Mime, separate from the world, and all that follows is his process of self-discovery culminating in his discovery of Brunnhilde. Wagner himself says somewhere that he's not a complete person - only in union with Brunnhilde does he become complete. His un-making in _Gotterdammerung_ is the consequence of separating from her.

To approach this another way - does one ever 'like' the gods and heroes of the great myths? If the gods and heroes are archetypes, playing out archetypal dramas, we wouldn't expect to respond to them as we would to characters in an 'ordinary' opera or play. Owen Lee talks about Wotan, Alberich, Siegfried and Brunnhilde as personifications of four states of consciousness: light, dark, male and female. I find if I hold something like that idea in the back of my mind, some of the silly nonsense of Siegfried's character seems less troublesome, because I recognise some of it in myself. There _is_ something ridiculous about masculinity as an active agent.


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## Almaviva

Elgarian said:


> Are we supposed to 'like' Siegfried at all? He hasn't _earned_ his hero status - it's been thrust upon him by Wotan in the first instance: he's been prepared, almost manufactured, for his role as hero. Then he's brought up by Mime, separate from the world, and all that follows is his process of self-discovery culminating in his discovery of Brunnhilde. Wagner himself says somewhere that he's not a complete person - only in union with Brunnhilde does he become complete. His un-making in _Gotterdammerung_ is the consequence of separating from her.
> 
> To approach this another way - does one ever 'like' the gods and heroes of the great myths? If the gods and heroes are archetypes, playing out archetypal dramas, we wouldn't expect to respond to them as we would to characters in an 'ordinary' opera or play. Owen Lee talks about Wotan, Alberich, Siegfried and Brunnhilde as personifications of four states of consciousness: light, dark, male and female. I find if I hold something like that idea in the back of my mind, some of the silly nonsense of Siegfried's character seems less troublesome, because I recognise some of it in myself. There _is_ something ridiculous about masculinity as an active agent.


Spectacular points, Elgarian!:tiphat:

This shows once more how silly that Opera News article is. It is underestimating the audiences, as if our love for the Ring as an exquisite musical drama (sure, filled with contradictions and ups and downs and composed by someone who in many aspects was a madman) depended on "liking" or "disliking" Sigfried. I think we, the audience, can do a lot more than that, we can *think* about it.

The Ring, as absurd as some of its plot devices are, has a compelling story line. One can't really fail to be intrigued by these characters in various ways, and when sublime music is added to them, we have a winner, as evidenced by its enduring popularity and the various attempts at staging it in traditional or creative ways, including very recent and future ones. The Ring keeps going, and I believe it will continue to do so for centuries, just like great works of the past like those of Homer or Virgil have endured for centuries.

I'd like to add one piece of information to counter this guy who thinks that without a sympathetic Sigfried the Ring is "just like any other opera." this may be old news to most, but if someone here didn't know it, it's a very interesting piece of data.

Do you know what is the object of the most articles, essays, books, sheer number of pages, etc, written about said object in the entire history of humankind? No, not the Ring, the number 1 is the Bible. But the number 2 is the Ring. This includes EVERYTHING else - in the fields of science, religion, literature, politics, history, and so on and so forth. The Ring is the second most studied/published-about object throughout human history. Impressive, no?


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## Elgarian

Almaviva said:


> The Ring, as absurd as some of its plot devices are, has a compelling story line.


I think we'd agree, wouldn't we, that the absurdities are very much the same kind of absurdities as one finds everywhere in myths (or in dreams, or in folk tales), because (I suppose) the significance of the stories is absorbed not at a rational level, but down in those mysterious areas that lie below the conscious. That's where the myths operate, primarily. If we think _too much_ about what's going on (or perhaps I should say if we think_ in the wrong way_), and insist on a rational explanation for all of it, we can interfere with that process and lose the very thing that we were hoping to gain. Or if you like, too much rationalisation may mean that, like the giants, we end up with some interesting golden trinkets but lose Freia.


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## Almaviva

Elgarian said:


> I think we'd agree, wouldn't we, that the absurdities are very much the same kind of absurdities as one finds everywhere in myths (or in dreams, or in folk tales), because (I suppose) the significance of the stories is absorbed not at a rational level, but down in those mysterious areas that lie below the conscious. That's where the myths operate, primarily. If we think _too much_ about what's going on (or perhaps I should say if we think_ in the wrong way_), and insist on a rational explanation for all of it, we can interfere with that process and lose the very thing that we were hoping to gain. Or if you like, too much rationalisation may mean that, like the giants, we end up with some interesting golden trinkets but lose Freia.


Exactly. Myths are designed in the first place to respond to the conflicts of human psychology. Myths are not reality, but there is truth in myths. Oedipus Rex is a myth... but it conveys exactly the turmoil that hits our developing ego when faced with the triad mother-father-child.


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## mamascarlatti

I can appreciate everyone's point from an intellectual point of view - all valid and interesting arguments. And I certainly don't agree with everything Kennicott says about the Ring, just that Siegfried is problematical and that audience members such as me have to work on our feelings for him.

I am still left with a visceral disgust for Siegfried when I think about his behaviour to Brünnhilde who is absolutely the Hero in the piece. I view her as a fully rounded human being with a fine character, loving, courageous, and morally upright. She brings the piece alive for me. 

I wonder sometimes whether my feelings about the procurement aspect are so strong because I am female and identify too much with Brünnhilde. I certainly recall a discussion on another forum with all women participants where Siegfried's behaviour was roundly reviled (by inveterate Wagner fans).


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## Almaviva

mamascarlatti said:


> I can appreciate everyone's point from an intellectual point of view - all valid and interesting arguments. And I certainly don't agree with everything Kennicott says about the Ring, just that Siegfried is problematical and that audience member such as me have to work on our feelings for him.
> 
> I am still left with a visceral disgust for Siegfried when I think about his behaviour to Brünnhilde who is absolutely the Hero in the piece. I view her as a fully rounded human being with a fine character, loving, courageous, and morally upright. She brings the piece alive for me.
> 
> I wonder sometimes whether my feelings about the procurement aspect are so strong because I am female and identify too much with Brünnhilde. I certainly recall a discussion on another forum with all women participants where Siegfried's behaviour was roundly reviled (by inveterate Wagner fans).


That's fine, I understand your point of view. Sure, Brünnhilde is the noblest character in the Ring. But just remember that while Brünnhilde was raised by gods and belonged to a guild of noble warriors, Sigfried was raised by Mime.


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## Elgarian

mamascarlatti said:


> I am still left with a visceral disgust for Siegfried when I think about his behaviour to Brünnhilde who is absolutely the Hero in the piece. I view her as a fully rounded human being with a fine character, loving, courageous, and morally upright. She brings the piece alive for me.


I don't see why you need to struggle against that though, Natalie. Brunnhilde is, after all, the character who redeems everything through love, and brings the whole cycle to a close. And, separated from Brunnhilde, Siegfried _is_ an unattractive character. OK, yes, he's acting most of the time under the influence of the potion, but even without all that, he's still a swaggering would-be hero with a good deal too much crass masculinity to flaunt around. Look at the way Siegfried Jerusalem portrays him in the Met Ring, just after he arrives at Gunther's place, when he does those ridiculous swaggering boyish things with a spear he picks up, as if he were testing it out. That's an insightful portrayal, I think.

So I'd find him insufferable, myself, if I met him down at the pub, but I think I don't _have_ to like him at all, and don't try to. He's the man born to be Hero, who spectacularly fails to live up to expectation, and leaves behind a disaster that only Brunnhilde can redeem.

*Footnote:*
I just remembered something - you know the wonderful tune that's often called 'redemption by love' that appears only twice - once at the end of _Gotterdammerung_, and once in _Walkure_ when Brunnhilde tells Sieglinde she's pregnant? Apparently Wagner himself thought of that motif as 'Brunnhilde'. Thinking of that soaring tune ... well, that tells us all we need to know about who _Wagner_ thought was the only character who emerges well from all this.


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## Almaviva

Elgarian said:


> . He's the man born to be Hero, who spectacularly fails to live up to expectation,
> 
> ...
> 
> 'Brunnhilde'. Thinking of that soaring tune ... well, that tells us all we need to know about who _Wagner_ thought was the only character who emerges well from all this.


Just two little things, not to be too picky, but...

1. Sigfried doesn't fail. He was engendered with a single purpose - to get the ring. He did, and the gold was returned to the Rhine.

2. Actually the only important character that emerges from all this is... Alberich. Thus the name "The Ring *of the Nibelung.*" Everybody else dies, Walhala goes up in smoke... and Alberich survives. Pay attention to the story line and see that he is the one character that isn't killed or dies. I think this is sort of the last joke Wagner played on us... the guy who renounces love for power, the despicable greedy ******* is the only one who stays alive after this transition between the dwindling world of the gods and the world of the new mankind.


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## Elgarian

Almaviva said:


> Sigfried doesn't fail. He was engendered with a single purpose - to get the ring. He did, and the gold was returned to the Rhine.


Well... is it so simple though? He gets the ring sure enough, but things go pear-shaped mighty fast after that - and not at all in the way that Wotan originally intended - because of Siegfried's failure as hero. And the gold is returned to the Rhine not by Siegfried the hero, but by Brunnhilde the redeemer.



> Alberich survives. Pay attention to the story line and see that he is the one character that isn't killed or dies. I think this is sort of the last joke Wagner played on us... the guy who renounces love for power, the despicable greedy ******* is the only one who stays alive after this transition between the dwindling world of the gods and the world of the new mankind.


I'm not sure I'm persuaded that Alberich's mere survival (we aren't explicitly told that he does survive though, are we? I'm not sure about that) is a victory though. I suppose it depends on how one reads the outcome; and the music (surely the best guide) carries no suggestion of a triumph for Alberich. The _music _ - via the second and final appearance of the glorious redemption motif - points unmistakably and unambiguously to Brunnhilde.


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## Almaviva

Elgarian said:


> Well... is it so simple though? He gets the ring sure enough, but things go pear-shaped mighty fast after that - and not at all in the way that Wotan originally intended - because of Siegfried's failure as hero. And the gold is returned to the Rhine not by Siegfried the hero, but by Brunnhilde the redeemer.
> 
> I'm not sure I'm persuaded that Alberich's mere survival (we aren't explicitly told that he does survive though, are we? I'm not sure about that) is a victory though. I suppose it depends on how one reads the outcome; and the music (surely the best guide) carries no suggestion of a triumph for Alberich. The _music _- via the second and final appearance of the glorious redemption motif - points unmistakably and unambiguously to Brunnhilde.


Siegfried was specificaly bred to slay Fafner and get the ring. He does that. What happens next is that other people get in the way but the end result is still the same. Siegfried keeps the ring in his finger even dead, until Brunnhilde takes it.

No, we are not told that Alberich survives, but he is alive by the end of his last scene while we do see the others dying.

Yes, Brunnhilde is the redeemer but she throws herself in the burning pire, while Valhala burns in the distance. Everybody gets offed. Alberich doesn't. It's a point made by M. Owen Lee in his book


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## Elgarian

Almaviva said:


> No, we are not told that Alberich survives, but he is alive by the end of his last scene while we do see the others dying.
> 
> Yes, Brunnhilde is the redeemer but she throws herself in the burning pire, while Valhala burns in the distance. Everybody gets offed. Alberich doesn't. It's a point made by M. Owen Lee in his book


Yes he does (Lee, I mean), but it seems to me to be a debatable matter. At the end, the Rhine is taking everything back into itself. I think in the absence of explicit information, we're free to decide for ourselves what becomes of Alberich, but - and it's a big but - I come back again to what the music tells us, and the music is unequivocal: it tells us the world has been redeemed, and there's no trace of lingering mocking laughter from a still-surviving Alberich. Or at least, if there is, I can't hear it.

Incidentally, what about the Rhinemaidens? One could make a stronger case for _them_ being the only survivors I think, since we do actually see them swimming off with the ring. I wouldn't want to push for a too literal interpretation, though. If we read the Ring on a symbolic/mythic level, then I suppose _all_ these archetypes survive the cataclysm - not as characters, but as archetypal/psychological agents. But I feel very unsure of my ground. I had a look at Donington to try to clarify matters, but he doesn't really help in this specific area.

One thought occurs to me though, on this Alberich/Brunnhilde issue. The whole catastrophe begins by Alberich's _renunciation_ of love, and it's brought to an end by Brunnhilde's willing _embracing_ of it. In that sense, Alberich, as negative agent, is superseded by Brunnhilde, the positive one - another way, perhaps, of assuming that Alberich is destroyed along with everything else.

I'm a bit worried that we're conducting this very interesting discussion in the wrong place, and messing up what's actually a DVD opera thread. I wonder if CTP or some other kind Mod might be able to do a bit of thread surgery and put these posts in a more sensible 'Ring' thread?


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## Almaviva

Elgarian said:


> Yes he does (Lee, I mean), but it seems to me to be a debatable matter. At the end, the Rhine is taking everything back into itself. I think in the absence of explicit information, we're free to decide for ourselves what becomes of Alberich, but - and it's a big but - I come back again to what the music tells us, and the music is unequivocal: it tells us the world has been redeemed, and there's no trace of lingering mocking laughter from a still-surviving Alberich. Or at least, if there is, I can't hear it.
> 
> Incidentally, what about the Rhinemaidens? One could make a stronger case for _them_ being the only survivors I think, since we do actually see them swimming off with the ring. I wouldn't want to push for a too literal interpretation, though. If we read the Ring on a symbolic/mythic level, then I suppose _all_ these archetypes survive the cataclysm - not as characters, but as archetypal/psychological agents. But I feel very unsure of my ground. I had a look at Donington to try to clarify matters, but he doesn't really help in this specific area.
> 
> One thought occurs to me though, on this Alberich/Brunnhilde issue. The whole catastrophe begins by Alberich's _renunciation_ of love, and it's brought to an end by Brunnhilde's willing _embracing_ of it. In that sense, Alberich, as negative agent, is superseded by Brunnhilde, the positive one - another way, perhaps, of assuming that Alberich is destroyed along with everything else.
> 
> I'm a bit worried that we're conducting this very interesting discussion in the wrong place, and messing up what's actually a DVD opera thread. I wonder if CTP or some other kind Mod might be able to do a bit of thread surgery and put these posts in a more sensible 'Ring' thread?


To tell you the truth, I think Wagner just forgot to kill Alberich and Lee is overinterpreting it.:lol:
Good point about the Rhine maidens, I actually had thought of that as well although I never mentioned it.
And yes, musically Brünnhilde is the one who brings redemption and closure, I agree with you.
Yes, if the posts get moved, it would be a good thing. If the Mods don't do it, we could always do it ourselves by starting a new thread and copying and pasting from our posts here, and then post here a warning that if someone wants to add to this discussion, please report to the new thread. But I feel lazy... if you want to do it, be my guest...


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## Chi_townPhilly

Elgarian said:


> I wonder if CTP or some other kind Mod might be able to do a bit of thread surgery and put these posts in a more sensible 'Ring' thread?


Yeah, I was thinking that, myself. So... done.:tiphat:


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## Guest

Almaviva said:


> I'd like to add one piece of information to counter this guy who thinks that without a sympathetic Sigfried the Ring is "just like any other opera." this may be old news to most, but if someone here didn't know it, it's a very interesting piece of data.
> 
> Do you know what is the object of the most articles, essays, books, sheer number of pages, etc, written about said object in the entire history of humankind? No, not the Ring, the number 1 is the Bible. But the number 2 is the Ring. This includes EVERYTHING else - in the fields of science, religion, literature, politics, history, and so on and so forth. The Ring is the second most studied/published-about object throughout human history. Impressive, no?


I'd like to see some evidence to back that up. That seems an incredible claim, given the breadth of topics to cover, and the seemingly impossible task of evaluating all these fields for the main topics of interest. It just doesn't seem factual. But I remain open to being proven wrong.


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## Elgarian

Chi_townPhilly said:


> Yeah, I was thinking that, myself. So... done.:tiphat:


What splendid efficiency and thoughtfulness. Thanks.


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## Chi_townPhilly

DrMike said:


> I'd like to see some evidence to back that up. That seems an incredible claim, given the breadth of topics to cover, and the seemingly impossible task of evaluating all these fields for the main topics of interest. It just doesn't seem factual. But I remain open to being proven wrong.


Claims about the extensiveness of Wagner commentary would be nearly impossible to document, 
but in many cases, they're relatively easy to source. In Bryan Magee's _Aspects of Wagner_, he says:


> The number of books and articles written about [Wagner], which had reached the ten thousand mark before his death, overtook those of any other human being except Jesus and Napoleon.


Barry Millington makes a more cautious claim in an essay in _The Wagner Compendium_, saying that even at the time referenced by Magee, Shakespeare obviously had more coverage, and Goethe was probably the subject of more published material, too. Latterly, he suggests that Mozart has come into the picture as a serious rival (presumably in the wake of 'Mozart 250' activities) and also adds Bach to this list (though I don't see any real evidence other than the author's word that this is reflective of reality).

If Mozart got a 'bump' due to 'Mozart 250,' we should also reasonably predict a significant bump upcoming, 
for 2013 will be the Wagner bicentennial. So, a fair guess at that list after that time would be: 
1. Jesus 2. Napoleon 3. Shakespeare 4. Wagner 5. Goethe.

Pretty good company.


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## superhorn

As a ifelong Wagner nut,I've listened to the whole Ring complete or separately countless times, as well as all of the Wagner operas except the little known two early ones which are performed 
very rarely.I've heard them on LP,CD,the radio, TV,DVD countless times over the years since I was a teenager. 
If you want to experience the whole Ring, listen to it gradually,say one act at a time, and give yourself some breathing space between acts. 
In the opening of Siegfried, Siegfried is just being the rambunctious and headstrong teenage boy he is. He's not sic-ing the bear on Mime as anything but a joke. 
You have to understand who Siegfried is. He's an orphan who never knew his parents.His father Siegmund
was killed in battle in the previous part of the Ring Die Walkure, and his mother,who was pregnant with him at the time,fled to the forest and was found by the dwarf Mime ,who has a dwelling with a smithy ,and died giving birth to the boy.
He's very curious about his origin and Mine has never been forthcoming to him until the first act of Siegfried. The dwarf dosn't really love Siegfried, and is waiting for him to kill the dragon Fafner,who had previously been a giant but had transformed himself into a dragon with the help of the shape-shifting device the Tarnhelm in order to guard the treasure and the Ring.
Mime knows that he could never steal the all powerful Ring from the dragon, so he's waiting for Siegfried to do this and then plans to kill him by cutting off his head after putting him to sleep with a potion so he can reclaim the Ring for himself. 
The Ring is the grandaddy of all those movie epics such as The Lord of the Rings and Star Wars etc. Tolkien and the others were inspired by it. 
However, the first part of the Ring,Das Rheingold, (The Rhinegold is in four continuous scenes without an intermission,with orchestra interludes between the scenes.
It's by far the shortest part of the Ring at only about 2 and a half hours, but there's no intermission. 
By all means get the DG DVD of the complete Ring with Levine conducting and a first-rate cast. 
There are a number of other Rings on DVD, but they're Europtrash productions which are filled with all kinds of ridiculous anachronistic elements in the staging and set design which fly in the face of Wagner's original intentions, such as having the characters wear modern dress etc and other ridiculous things, or setting the drama in the 19th century among wealthy and greedy businessmen. 
The Met Ring actually sets the drama among the legendary Germanic Gods,Goddesses, and other characters Wagner imagined.


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## Almaviva

jhar26 said:


> I think I like the one that is generally regarded as the least interesting Ring opera the most - Das Rheingold. It's not as long winded and more action packed than the other three. I kinda enjoy Die Walkure also. I only listened to the other two once (I have the complete Solti cycle on cd). It's an awesome piece of work, I'm sure - but maybe it's all a bit over my head and I won't blame my own lack of patience or understanding on Wagner. I can manage to listen to the whole cycle when I limit myself to one act per day though - gotta try that again someday.
> 
> But Das Rheingold I really like. I even have it on DVD in a (thank God) traditional production friom Otto Schenk with James Levine conducting - very good. I said "thank God a traditional production" because otherwise I would probably have been done with The Ring for good. It's already a complicated/demanding work enough without some smart *** producer feeling the need to force his no doubt nonsensical interpretation of the thing down our throats.


Sometimes we disagree a lot (nothing that there is anything wrong with it) but sometimes we are exactly on the same page.

I find Rheingold very interesting. The first time I heard it, my attention was completely taken by the story line. I liked everything about it. I like Die Walküre and Götterdämmerung too, actually the one I like the least (but still like it) is Sigfried.

About traditional staging, you couldn't have said it any better!:tiphat:


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## Almaviva

DrMike said:


> I'd like to see some evidence to back that up. That seems an incredible claim, given the breadth of topics to cover, and the seemingly impossible task of evaluating all these fields for the main topics of interest. It just doesn't seem factual. But I remain open to being proven wrong.


Yes, quite surprising, and one wonders what the methodology was. But I'm selling the fish for the price I bought it. I read this claim. I'm out of town, in a hotel. Once I get home I'll dig into my sources (I don't exactly remember where I read it, but I'm pretty sure I read it at home so it shouldn't be too hard to find since I have just a few reference sources about the Ring at home) then I'll tell you who said it. Whether that author is correct or not, it's another matter. I believe the author said something about the number of books published about the Ring, the number of post-grad dissertations, published articles, etc, (all data that is available to researchers of the existing bibliography) and compared that to the Bible and to the main topics in science, religion, and literature.

Edit: it looks like someone else in the previous page presented some evidence, although placing Wagner (OK, not the Ring, but rather, Wagner) in fourth, not second, with Jesus Christ in first. But like I said, once I find who said second rather than fourth, I'll let you know. I remember this much: that the source talked about the Bible versus the Ring, not Jesus Christ versus Wagner. But it is a similar idea.

Even if my source is wrong and the other user's is right, I'd say that being the fourth human being most talked about in publications in history is still impressive, and being the Ring Wagner's main piece of work, I'd say that even if the prominence is not as high as I quoted, it still serves the core of my argument: that this much prominence points to the likelihood of enduring fame, rather than that fame depending on one narrow aspect such as the audience's acceptance of Sigfried as a "likable" character.

Second or fourth, I could have defended the same idea.


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## DarkAngel

Quick unscientific evidence of popularity, do a google search and see how many results you get:

Jesus - 202 million

Beethoven - 100 mil

Wagner - 58 mil

Bach - 41 mil

Mozart - 28 mil

Verdi - 24 mil

Rolling Stones - 20 mil


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## Aramis

Wagner is popular name so google thing doesn't prove anything. Wagner the volleyball guy, Wagner the actress... I think Wagner in Germany is what Smith is in America.


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## Almaviva

Aramis said:


> Wagner is popular name so google thing doesn't prove anything. Wagner the volleyball guy, Wagner the actress... I think Wagner in Germany is what Smith is in America.


Unless she googled Richard Wagner, composer.

OK, Beethoven has more hits, but I'm prepared to bet that the Ring has more hits than any specific Beethoven piece... OK, maybe not the 9th, but it may have to do with the fact that it became the anthem of the European Union.


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## Guest

My main concern came in the original post, claiming that the writings on the Ring exceeded everything else but the Bible. Since then, it seems to have been narrowed down to people, which is a little easier to believe (Jesus, Wagner, Shakespeare, etc.). But if you are saying the Ring has more written on it than anything, save the Bible only, then that would be curious to see. I am in science, and I just did a quick literature search on a scientific publication search website for HIV, and it returned ~215,000 publications. If you expand it to HIV/AIDS, then you are up to ~295,000. If you search for the topic "cancer" you get a total of ~2.4 million publications. Cancer, though, did have a head start on HIV/AIDS, which has only been really studied for 30 years or so.

If we are talking individuals, then I can understand it a little more.


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## Almaviva

DrMike said:


> My main concern came in the original post, claiming that the writings on the Ring exceeded everything else but the Bible. Since then, it seems to have been narrowed down to people, which is a little easier to believe (Jesus, Wagner, Shakespeare, etc.). But if you are saying the Ring has more written on it than anything, save the Bible only, then that would be curious to see. I am in science, and I just did a quick literature search on a scientific publication search website for HIV, and it returned ~215,000 publications. If you expand it to HIV/AIDS, then you are up to ~295,000. If you search for the topic "cancer" you get a total of ~2.4 million publications. Cancer, though, did have a head start on HIV/AIDS, which has only been really studied for 30 years or so.
> 
> If we are talking individuals, then I can understand it a little more.


Good points. I'm starting to doubt it myself. But see, cancer has 2.4 million publications... Wagner, as quoted by the user above, has some 58 million Google citations. It's impressive. Certainly Google hits are not the same as scientific publications, but still, my point is that it *is* impressive.

And even if we stick with individuals and Wagner is the fourth most quoted/written about individual in human history, it bodes well for the endurance of the Ring - which is my only point.


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## Almaviva

I think the moderator left out one of my posters when he transferred the posts from another thread to this one where they do indeed belong. So I'm copying it and pasting it here:

Quote:
Originally Posted by *Chi_townPhilly*  
_Oh, goody, an opportunity to cite some previous observations...

There's this post... and this post---

And for the whole 'Kennicott' enchilada, there's *this post*.:tiphat:_

Exactly. If you read my posts above, you'll see that we agree in almost everything, judging by these three posts of yours.

I see your point of Sigfried engaging in procurement as reprehensible even though he is under the influence of Hagen's potion. I don't see it this way though, I see Sigfried as a victim of arrested developmen; naive, prone to follow anybody's lead - be it a bird in the forest, or Brünnhilde, or Hagen, etc.; a puppet, basically, without a clear notion of good and evil given that he never even had a role model to base himself on (raised by Mime). He has an innate impulse to be good, noble, and loyal, and once his gaze falls upon a male authority figure that tells him what is proper (in this case Hagen) he just goes along with it, in a trance, with everything that could have steered him to the right direction (namely his love for Brünnhilde) erased by the magic potion. He is at that moment pure Id and some Ego trying to find a matrix for identification, which is what he finds in Hagen, his "brother" - he tries to become the mirror image of that matrix.

About everything else that you said, I agree, and find the Kennicott enchilada very hard to swallow. The idea that the Ring will somehow lose force if the audience disapproves of Sigfried is preposterous. You correctly quoted Calaf, and in my post I quoted some other characters in popular operas (including Turandot herself) who had very questionable morals. When you set these faillible beings to sublime music, though, the operas tend to endure. 
_Last edited by Almaviva; Sep-10-2010 at 15:55. _


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## Almaviva

Chi_townPhilly said:


> Oh, and one more thing-- in a decision reminiscent of the "bad old days" of sports event blackouts, the Ring cycle Music Dramas will be excluded from the nationwide HD theatre-casts. Obviously, the Met is counting on enough "marks" to pony up these extra bills. If this happens, it will work out the way they planned. However, _I_ will not be one of those "marks."
> 
> The MET has proven aggressive in their importuning efforts towards me. It was my special pleasure to inform them that their pricing decisions have made it FAR LESS (rather than more) likely that I will ever contribute to them.
> 
> Come the fall, I've resolved to be more involved in seeking out live-music performances. My quest, however, will NOT involve the MET. Not now.


Has this been rectified already? The Met *is* including the Ring in its Met in HD grid, both live and in Encore form. So for $22 for each live opera and $11 for the encore, anybody who lives within driving distance of the hundreds of theaters nationwide (and accross the world) that participate can see the new Met Ring. Considering that none of the other major companies has done this, I'd rather praise the Met for this initiative.

Opera in the middle of the economic crisis is a tough business. The Met, unlike the major European companies, doesn't get big governmental grants. They do need ticket sales and contributors to survive, and for an occasion such as the Ring there is nothing wrong with making more money to be able to be in the black, while at the same time making it widely accessible to less moneyed audiences through the movie theater broadcasts.

Having the Met's bottom line in the black rather than in the red is highly beneficial to American opera lovers. This is how the Met is able to have 27 operas in this year's season while an opera house like La Scala has 12. (Yes, I know that other European opera houses have even more than the Met, but again, they're heavily subsidized).

I am a grateful contributor to the Met.

Sorry, moderator, but I had to post this. It's not an attack on you, I'm just trying to protect the image of an institution that I love. It has its ups and downs but it's done a lot for opera in the United States and for the diffusion of opera in the world. I'm sure that if the Met board could, they would love to fill the house with younger/less moneyed audiences and make opera loved by even more people. But it costs money to run such a large opera house, and some tough decisions need to be made to keep it running.


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## Chi_townPhilly

Almaviva said:


> I think the moderator left out one of my posters when he transferred the posts from another thread to this one where they do indeed belong. So I'm copying it and pasting it here:


'Twas a judgement call on my part, leaving it there, being as it was a direct response to another post I left there.

But you're the author- and there's absolutely nothing wrong with pulling quotes from other threads and addressing them in new threads (I do it myself, a bit), and we want to be user-friendly, so if you've concluded the post fits better here, we'll leave it here, and soft-delete the one back in the other thread.

As for my aggravation at the MET concerning their policies- that dates from over two years ago- my post as quoted leaves out a bit of context. Yes, I was aggravated that for that particular season, there were no _Ring_ HD-casts... but more than that, I was aggravated that most _Ring_ performances were subject to what I called the "Wagnerian surcharge." I actually *did* wind up attending (and contributing to) the MET that year (and subsequent years), rationalizing to myself that they made available some 'out-of-cycle' _Ring_ operas that were available at 'regular' price and thus free from the Wagnerian surcharge.

As for this year, there will be at least two opportunities to see each of the fiirst two _Ring_ operas as part of the MET in HD series... so bully for them for getting with the program on that front, too!

I saw that "Wagnerian surcharge" pricing was made a part of the LA Freyer _Ring_ cycle, too. Now it's one thing to price that way when you're administering the farewell run of the beloved Schenk _Ring_ (which, for all the carping from the _avant-garde_, still got shoehorn-sellouts), but entirely another to apply that pricing to the Freyer _Ring_. A lot of us puppies weren't going to eat that dog-food at regular-price. Charging Allen Bros. steaks prices for it was perhaps the primary reason this enterprise hemorrhaged roughly six million dollars. I'm made to understand that there was plenty of elbow-room at a few of these installments.:lol:


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## Almaviva

Chi_townPhilly said:


> I saw that "Wagnerian surcharge" pricing was made a part of the LA Freyer _Ring_ cycle, too. Now it's one thing to price that way when you're administering the farewell run of the beloved Schenk _Ring_ (which, for all the carping from the _avant-garde_, still got shoehorn-sellouts), but entirely another to apply that pricing to the Freyer _Ring_. A lot of us puppies weren't going to eat that dog-food at regular-price. Charging Allen Bros. steaks prices for it was perhaps the primary reason this enterprise hemorrhaged roughly six million dollars. I'm made to understand that there was plenty of elbow-room at a few of these installments.:lol:


Oh well, I don't care for the LA Opera. In my humble opinion, it's a bad company, together with the Washington DC one. Placido Domingo is a great singer, a so-so conductor, and a weak music director of opera houses.

Metropolitan Opera all the way, baby!!!


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## Almaviva

*Is it only me, or you guys too?*

While I love most Wagner operas, I can't stand highlights of them. With a few exceptions (like the _Liebestod_ from _Tristan und Isolde_ or _Wie Todesahnung... O du mein holder Abendstern _from _Tannhäuser) _I don't think they do well as isolated pieces unlike their Italian or French counterparts. I believe one must get in the mood to hear or see a Wagner opera, and the fragments only make sense when they are part of the whole. What do you all think?


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## Almaviva

Chi_townPhilly said:


> As for this year, there will be at least two opportunities to see each of the fiirst two _Ring_ operas as part of the MET in HD series... so bully for them for getting with the program on that front, too!


And I have my tickets already!

OK, I''ve noticed only now that your posts were old. My apologies. But the Met did evolve in the sense of making the Ring more accessible, so, kudos to the Met!


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## Elgarian

Almaviva said:


> While I love most Wagner operas, I can't stand highlights of them. With a few exceptions (like the _Liebestod_ from _Tristan und Isolde_ or _Wie Todesahnung... O du mein holder Abendstern _from _Tannhäuser) _I don't think they do well as isolated pieces unlike their Italian or French counterparts. I believe one must get in the mood to hear or see a Wagner opera, and the fragments only make sense when they are part of the whole. What do you all think?


From about 1975 to 1985, I would have agreed with you. From 1985 to 2010, I listened to Wagner almost only ever in highlights or single Acts, and thought I'd never again listen to a complete _Ring_ cycle. Now, during the last few months, I've listened to (and/or watched) the complete _Ring_ twice over, _Gotterdammerung_ three times, and _Rheingold_ four times, in different versions. It seems I can never know when Wagnerian lightning may strike, nor what form it may take!


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## Almaviva

Elgarian said:


> From about 1975 to 1985, I would have agreed with you. From 1985 to 2010, I listened to Wagner almost only ever in highlights or single Acts, and thought I'd never again listen to a complete _Ring_ cycle. Now, during the last few months, I've listened to (and/or watched) the complete _Ring_ twice over, _Gotterdammerung_ three times, and _Rheingold_ four times, in different versions. It seems I can never know when Wagnerian lightning may strike, nor what form it may take!


It looks like I'm in your 1975 to 1985 phase. I don't know if it will change.
Today I was travelling and had a compilation CD on the car stereo, and kept skipping the Wagner bits, and listening to French and Italian bits. But I can spend an entire afternoon or evening completely taken by a Wagner opera in its entirety.


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## Sonata

I am having a bit of trouble getting into Wagner at all so far. I suspect it's something of an acquired taste. There are bits of Tristan Und Isolde that aren't bad, but I still find myself during long stretches thinking "I COULD be listening to Fidelio or Figaro right now instead!"

I'll watch Tristan Und Isolde somewhere in the near future, and if watching doesn't do anything, I'll shelve Wagner for awhile then try him again in a couple of years.

I think part of it is that he, even more than other composers of opera, requires full knowledge and visualization of the story, where some of the others you can get by enjoying the pretty music. ie, you need to get more invested in Wagner to appreciate Wagner.


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## Aramis

> I think part of it is that he, even more than other composers of opera, requires full knowledge and visualization of the story, where some of the others you can get by enjoying the pretty music. ie, you need to get more invested in Wagner to appreciate Wagner.


All valueable works require knowledge, deeper understanding and stuff, if you can just sit and "enjoy the pretty music" then opera is obviously written for shallow pleasure and fun. One would have to be totally washed from all listener's ambitions to stick to this kind of works instead working to understand the other ones. It doesn't take that long. I was exploring classical music for like one year before I started with Wagner and in next six month I became full-time aficionado.


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## Sonata

I understand what you're saying Aramis. That said, I think some of the deeper operas CAN be simply played and enjoyed at face value. Not all of them. But readily accessible doesn't always equate with being shallow. Actually, I started listening to opera simply because I wanted to enjoy the pretty arias and duets. But now that I've started exploring different operas, I am learning them in greater depth.

At any rate, I divide my listening amongst many genres....blues, progressive metal, other classical, plain old rock. At the start in my opera experience, I am enjoying exploring Mozart, Verdi, and Puccini. It makes sense for me to explore THOSE guys more fully (which will keep me plenty busy) because their melodies are more pleasing to my ear in the immediate present. I have (hopefully!!!) plenty of life ahead of me to tackle Wagner further on down the line. And I certainly plan to.


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## Almaviva

Sonata said:


> I understand what you're saying Aramis. That said, I think some of the deeper operas CAN be simply played and enjoyed at face value. Not all of them. But readily accessible doesn't always equate with being shallow. Actually, I started listening to opera simply because I wanted to enjoy the pretty arias and duets. But now that I've started exploring different operas, I am learning them in greater depth.
> 
> At any rate, I divide my listening amongst many genres....blues, progressive metal, other classical, plain old rock. At the start in my opera experience, I am enjoying exploring Mozart, Verdi, and Puccini. It makes sense for me to explore THOSE guys more fully (which will keep me plenty busy) because their melodies are more pleasing to my ear in the immediate present. I have (hopefully!!!) plenty of life ahead of me to tackle Wagner further on down the line. And I certainly plan to.


Sonata, while I respect your choice and method, I'd like to add my voice to Aramis' here and suggest that you do give Wagner a chance earlier rather than later.

There are two works of his that I find more accessible to a Wagner beginner: Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg - lighter, funnier, delightful, with clearer division of arias - and Lohengrin - shorter than his most ambitious operas, melodious, very touching and beautiful. Neither one requires too much studying (although it wouldn't hurt); they are both VERY high quality, actually astounding masterpieces (The Flying Dutchman is easier too but is just not as good as these two), and VERY enjoyable.

Tristan und Isolde is really not a wise choice to approach Wagner for the first time. While it is my first or second most preferred Wagner (I keep placing it either ahead or just behind the Ring, alternatively), it is also very demanding and challenging. That's where Wagner started to implement a revolution in music with the so-called Tristan chord. That's where atonality started, with lasting and profound impact in the history of music, and huge influence over subsequent composers. In some ways even the Ring is musically more accessible, although theatrically it is infinitely more complex. The Ring does evolve in the same direction of T&I starting with the third act of the third opera (Siegfried), but the earlier Ring is actually *more* accessible than Tristan und Isolde, which was composed after the first and second Ring operas and the first two acts of the third Ring opera (then Wagner paused for years, composed Tristan und Isolde, then resumed with the third act of the third opera, and then the fourth and last Ring opera).

Probably you should hear Tristan und Isolde last, in your exploration of Wagner.

But there is actually no reason to postpone Wagner. It is VERY different from the Italianate style (although when you get to late Verdi in Otello and Falstaff you'll start to see more similarities than differences), it's a different animal, but they can perfectly co-exist exactly *because* they are so different. Similarly to your capacity to enjoy simultaneously blues and progressive metal, you'll be able to enjoy Verdi and the Italian masters side by side rather than in sequence.

What you said about acquired taste for Wagner may be true, but just like Aramis told you, it's pretty easy to acquire that taste (six months for him) because it is so fascinating and rewarding that soon enough your taste for it pops up. You just need to get used to the style, and Die Meistersinger is a good way to start.

People say that coffee is an acquired taste since most children don't like it and most adults do. But if you think of a very yummy, gourmet coffee with some nice spices and whipped cream and whatnot, once you drink it you go - wow! - and voilà, you're a coffee lover. I think Die Meistersinger can do this to you, and can do it pretty easily, actually.

The Ring and Tristan und Isolde do require studying. These are not works that one can just listen to, and apprehend entirely in their profound significance and their carefully crafted construction, in one sitting, or even in many non-informed sittings. You gotta read about the sources, get a sense of the symbolic aspects, get informed about the leitmotif systems, and hopefully, see these works rather than just listen to them, because they are long and complex theatrical pieces that need focus and attention, and they were designed as musical dramas that are inseparable from the plot, the acting, the scenery.

But hey, you can pop the Meistersinger in your CD player - or even better, your DVD player - relax, and enjoy the show, and I'll tell you, you're in for a treat, it's very entertaining.

See, if you postpone Wagner indefinitely, once you finally do get to it, what you'll think will almost certainly be: "Damn, this is so great, why didn't I start earlier???"

Anyway, just friendly advice, but you know, any method and approach to opera that pleases you is good.


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## Sonata

I'll keep that in mind both of you, and let you know how my exploration progresses. As always here, it's quite an education )


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## Almaviva

Sonata said:


> I'll keep that in mind both of you, and let you know how my exploration progresses. As always here, it's quite an education )


Never feel embarrassed for being a beginner, Sonata! Everybody needs to start or has started from some point. The important thing is that you are trying, and enjoying it. The rest will come little by little.

By the way, another piece of advice to get you used to and introduced to Wagner: you can go to the source first, to the style that influenced Wagner to start with, so that you get familiar with the German style of opera: listen to Euryanthe, from Weber. It's very melodious, as beautiful and accessible as the Italian masters, and it's how Wagner himself got hooked into operatic music.


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## Elgarian

Sonata said:


> At the start in my opera experience, I am enjoying exploring Mozart, Verdi, and Puccini. It makes sense for me to explore THOSE guys more fully (which will keep me plenty busy) because their melodies are more pleasing to my ear in the immediate present.


Sounds eminently sensible to me, but then, that tends to be my own approach. The moment something resonates, I start digging into it, and tend to leave everything else aside while I do so.

There is, though, an alternative approach to the Wagner problem. You don't have to plunge straight into the _Ring_ on four successive nights (even though you might end up there one day.) Why not pick up a cheap 'Highlights' CD, compiled from one of the highly acclaimed recordings?

For example, you could help yourself to bleeding chunks of Solti and friends:








2 CDs for just a few pounds, available here.

Or a fiery alternative from Bohm and his pals:








also available cheaply here.

I started with these _Gotterdammerung_ highlights, back in the 70s - a studio recording with the wonderful Rita Hunter:










This is still available here.

I just played it now and then (unimpressed at first), and found myself reaching for it with increasing frequency, until one day I realised I was hooked without actually knowing just how it had happened. Incidentally, even today, it's still only _The Ring_ that really haunts me, out of the whole of Wagner.


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## Almaviva

Elgarian said:


> Sounds eminently sensible to me, but then, that tends to be my own approach. The moment something resonates, I start digging into it, and tend to leave everything else aside while I do so.
> 
> There is, though, an alternative approach to the Wagner problem. You don't have to plunge straight into the _Ring_ on four successive nights (even though you might end up there one day.) Why not pick up a cheap 'Highlights' CD, compiled from one of the highly acclaimed recordings?
> 
> For example, you could help yourself to bleeding chunks of Solti and friends:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 2 CDs for just a few pounds, available here.
> 
> Or a fiery alternative from Bohm and his pals:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> also available cheaply here.
> 
> I started with these _Gotterdammerung_ highlights, back in the 70s - a studio recording with the wonderful Rita Hunter:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> This is still available here.
> 
> I just played it now and then (unimpressed at first), and found myself reaching for it with increasing frequency, until one day I realised I was hooked without actually knowing just how it had happened. Incidentally, even today, it's still only _The Ring_ that really haunts me, out of the whole of Wagner.


There, I respectfully disagree. I think the Ring does need total immersion and some preparation, and makes more sense as a complete arc rather than as a sum of fragments. That's the path I took, and I won't ever forget how I was completely in awe of it when I finally finished Götterdämmerung. It was 1 AM, the house was silent, my wife was asleep (I had headphones) and I just sat there with the lights off, amazed, incapable of moving, slowly repeating to myself like a fool "Wow!....Wow!....Wow!" for an entire hour until 2AM (I'm not exaggerating, it *was* until 2 AM) when I finally stood up like a zombie and slowly walked to the bedroom. The next day I could barely concentrate in whatever I was doing and kept thinking of the overwhelming experience I had just had, having been exposed to one of the greatest works of art I had ever encountered in my life. I think that going by fragments risks spoiling this stunning experience and doesn't provide the immense feeling that it all makes a lot of (musical) sense when you take it as it was meant to be taken.

Again, whatever works for the music lover is right, but I think the Ring may be the one exception that is worth saving for more legwork before it, more focus during it, and more impact after it.


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## Elgarian

Almaviva said:


> I think the Ring does need total immersion and some preparation, and makes more sense as a complete arc rather than as a sum of fragments. That's the path I took, and I won't ever forget how I was completely in awe of it when I finally finished Götterdämmerung.


Well, it's marvellous that you could do that. But I know with certainty that it wouldn't have worked for me. I wouldn't have made it to the end of _Rheingold_, in fact, because for many weeks _I couldn't hear the tunes_ in my highlights record - it just seemed like a great wash of sound, and I wasn't at all sure that I could ever grow to enjoy it. I'm very slow at that sort of thing. But there was this niggling feeling to listen 'just one more time'. In hindsight, I see that I really _needed_ the inch-by-inch approach I adopted. By the time I was ready to tackle the full work, I already had many of the important motifs buzzing around my head, and I needed that slow drip-drip preparation.

There was another factor too. At the time (1970s) we had no money to spare - and the highlights CD had the advantange of being affordable. The purchase of our Bohm/Bayreuth box set (when we finally settled on getting one) was an enormous expense at the time that had no precedent - and we had to be absolutely certain that we weren't wasting our money on something we might never be able to enjoy, given the sacrifices we had to make to acquire it at all.

My aim is not to _recommend_ this approach, but just to suggest it as an alternative for anyone who (for whatever reason) can't contemplate taking on something so enormous that requires such extraordinary commitment. All I can say in its favour (looking at the four complete _Ring_ CD sets, and the two DVD sets, on my shelves) is that it seems to have worked for me. But I suspect there are as many different successful ways into the _Ring_ as there are lovers of it.


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## Almaviva

Elgarian said:


> But I suspect there are as many different successful ways into the _Ring_ as there are lovers of it.


Yes, you got it, and the best proof is the very opposite routes we took and how we both ended up by being Ring lovers. I went from the whole to the fragment; after I heard it for the first time I was all excited about going back and exploring the leitmotifs, getting to know them (I bought one of these instructive CDs with lists of leitmotifs and examples), bought books, all I could think of for a good while was the Ring. But it all happened to me much later in life... in the seventies all I could think of was how to get into girls' pants...:lol:


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## Sonata

Hey, Elgarian and I can team up and be the "black sheep" on the board in our different approach to opera. I kid. It's all in good fun


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## Almaviva

Sonata said:


> Hey, Elgarian and I can team up and be the "black sheep" on the board in our different approach to opera. I kid. It's all in good fun


I think *I'm* the black sheep here, always trying to tell people to do it my way.


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## sospiro

Almaviva said:


> I think *I'm* the black sheep here, always trying to tell people to do it my way.


Yeah you do... but we love you anyway.


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## Almaviva

sospiro said:


> Yeah you do... but we love you anyway.


Thanks!

Hehehe, the software said my message was too short and had me add more, to have at least 10 characters.

I guess in today's world a simple honest sincere "thanks" is not enough.:lol:


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## Elgarian

Almaviva said:


> all I could think of for a good while was the Ring.


Occupational hazard for the _Ring_ enthusiast. I thought I'd done my time on that 'most important thing in my life' feeling 25 years ago - imagine how disconcerted I was when it all started happening again a few months ago!

*@sonata
*
I think we're _all_ black sheep, really. Just different shades of black.


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## Almaviva

Elgarian said:


> I think we're _all_ black sheep, really. Just different shades of black.


Oh, no, no! I'm sure I'm the blackest sheep here! (I heard that Anna Netrebko likes bad boys)


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## DarkAngel

*What about Ring DVD sets...........*

Who has one they can recommend and why?
I have the Levine Ring, Boulez Ring, and partial Mehta Valencia Ring (blu ray)

For me the Boulez Ring overall is best of those three, the Mehta in spectacular blu ray format with huge back projected panels "could" have been a home run but for me costume and personel were let down (rotund Brunnhilde etc) and I sold off half the set already........

It is very hard to get the Barenboim Ring in region 1 for USA, but I notice all the UK vendors like Presto have complete Barenboim DVD set in that region for cheaper than CD format, this means *Elgarian must step up* and take one for the team and buy this ASAP 

The youtubes of Barenboim Gotterdammerung Immolation scence look very good so I have paid big bucks to buy this in region 1 at Amazon USA sellers.......


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## Elgarian

DarkAngel said:


> It is very hard to get the Barenboim Ring in region 1 for USA, but I notice all the UK vendors like Presto have complete Barenboim DVD set in that region for cheaper than CD format, this means *Elgarian must step up* and take one for the team and buy this ASAP


I'm aware of my public duty in this respect, and of my failure to do it, DA. Truth is, I've been dithering for ages between the Copenhagen Ring and the Barenboim. That quandary is now settled - from what I've seen of the Copenhagen Ring, I know I'd need to be _paid_ serious money to watch it. So, particularly since the competition is so affordable now, the Barenboim will be my next purchase - but it'll have to wait until next month, as I've just been splashing out funds recklessly on Sibelius symphonies.

I agree the Barenboim looks promising, though I'm a bit concerned that it's so predominantly _dark_.


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## DarkAngel

Elgarian said:


> I'm aware of my public duty in this respect, and of my failure to do it, DA. Truth is, I've been dithering for ages between the Copenhagen Ring and the Barenboim. That quandary is now settled - from what I've seen of the *Copenhagen Ring, I know I'd need to be paid serious money to watch it*. So, particularly since the competition is so affordable now, the Barenboim will be my next purchase - but it'll have to wait until next month, as I've just been splashing out funds recklessly on Sibelius symphonies.
> 
> I agree the *Barenboim looks promising*, though I'm a bit concerned that it's so predominantly _dark_.


Yes Barenboim has lots of lasers and black leather trenchcoats, very deep stage to work with

*Copenhagen gives us the feminist Ring.........*
They explore an alternate ending for Gotterdammerung with Brunnhilde giving birth to a child, the end begins new age of man with no gods to direct them

Very cheap in USA, but I have yet to take the bait


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## mamascarlatti

DarkAngel said:


> Yes Barenboim has lots of lasers and black leather trenchcoats, very deep stage to work with
> 
> *Copenhagen gives us the feminist Ring.........*
> They explore an alternate ending for Gotterdammerung with Brunnhilde giving birth to a child, the end begins new age of man with no gods to direct them
> 
> Very cheap in USA, but I have yet to take the bait


Copenhagen is not for everyone, but funnily enough, when I think about scenes from the Ring, this is the one that pops into my subconscious.

I'm kind of feeling the urge to get another one, and am really looking forward to Alan's report back on the Barenboim one.


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## Elgarian

What I really, really wish, is that someone had made a video recording of the English National Opera Ring in the late 70s. I suppose I've built it up so much in my imagination, since watching _Gotterdammerung_ one sweltering summer evening in Manchester, that I'd be bound to be disappointed actually to see it again, but still ...

Or maybe not. After all, we clapped ourselves silly when it ended - it provoked certainly the longest sustained applause I've ever witnessed, by some measure.

And if I can't have that, then I want my fairy godmother to provide me with a recording of Birgit and Wolfgang in their heyday at Bayreuth.

And then, and then ....


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## DarkAngel

*Here is one of those cool visuals from Valencia Ring..........*

At the end of Rhinegold when gods cross the rainbow bridge to valhalla, the acrobats
close the tube shape net around them symbolizing many heroes of valhalla.

At the end immolation scence the net of acrobats breaks apart and becomes chaos, flames fill the panels

I did keep the Rhinegold blu ray from this set....


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## Almaviva

DarkAngel said:


> Yes Barenboim has lots of lasers and black leather trenchcoats, very deep stage to work with
> 
> *Copenhagen gives us the feminist Ring.........*
> They explore an alternate ending for Gotterdammerung with Brunnhilde giving birth to a child, the end begins new age of man with no gods to direct them
> 
> Very cheap in USA, but I have yet to take the bait


I really, really hate this kind of stuff. Wagner must be turning in his grave. He'd die again if he could, once he heard that they're staging his Ring with Brunnhilde giving birth to a child.


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## Almaviva

Elgarian said:


> What I really, really wish, is that someone had made a video recording of the English National Opera Ring in the late 70s. I suppose I've built it up so much in my imagination, since watching _Gotterdammerung_ one sweltering summer evening in Manchester, that I'd be bound to be disappointed actually to see it again, but still ...
> 
> Or maybe not. After all, we clapped ourselves silly when it ended - it provoked certainly the longest sustained applause I've ever witnessed, by some measure.
> 
> And if I can't have that, then I want my fairy godmother to provide me with a recording of Birgit and Wolfgang in their heyday at Bayreuth.
> 
> And then, and then ....


I'm hoping that the new Met Ring that starts in a few weeks will be the Ring to rule them all...


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## jflatter

Hey guys. Have been watching your chat on this topic with interest. I note some of you are waiting to bite the bullet for someone to get the Barenboim ring on DVD. I have a copy (along with the Met Opera version, the Cheyrou Bayreuth version and the recent Copenhagen and Valencia versions). I think that the Barenboim version is muscially the best on DVD and although it now looks a tad dated its production by Harry Kupfer is still a great one (particularly the last hour or so of Gotterdammerung which is very heart rending) as well as storming performances from John Tomlinson and Ann Evans. Definately one for the wish list if you are looking for a ring that is not traditional. 

Personally I don't believe this theory that Wagner would be spinning in his grave at the modern productions given to his work. The man was a musical and theatrical progressive and I think he would given productions like the Copenhagen Ring the thumbs up.


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## DarkAngel

jflatter said:


> Hey guys. Have been watching your chat on this topic with interest. I note some of you are waiting to bite the bullet for someone to get the Barenboim ring on DVD. I have a copy (along with the Met Opera version, the Cheyrou Bayreuth version and the recent Copenhagen and Valencia versions). I think that the Barenboim version is muscially the best on DVD and although it now looks a tad dated its production by Harry Kupfer is still a great one (particularly the last hour or so of Gotterdammerung which is very heart rending) as well as storming performances from John Tomlinson and Ann Evans. Definately one for the wish list if you are looking for a ring that is not traditional.
> 
> Personally I don't believe this theory that Wagner would be spinning in his grave at the modern productions given to his work. The man was a musical and theatrical progressive and I think he would given productions like the Copenhagen Ring the thumbs up.


I like everything I can see from youtubes of Barenboim Gotterdammerung, should arrive anyday now but it cost me plenty in USA region 1 version

What do you think of Brunnhilde and costumes of Valencia Ring with Mehta?


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## Almaviva

jflatter said:


> Personally I don't believe this theory that Wagner would be spinning in his grave at the modern productions given to his work. The man was a musical and theatrical progressive and I think he would given productions like the Copenhagen Ring the thumbs up.


I'm not an ultra-conservative guy by any means (rather the opposite) and I thoroughly enjoy many modern and updated stagings of various operas. The Ring is a symbolism-laden work and modern stagings are often interesting. But I draw the line when it comes to ideas that profoundly modify the author/composer's intentions.

A visually appealing setting is fine, but changing the destiny/fate of the characters by introducing new characters is not. Wagner authored the libretto and composed the music. There is nothing there that indicates that Wotan's lineage is supposed to continue through offspring coming from the union of Brunnhilde and Sigfried. This baby is not a character in Wagner's ring. The point in the original Ring is that the Gods and their offspring all die and the humans are left to deal with the world from that point on; there is no demi-God child left behind.

You know, these works are masterpieces. They don't need or require this kind of deep modification. If a stage director feels that the Ring is incomplete without Brunnhilde and Sigfried leaving behind a child, that's the stage director's ring, not Wagner's ring. I'd invite the stage director to try to compose his own masterpiece, and I'm quite sure the results will be a lot less enticing than Wagner's Ring.

Stage directors need to show at least some measure of respect towards the source material. Wagner may have been progressive musically and theatrically, but he was also very grandiose and narcissitic. I doubt he'd appreciate some stage director thinking that Wagner's ending wasn't good enough and adding a pregnant Brunnhilde and a child to it. I could portray him saying "get off my Ring, and go compose your own.":lol:

You want to change it, fine, call it something else, a parody of the Ring, or a work inspired by the Ring, but Wagner's Ring has no pregnant Brunnhilde.

Let's say that someone wants to stage Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet. Then the person says - "you know what, I don't like that Shakespeare let his two leading characters die at the end. Let's change it, let's allow them to survive and have a child and live happily ever after!"

Is this still Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet? I don't think so!


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## Chi_townPhilly

jflatter said:


> Personally I don't believe this theory that Wagner would be spinning in his grave at the modern productions given to his work. The man was a musical and theatrical progressive and I think he would given productions like the Copenhagen Ring the thumbs up.


I think our fate on this one is agreeing to disagree.

The man gave painstaking stage-instructions, extending to the slope, color and contrast of the background scenery. I, for one, don't think that he wrote those instructions with the idea of being an option, suggestion, or guideline. I'm convinced he wouldn't have committed such detail to paper if he felt otherwise.


> *I don't care in the least whether my works are given or not: all I am concerned with is that they shall be performed as I conceived them. Whoever won't and can't do that may leave them alone.* Richard Wagner (quoted from correspondence)


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## DarkAngel

Almaviva said:


> A visually appealing setting is fine, but changing the destiny/fate of the characters by introducing new characters is not. Wagner authored the libretto and composed the music. There is nothing there that indicates that Wotan's lineage is supposed to continue through offspring coming from the union of Brunnhilde and Sigfried. This baby is not a character in Wagner's ring. The point in the original Ring is that the Gods and their offspring all die and the humans are left to deal with the world from that point on; there is no demi-God child left behind.


Just to taunt you look at the artwork of Copenhagen Gotterdammerung


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## Elgarian

DarkAngel said:


> I like everything I can see from youtubes of Barenboim Gotterdammerung


Yes, I too thought the pieces I've seen looked impressive. And I felt that the kind of 'interpretation' that was going on was the sort I could live with: that is, I felt that by watching it there was some good prospect of getting closer to the _Ring_.

This is my point, really. The _Ring_ is so enormous, that even after all these years I'm still aware that I've only scratched the surface of it. I want to grow more familiar with it and understand it better - but I don't want some fleetingly fashionable production to get in my way. I've seen enough of the Copenhagen Ring to know beyond doubt that it would do just that. I'm happy for anybody else to do whatever they like for whatever reasons they like (I'm not too bothered about the business of ignoring Wagner's insistence on production details, _per se_), but I want to be able to choose 'no thanks' when I can see that a production is going to hinder me in my _Ring_ quest, rather than help me onward.


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## Almaviva

DarkAngel said:


> Just to taunt you look at the artwork of Copenhagen Gotterdammerung


I'm upset! The taunting worked! I've been talking to my lawyers and we'll sue these people from Copenhagen and make them remove the name Wagner from the cover. It's the Copenhagen Ring, not Wagner's Ring.:scold: And while we are at it, we'll force them to change their opera's name to "Not Really the God's Twilight Since There's Still a Demi-God Child Left Behind - A New Hope." Part of the lawsuit settlement will include provisions for the DVD to be only displayed in the Science Fiction section of videostores and rental businesses, right next to "Star Wars - A New Hope."

Besides, I bet this is an ugly baby.

And the obstetric conditions in Copenhagen leave a lot to be desired. Couldn't they - at the very least! - have provided to poor Brunnhilde a decent, clean maternity ward gown when they delivered her child? My lawyers and I will be talking to the Medical Board in Copenhagen as well; is this Third World care or something with all this blood everywhere? It's not sanitary! It looks like I was mistaken in thinking that Denmark was actually a developed country. Shame!

:lol:


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## Aramis

First time I'm in Copenhagen these guys will get into the snout.


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## DarkAngel

DarkAngel said:


> I like everything I can see from youtubes of Barenboim Gotterdammerung, should arrive anyday now but it cost me plenty in USA region 1 version


Got screwed by Amazon seller........they sent me region 2 DVD set instead of region 1 for USA 

Now I not only have no DVD to watch have to go through the hassle of returning DVD because of some careless seller......not happy


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## Elgarian

DarkAngel said:


> Got screwed by Amazon seller........they sent me region 2 DVD set instead of region 1 for USA
> 
> Now I not only have no DVD to watch have to go through the hassle of returning DVD because of some careless seller......not happy


Oh that's bad luck, DA. These absurd DVD 'regions' are a positive menace.


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## jflatter

Well I have opened up a small can of worms! I think that Wagner may have given precise stage instructions but would have realised that with the passage of time that things change. I don't think that you can compare the libretti of Wagner with the works of Shakespeare. Wagner's work in the Ring of course leaves matters open ended. Of course, nobody really knows what happens to Alberich who is of course a central character. So although I can see people not getting on with the Copenhagen Ring it offers something different to the table and I suspect that Wagner's ego would be tickled by the discussions we are having.


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## Elgarian

jflatter said:


> Well I have opened up a small can of worms!.


I think the can has been open since the early 1950s - weren't Wieland Wagner's 'abstract' productions booed back then?


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## Almaviva

jflatter said:


> I don't think that you can compare the libretti of Wagner with the works of Shakespeare.


Why not? They are similar in the fact that they are revered masterpieces that have endured the test of time.


> Wagner's work in the Ring of course leaves matters open ended.


Sincerely, I don't think that Valhalla going up in flames and Brunnhilde throwing herself into a burning pire qualifies for open-ended. It seems quite definitive to me, as shown by the title of the work itself, The Twilight of the Gods


> Of course, nobody really knows what happens to Alberich who is of course a central character.


You got a point, but as per the previous discussion, sometimes I think that Wagner just forgot to kill Alberich. :lol:


> So although I can see people not getting on with the Copenhagen Ring it offers something different to the table


My point is that the Ring is good enough as it is - the work, I mean, not the stagings - and doesn't require something as different as a pregnant Brunnhilde giving birth to a child. I don't mind visual reinterpretation, but I do mind adding a new character (the baby).

But it's not a can of worms, we have fun while discussing this, and our difference of opinion is not upsetting in any way.:tiphat:


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## DarkAngel

Elgarian said:


> Oh that's bad luck, DA. These absurd DVD 'regions' are a positive menace.




Barenboim Ring - Amazon UK

*Elgarian has solved my dilema (I think)*
Almost ready to admit defeat from Amazon USA sellers, I checked the features of my Oppo blu ray player and discovered that it supports both NTSC and PAL systems so this region 0 (all regions) PAL set should work for me.

I secretly placed order beforwe the ink had dried on Elgarians original post and package has already shipped, I await delivery, great price!


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## World Violist

jflatter said:


> Of course, nobody really knows what happens to Alberich who is of course a central character.


I think Alberich _was_ a central character, in the sense that, while being central in the earlier operas (and a bit in Siegfried), he really doesn't mean all that much in the long run. I think that's why, in the long run, nothing happened to him; because he didn't really have an active role in the fashion of... um... everyone who got killed.


----------



## Elgarian

DarkAngel said:


> I checked the features of my Oppo blu ray player and discovered that it supports both NTSC and PAL systems so this region 0 (all regions) PAL set should work for me.!


That does seem certain to resolve the problem, doesn't it? Excellent. It seems that _three _of us are currently awaiting delivery of the Barenboim Ring.


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## DarkAngel

World Violist said:


> I think Alberich _was_ a central character, in the sense that, while being central in the earlier operas (and a bit in Siegfried), he really doesn't mean all that much in the long run. I think that's why, in the long run, nothing happened to him; because he didn't really have an active role in the fashion of... um... everyone who got killed.


Am I missing something or is the *powerful Tarnhelm not accounted for in final scence*.......

The Rhinemaidens flood the river to obtain the ring carried by Brunnhilde from the funeral pyre after immolation and also drown Hagen. You might assume they also took the tarnhelm but not really mentioned, only taking the ring

What happened to the tarnhelm?


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## Almaviva

DarkAngel said:


> Am I missing something or is the *powerful Tarnhelm not accounted for in final scence*.......
> 
> The Rhinemaidens flood the river to obtain the ring carried by Brunnhilde from the funeral pyre after immolation and also drown Hagen. You might assume they also took the tarnhelm but not really mentioned, only taking the ring
> 
> What happened to the tarnhelm?


Good question, last time I remember it is when Sigfried disguises himself as Gunther using it. Is it ever mentioned after Act I?


----------



## Almaviva

World Violist said:


> I think Alberich _was_ a central character, in the sense that, while being central in the earlier operas (and a bit in Siegfried), he really doesn't mean all that much in the long run. I think that's why, in the long run, nothing happened to him; because he didn't really have an active role in the fashion of... um... everyone who got killed.


I think Alberich is a very important character. He's the one who renounced love for greed, thus setting in motion the whole collapse of the world order, until Brunnhilde redeems the world through love. Like professor M. Owen Lee said in his book, there is a reason why the cycle is called The Ring *of the Nibelung* (that is, of Alberich).

I think it is entirely surprising that Alberich doesn't get killed. Either Wagner forgot to kill him lol or there is some meaning to it, such as, the real source of evil wasn't dealt with and may surface again in the future so that the world's new order will not be that different from the old one.


----------



## mamascarlatti

I don't think it matters whether Alberich is dead or not, he is irrelevant now, a victm of his own desires, and powerless without the Ring. The point is that Brunnhilde renounces life and the desire for life willingly, and that's what the ending is about. Bringing Alberich in just so that he can be killed off at this time would be a dramatic distraction.


----------



## Almaviva

mamascarlatti said:


> I don't think it matters whether Alberich is dead or not, he is irrelevant now, a victm of his own desires, and powerless without the Ring. The point is that Brunnhilde renounces life and the desire for life willingly, and that's what the ending is about. Bringing Alberich in just so that he can be killed off at this time would be a dramatic distraction.


Sure, but I think Wagner should have killed him a little before the end, somewhere in Act II. Alberich could have made another attempt to grab the ring and be killed in the process.


----------



## Rangstrom

The orchestral sound on the Barenboim Gotterdammerung DVD is amazing. I'm still trying to get the rest of the cycle from the UK.


Has anyone paid the premium for the stereo Testament '55 Keilberth Cycle? Mid-fifties Bayreuth was the golden age for Wagner, but the price on the testament is a little steep.


----------



## Mesomedes

Alberich will be inconsequential or else he'll die. Ultimately it doesn't matter at all, though I'd venture a guess that he perishes with the Ring destruction, or else become a small impotent part of the nameless masses. Earlier he could still project his life's purpose on vengeance and retrieval, but after that has been done, what else is there left for him? Nothing to power him up. He reminds me much of Strauss' Elektra, where she dances to death because her unique goal in life, the one in which she has deposited all her mind, has been erased from the screen of wordly possibilites (in her case with her triumphant, but that doesn't really matter).


----------



## DarkAngel

Rangstrom said:


> The orchestral sound on the Barenboim Gotterdammerung DVD is amazing. I'm still trying to get the rest of the cycle from the UK.
> 
> Has anyone paid the premium for the stereo *Testament '55 Keilberth Cycle*? Mid-fifties Bayreuth was the golden age for Wagner, but the price on the testament is a little steep.


The early stereo sound is actually quite good for Testament 1955 Ring, top Decca recording team involved with great results, but since Culshaw did not like live recordings Decca instead promoted the studio Solti Ring started a few years later and let this Ring languish

Great price now at Amazon USA $120 new from seller "fabulousCD" have never seen it this cheap before


----------



## Sebastien Melmoth

Thought the laconic Symbolism of *Tristan* and/or the erotic unity of Siegfried-Brünnhilde (in *Siegfried*) the epitome of Wagner's art till I discovered *Parsifal*...


----------



## jflatter

Almaviva said:


> Why not? They are similar in the fact that they are revered masterpieces that have endured the test of time.
> 
> Sincerely, I don't think that Valhalla going up in flames and Brunnhilde throwing herself into a burning pire qualifies for open-ended. It seems quite definitive to me, as shown by the title of the work itself, The Twilight of the Gods
> 
> You got a point, but as per the previous discussion, sometimes I think that Wagner just forgot to kill Alberich. :lol:
> 
> My point is that the Ring is good enough as it is - the work, I mean, not the stagings - and doesn't require something as different as a pregnant Brunnhilde giving birth to a child. I don't mind visual reinterpretation, but I do mind adding a new character (the baby).
> 
> But it's not a can of worms, we have fun while discussing this, and our difference of opinion is not upsetting in any way.:tiphat:


Of course as I said there is no problem at all. It just shows that many people have many different ideas about his work.

P.S. I am off today to see Tristan und Isolde which involves a giant screen projecting images throughout the opera and the singers singing all over the auditorium. That well known director Peter Sellars is the artistic force behind this.


----------



## jflatter

Rangstrom said:


> The orchestral sound on the Barenboim Gotterdammerung DVD is amazing. I'm still trying to get the rest of the cycle from the UK.
> 
> Has anyone paid the premium for the stereo Testament '55 Keilberth Cycle? Mid-fifties Bayreuth was the golden age for Wagner, but the price on the testament is a little steep.


I have the Keilberth Cycle. It has now become my favourite recording. The Rheingold sound quality is say only 90% rather than 100% but to think that this is the first stereo recording of the Ring the rest of the sound is very good for its time. Plus the singing is the best of any Ring recording I have ( I have a lot).

The reason why I understand it to be pricey is that the artists families get royalties, which is an unusual practice for these types of releases


----------



## Rangstrom

Thanks jflatter and DarkAngel for the feedback. I'll order a copy this week.

BTW I found this "review" of the dress rehearsal for the Met's new Rheingold. It has a cast list. I like tradional Ring presentations so this should be fun:

http://oberon481.typepad.com/oberons_grove/2010/09/mets-new-rheingold-fizzles-out-in-the-end.html


----------



## Almaviva

Rangstrom said:


> Thanks jflatter and DarkAngel for the feedback. I'll order a copy this week.
> 
> BTW I found this "review" of the dress rehearsal for the Met's new Rheingold. It has a cast list. I like tradional Ring presentations so this should be fun:
> 
> http://oberon481.typepad.com/oberons_grove/2010/09/mets-new-rheingold-fizzles-out-in-the-end.html


Hm... I'm sure the Met will fix the glitches and it will be lots of fun. Can't wait. This thread will be buzzing after the Met in HD broadcast reaches all corners of the world.


----------



## DarkAngel

Almaviva said:


> Hm... I'm sure the Met will fix the glitches and it will be lots of fun. Can't wait. This thread will be buzzing after the Met in HD broadcast reaches all corners of the world.


I am not one who expects big things, especially after the LA ring cartoon show :lol:
I reserve the right to change my mind after in depth look, but I doubt it

LA Ring 
LA Ring

I seriously doubt that anyone who prefers "traditional" Ring performance will be pleased with new MET Ring......but we shall see


----------



## Almaviva

DarkAngel said:


> I am not one who expects big things, especially after the LA ring cartoon show :lol:
> I reserve the right to change my mind after in depth look, but I doubt it
> 
> LA Ring
> LA Ring
> 
> I seriously doubt that anyone who prefers "traditional" Ring performance will be pleased with new MET Ring......but we shall see


Lepage has a good reputation as stage director. Apparently what he did for _La Damnation de Faust _was quite spectacular (I haven't seen it but others here have), so, I do expect something grand.


----------



## DarkAngel

What do think of the LA Ring samples......huge budget and all the resources of hollywood and look what we get, the future of Ring?

Looks like hollywood costume shop had liquidation sale and ordered too many star wars laser sticks


----------



## Elgarian

DarkAngel said:


> I am not one who expects big things, especially after the LA ring cartoon show :lol:
> I reserve the right to change my mind after in depth look, but I doubt it
> 
> LA Ring
> LA Ring
> 
> I seriously doubt that anyone who prefers "traditional" Ring performance will be pleased with new MET Ring......but we shall see


How can anyone take such a production seriously? With the best will in the world, and trying my best to accommodate alternative approaches, this looks like a production designed to expose the _Ring_ to ridicule. Wotan and Brunnhilde meet Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck.


----------



## Almaviva

Elgarian said:


> How can anyone take such a production seriously? With the best will in the world, and trying my best to accommodate alternative approaches, this looks like a production designed to expose the _Ring_ to ridicule. Wotan and Brunnhilde meet Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck.


I have conflicting views of it. Sometimes I find it visually fascinating, sometimes ridiculous.

Only a city like LA could have done something like that, LOL

Musically, though, what have you guys heard?

Apparently it wasn't bad musically. It got positive reviews in Opera News, for what it's worth.


----------



## mamascarlatti

Achim Freyer is drunk on Hubris. Robert Lepage on the other hand is a respectful stage director (Damnation de Faust, Rake's Progress). I'm optimistic.

BTW I'm hoping that when the Live Met in HD broadcasts start someone will start a thread (Almaviva?). It won't be me as NZ gets them about two months later (Dead in HD?)


----------



## Almaviva

mamascarlatti said:


> Achim Freyer is drunk on Hubris. Robert Lepage on the other hand is a respectful stage director (Damnation de Faust, Rake's Progress). I'm optimistic.
> 
> BTW I'm hoping that when the Live Met in HD broadcasts start someone will start a thread (Almaviva?). It won't be me as NZ gets them about two months later (Dead in HD?)


Sure. I got tickets for the live presentation. The only problem is, it happens at the exact same time of another event I had also committed to attend. So, I'm considering the encore presentation on a Wednesday a couple of weeks later. I haven't decided yet. I'm so anxious to see it that I may just attend the live Saturday broadcast and not go to the other event, but each time I think of it, I get some pangs of guilt for skipping the other event (which has to do with my son).


----------



## DarkAngel

DarkAngel said:


> Barenboim Ring - Amazon UK
> 
> *Elgarian has solved my dilema (I think)*
> Almost ready to admit defeat from Amazon USA sellers, I checked the features of my Oppo blu ray player and discovered that it supports both NTSC and PAL systems so this region 0 (all regions) PAL set should work for me.
> 
> I secretly placed order beforwe the ink had dried on Elgarians original post and package has already shipped, I await delivery, great price!


*Failure again.....I give up*

Got this from Amazon UK but discs are not PAL all region as advertised but NTSC region code 2, 3, 4, 5

Now I have even bigger headache of returning this package with international paperwork, definitely not happy


----------



## Rangstrom

DarkAngel, if you have a DVD burner, there are programs that allow you to rip the dvd to your harddrive, strip the coding and reburn to a blank dvd (which should then run fine). I see nothing wrong with this since you legitmately purchased the original.


----------



## Chi_townPhilly

If the topic has returned to the Freyer _Ring_, can I quote myself?


Chi_townPhilly said:


> I saw that "Wagnerian surcharge" pricing was made a part of the LA Freyer _Ring_ cycle, too. Now it's one thing to price that way when you're administering the farewell run of the beloved Schenk _Ring_ (which, for all the carping from the _avant-garde_, still got shoehorn-sellouts), but entirely another to apply that pricing to the Freyer _Ring_. A lot of us puppies weren't going to eat that dog-food at regular-price. Charging Allen Bros. steaks prices for it was perhaps the primary reason this enterprise hemorrhaged roughly six million dollars. I'm made to understand that there was plenty of elbow-room at a few of these installments.:lol:


Yeah, I heard a fair bit of it on the radio... and what I heard didn't sound bad (keeping in mind that there are limitations on definitive conclusions when listening to radio broadcasts).

Seems that with many of these productions, it's the same old story- the "as-long-as-they-spell-my-name-right" theory of publicity, the focus on _succès de scandale_, the deliberate campaigns of trying to provoke outrage. Well, in many cases, it's not bitingly incisive or jarringly stunning anymore- it's old... and tired... and boring.

On this side of the Atlantic, at least, one presents such stagings at one's own severe financial peril!:devil:


----------



## Elgarian

DarkAngel said:


> *Failure again.....I give up*
> 
> Got this from Amazon UK but discs are not PAL all region as advertised but NTSC region code 2, 3, 4, 5
> 
> Now I have even bigger headache of returning this package with international paperwork, definitely not happy


That's not just disappointing, DA - it's downright shabby on the part of Amazon to be so misleading. My sympathies.


----------



## DarkAngel

Rangstrom said:


> DarkAngel, if you have a DVD burner, there are programs that allow you to rip the dvd to your harddrive, strip the coding and reburn to a blank dvd (which should then run fine). I see nothing wrong with this since you legitmately purchased the original.


*Elgarian and Rangstram*

*This has caused me to take the final solution, the gauntlet is thrown down.......*
I will just buy a cheap ($70) all region DVD player 1080p HDMI that plays any DVD in the world and use it for these rare cases. So I will keep the Barenboim Ring, no one can stop me now! :lol:

Also I did some research and can ship off my expensive Oppo Blu Ray player to places and have it modified to be all region for about the same price


----------



## DarkAngel

*Very cheap for a reason.........*
This reduced price set comes in a single 7 disc DVD case about 7/8 inch thick and has single very small booklet with cast list of each opera and track list for each DVD


----------



## DarkAngel

*Met Ring begins tonight with Rhinegold........*
we desperately need a new reference modern Ring 

Met Ring

I wonder if Almaviva has tickets for live simulcast.....


----------



## Almaviva

DarkAngel said:


> *Met Ring begins tonight with Rhinegold........*
> we desperately need a new reference modern Ring
> 
> Met Ring
> 
> I wonder if Almaviva has tickets for live simulcast.....


I have tickets for the simulcast scheduled for October 9th.


----------



## Almaviva

DarkAngel said:


> I will just buy a cheap ($70) all region DVD player 1080p HDMI that plays any DVD in the world and use it for these rare cases.


I found one for $39, free shipping, no sales tax, refurbished.
But then, I didn't buy it... It's probably gone by now.


----------



## DarkAngel

Almaviva said:


> I found one for *$39, free shipping*, no sales tax, refurbished.
> But then, I didn't buy it... It's probably gone by now.


Yes I found some that cheap also, but I want it to last more than a couple weeks :lol:


----------



## Elgarian

DarkAngel said:


> *Very cheap for a reason.........*
> This reduced price set comes in a single 7 disc DVD case about 7/8 inch thick and has single very small booklet with cast list of each opera and track list for each DVD


That'll suit me fine. I'd gladly swap my bulky Levine and Boulez DVD sets for a slimline package that takes up less space (and I haven't read the booklets that came with them anyway).


----------



## DarkAngel

DarkAngel said:


> *Elgarian and Rangstram*
> 
> *This has caused me to take the final solution, the gauntlet is thrown down.......*
> I will just buy a cheap ($70) all region DVD player 1080p HDMI that plays any DVD in the world and use it for these rare cases. So I will keep the Barenboim Ring, no one can stop me now! :lol:
> 
> Also I did some research and can ship off my expensive Oppo Blu Ray player to places and have it modified to be all region for about the same price


*Victory is mine!*

The cheap all region DVD player arrived, made HDMI connection and set output to 1080p......
am *now watching Barenboim Ring - Rhinegold* the naughty rhinemaidens are teasing poor Albrecht even as I speak


----------



## Almaviva

DarkAngel said:


> *Victory is mine!*
> 
> The cheap all region DVD player arrived, made HDMI connection and set output to 1080p......
> am *now watching Barenboim Ring - Rhinegold* the naughty rhinemaidens are teasing poor Albrecht even as I speak


So your equipment is making nasty Alberich now be "poor" Alberich?
See, these conversions from PAL to NTSC can do strange things to our operas...
That's why I'm not buying one!
(this, and the fact that if I did, I'd go into unrestrained international buying spree mode which would be a financial disaster!)


----------



## Elgarian

DarkAngel said:


> *Victory is mine!*
> 
> The cheap all region DVD player arrived, made HDMI connection and set output to 1080p......
> am *now watching Barenboim Ring - Rhinegold* the naughty rhinemaidens are teasing poor Albrecht even as I speak


Quick! Melt down your new DVD player and fashion it into a Ring, and then you can rule the world!


----------



## Elgarian

Arrived this morning. I think I need a break before embarking on another cycle so soon after my last one, but I couldn't resist a quick look, and watched the first half hour of _Rheingold_. I was resistive for about 5 minutes, and then began to find the strange set, composed apparently all by lighting/laser effects really quite beguiling. In particular the surface of light into which the Rhinemaidens kept disappearing acquired its own kind of convincingness. The singing and the orchestral playing seemed superb to these ears.

I only saw a bit of the next section with Wotan and His Chums, and felt distinctly uncomfortable with the costumes and the perspex suitcases. It may be that in time I'll grow to accept them, but I'll be surprised if I find they actually _add_ anything of significance.


----------



## DarkAngel

Elgarian said:


> Arrived this morning. I think I need a break before embarking on another cycle so soon after my last one, but I couldn't resist a quick look, and watched the first half hour of _Rheingold_. I was resistive for about 5 minutes, and then began to find the strange set, composed apparently all by lighting/laser effects really quite beguiling. In particular the surface of light into which the Rhinemaidens kept disappearing acquired its own kind of convincingness. The singing and the orchestral playing seemed superb to these ears.
> 
> I only saw a bit of the next section with Wotan and His Chums, and felt distinctly uncomfortable with the costumes and the perspex suitcases. It may be that in time I'll grow to accept them, but I'll be surprised if I find they actually _add_ anything of significance.


*I think those were the best looking Rhienmaidens of any set so far.......*
It was cool the way they could drop below the laser plane and vanish, wait till you see the rainbow elevator to valhalla later.......

Also pleased that so far no obese cast members have been spotted, on to Walkure and Brunnhilde


----------



## mamascarlatti

Elgarian said:


> Arrived this morning. I think I need a break before embarking on another cycle so soon after my last one, but I couldn't resist a quick look, and watched the first half hour of _Rheingold_. I was resistive for about 5 minutes, and then began to find the strange set, composed apparently all by lighting/laser effects really quite beguiling. In particular the surface of light into which the Rhinemaidens kept disappearing acquired its own kind of convincingness. The singing and the orchestral playing seemed superb to these ears.
> 
> I only saw a bit of the next section with Wotan and His Chums, and felt distinctly uncomfortable with the costumes and the perspex suitcases. It may be that in time I'll grow to accept them, but I'll be surprised if I find they actually _add_ anything of significance.


I agree about the singing and the orchestra. The orchestra particularly seems to be so *alive*, you can hear all the instruments, and this is definitely the most exciting rendition I've heard.

Wait till you see Loge! He looks like a refugee from Duran Duran, but camper! Actually I love him in this production, he's so totally irreverent and mercurial.


----------



## DarkAngel

*







*

*First two acts of Die Walkure........*
Finally this first scence makes sense and not a total bore like Levine Met, love the more abstract twisted sculpture tree with sword and how the room slowly physically unfolds around tree when Siegmund finds it to form Hundigs home, a great idea

The subtitles also make more sense telling the story when Fricka confronts Wotan about Siegmund stealing wife of Hunding and demanding punishment to uphold scared vow of marriage. Also the death of Siegmund much more dramatic here with Wotan actually pushing him into Hundig's spear and having Siegmund die in his arms, the greatest god must get his hands dirty and see first hand the tragic consequences of his previous bad "contracts" made with others

*Ready for act 3*
The defiant daughter Brunnhilde must pay for defying Wotans command.......

*Also a word about the deep "infinity stage" design*
Notice how stage always vanishes to a single point in the distance with some fog constantly swirling around, this is a visual infinity point seeming to go on forever beyond our sight line.....when gods exit they always walk back to that point and seem to vanish into the horizon a great distance away (infinity point, very godlike)


----------



## Almaviva

DarkAngel said:


> *First two acts of Die Walkure........*
> Finally this first scence makes sense and not a total bore like Levine Met, love the more abstract twisted sculpture tree with sword and how the room slowly physically unfolds around tree when Siegmund finds it to form Hundigs home, a great idea
> 
> The subtitles also make more sense telling the story when Fricka confronts Wotan about Siegmund stealing wife of Hunding and demanding punishment to uphold scared vow of marriage. Also the death of Siegmund much more dramatic here with Wotan actually pushing him into Hundig's spear and having Siegmund die in his arms, the greatest god must get his hands dirty and see first hand the tragic consequences of his previous bad "contracts" made with others
> 
> *Ready for act 3*
> The defiant daughter Brunnhilde must pay for defying Wotans command.......
> 
> *Also a word about the deep "infinity stage" design*
> Notice how stage always vanishes to a single point in the distance with some fog constantly swirling around, this is a visual infinity point seeming to go on forever beyond our sight line.....when gods exit they always walk back to that point and seem to vanish into the horizon a great distance away (infinity point, very godlike)


But... but... I hear that there is a little boy escorting a little girl across the stage at the end.

Plus, this thing costs $499

Oh wait, you said that there is a cheaper version, right?

Hmm... OK, done! I paid $68 on Amazon.com.uk

Now I'll have to buy the PAL DVD player...


----------



## DarkAngel

Almaviva said:


> But... but... I hear that there is a little boy escorting a little girl across the stage at the end.
> 
> Plus, this thing costs $499
> 
> Oh wait, *you said that there is a cheaper version*, right?


Much much cheaper.......but you must have an *all region* DVD player (not USA region 1)

Amazon UK has complete Ring for 45 pounds which is $71, it is actually a NTSC region 2,3,4,5 set not PAL region 0 as advertised!

Amazon UK Ring

As you recall I solved the problem by buying $70 all region DVD player from Amazon so I can play any DVD in the world now. If I could start over I would pay extra to buy my Oppo blu ray player modified to be all region


----------



## Almaviva

DarkAngel said:


> Much much cheaper.......but you must have an *all region* DVD player (not USA region 1)
> 
> Amazon UK has complete Ring for 45 pounds which is $71, it is actually a region 2,3,4,5 set not region 0 as advertised!
> 
> Amazon UK Ring
> 
> As you recall I solved the problem by buying $70 all region DVD player from Amazon so I can play any DVD in the world now. If I could start over I would pay extra to buy my Oppo blu ray player modified to be all region


Like I said (I edited before I read your post), I bought it...
You always manage to convince me to buy stuff, DA!


----------



## Chi_townPhilly

Elgarian said:


> I only saw a bit of the next section with Wotan and His Chums, and felt distinctly uncomfortable with the costumes and the perspex suitcases.


One of the _Penguin Guide_ reviewers, in particular, gave the impression that he just couldn't get past the... 
Trilby Hats!:lol:

I guess that, in a bizarre fashion, this has proven influential to the stagings of Katharina Wagner. The idea of using unusual raiments to call attention to one's directorial points has been something she's pursued in _Meistersinger_ (shoes, with an honorable mention for codpieces) and _Rienzi_ (wigs and other head-coverings).

Foa a little wagering fun, we could play a game of "predict-the-next-Katharina-Wagner-_garment-fetish_!" 
[My money's on leggings and fake-boobs.]


----------



## Almaviva

DarkAngel said:


> Much much cheaper.......but you must have an *all region* DVD player (not USA region 1)
> 
> Amazon UK has complete Ring for 45 pounds which is $71, it is actually a NTSC region 2,3,4,5 set not PAL region 0 as advertised!
> 
> Amazon UK Ring
> 
> As you recall I solved the problem by buying $70 all region DVD player from Amazon so I can play any DVD in the world now. If I could start over I would pay extra to buy my Oppo blu ray player modified to be all region


You may find codes from hackers that will allow you to reprogram your Oppo blu ray player. Have you tried to google it? That's how I once reprogrammed a Samsung DVD player to become all-region but unfortunately it doesn't decode PAL.

Like you, I ended up buying a new one from Amazon.com instead of getting a refurbished one from less reliable vendors.

So, the Ring + the player + the HDMI cable cost me some $140, plus the M22 you *forced* me to buy for $144 plus now the possibility of tapping into any DVD in the world which will certainly increase even more my Mastercard bill (I have a Capital One Mastercard that doesn't charge for currency exchange). All your fault!!!

Now I'm already eyeing the Traviata in Paris PAL DVD from Italy.


----------



## DarkAngel

DarkAngel said:


> *
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> *
> 
> *First two acts of Die Walkure........*
> Finally this first scence makes sense and not a total bore like Levine Met, love the more abstract twisted sculpture tree with sword and how the room slowly physically unfolds around tree when Siegmund finds it to form Hundigs home, a great idea
> 
> The subtitles also make more sense telling the story when Fricka confronts Wotan about Siegmund stealing wife of Hunding and demanding punishment to uphold scared vow of marriage. Also the death of Siegmund much more dramatic here with Wotan actually pushing him into Hundig's spear and having Siegmund die in his arms, the greatest god must get his hands dirty and see first hand the tragic consequences of his previous bad "contracts" made with others
> 
> *Ready for act 3*
> The defiant daughter Brunnhilde must pay for defying Wotans command.......


*Die Walkurie Act 3*
The opening of act 3 "ride of the walkurie" should be one of the most exciting and dramatic scences of the Ring, does not come off well here for me. A silly multi level brightly neon lit staircase is lowered down like a fireman would use for highrise and Valkyrie enter front of stage, unfortunately this effectively blocks your view of action behind it until Wotan makes his entrance and it is mercifully taken away. Hated the clear plastic fish bowl helmets worn by Valkyrie (why?)........Barenboim gives very strong orchestral support and after this "rough" visual start things improve for rest of the act.

Entrance of Valkyrie

The tricky final scence with Brunnhilde put to sleep and surrounded by fire was handled much better with swirling red mist and red laser cube forming a burial chamber for the brave Brunnhilde, why couldn't we have something this tasteful and visually dramatic for opening entrance of Valkyrie.......

Magic Fire

Next up is Siegfried, so far probably best DVD ring overall despite a few questionable scences


----------



## mamascarlatti

DarkAngel said:


> *Die Walkurie Act 3*
> The opening of act 3 "ride of the walkurie" should be one of the most exciting and dramatic scences of the Ring, does not come off well here for me. A silly multi level brightly neon lit staircase is lowered down like a fireman would use for highrise and Valkyrie enter front of stage, unfortunately this effectively blocks your view of action behind it until Wotan makes his entrance and it is mercifully taken away. Hated the clear plastic fish bowl helmets worn by Valkyrie (why?)........Barenboim gives very strong orchestral support and after this "rough" visual start things improve for rest of the act.
> 
> [Next up is Siegfried, so far probably best DVD ring overall despite a few questionable scenes


Yes I agree DarkAngel, the Ride is the weakest part of the staging so far. The problem for me was the movements given to the Valkyrie, all that striding around and rather self-concious spear brandishing.

And I also got irritated by those funny huddled groups of wobbly people on wheels. The souls of dead heroes? More like the souls of dead bag ladies.

Still the best Ring though.


----------



## DarkAngel

mamascarlatti said:


> Yes I agree DarkAngel, the Ride is the weakest part of the staging so far. The problem for me was the movements given to the Valkyrie, all that striding around and rather self-concious spear brandishing.
> 
> And I also got irritated by those funny huddled groups of wobbly people on wheels. The souls of dead heroes? *More like the souls of dead bag ladies*.
> 
> Still the best Ring though.


Yes I also felt that was pretty weak design element, but a minor irritant compared to that infernal lighted ramp blocking the view of everything :lol:

Also what was that silly "warpaint" on Valkyries face under thier eyes.......
Also fog/smoke guy got carried away, almost can't see anything fog is so heavy.....


----------



## DarkAngel

Mamascarlatti

Look at these cool youtubes from a 1994 La Scala performance of Die Walkurie conducted by Muti

*Placido Domingo and Waltrude Meier* (Siegmund & Sieglinde), wow!

Walkurie
Walkurie

Meier is fabulous, where can I buy this...........     
(was a complete Ring done?)


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## mamascarlatti

DarkAngel said:


> Mamascarlatti
> 
> Look at these cool youtubes from a 1994 La Scala performance of Die Walkurie conducted by Muti
> 
> *Placido Domingo and Waltrude Meier* (Siegmund & Sieglinde), wow!
> 
> Meier is fabulous, where can I buy this...........


PD is gorgeous too. These clips have been in my favourites for some time. But I don't think it's on DVD.


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## DarkAngel

mamascarlatti said:


> PD is gorgeous too. These clips have been in my favourites for some time. But I don't think it's on DVD.


We get the pleasure of seeing *Waltraud Meier* later in Barenboim Ring in Gotterdammerung


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## Almaviva

DarkAngel said:


> We get the pleasure of seeing *Waltraud Meier* later in Barenboim Ring in Gotterdammerung


If it's not on DVD, try House of Opera.
I bought 13 operas from them and most weren't that bad in terms of video and sound.
Don't expect commercial quality, of course, but most were decent enough. I only bought those rated at least 4/5 video and 4/5 audio. Some with 5/5 ratings are quite good. And they sell for some five bucks.


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## mamascarlatti

DarkAngel said:


> We get the pleasure of seeing *Waltraud Meier* later in Barenboim Ring in Gotterdammerung


You might like her DVD of Tristan as well. I bought it because of her.


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## mamascarlatti

Almaviva said:


> If it's not on DVD, try House of Opera.
> I bought 13 operas from them and most weren't that bad in terms of video and sound.
> Don't expect commercial quality, of course, but most were decent enough. I only bought those rated at least 4/5 video and 4/5 audio. Some with 5/5 ratings are quite good. And they sell for some five bucks.


I think this might be it. But no rating so probably no better than watching it on YouTube.

Thanks Almaviva. :tiphat:


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## Poppin' Fresh

DarkAngel said:


> *Met Ring begins tonight with Rhinegold........*
> we desperately need a new reference modern Ring
> 
> Met Ring
> 
> I wonder if Almaviva has tickets for live simulcast.....


I'd really like to see this, but unfortunately I work Wednesday and Sunday nights when the Met does their Live in HD Simulcasts...

Now, if I subscribe to the Met Player will I eventually be able to view this production on my computer? How long does it take them to add new productions?


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## mamascarlatti

Poppin' Fresh said:


> I'd really like to see this, but unfortunately I work Wednesday and Sunday nights when the Met does their Live in HD Simulcasts...
> 
> Now, if I subscribe to the Met Player will I eventually be able to view this production on my computer? How long does it take them to add new productions?


They've just added Hamlet, so several months.


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## Almaviva

Poppin' Fresh said:


> I'd really like to see this, but unfortunately I work Wednesday and Sunday nights when the Met does their Live in HD Simulcasts...
> 
> Now, if I subscribe to the Met Player will I eventually be able to view this production on my computer? How long does it take them to add new productions?


In my corner of the woods it's Wednesday nights and Saturday afternoons. Are you sure about Sunday nights?


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## Poppin' Fresh

Almaviva said:


> In my corner of the woods it's Wednesday nights and Saturday afternoons. Are you sure about Sunday nights?


Haha, whoops, I misspoke. Yeah, I meant that I work Saturday evenings and wouldn't be able to make a Saturday afternoon showing. Very sad.


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## Chi_townPhilly

DarkAngel said:


> *Met Ring begind tonight with Rheingold...*I wonder if *Almaviva* has tickets for the live simulcast?
> 
> 
> Almaviva said:
> 
> 
> 
> I have tickets for the simulcast scheduled for October 9th.
Click to expand...

I judged that this event was worthy of its own thread. You can check it out *here*.


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## Almaviva

Chi_townPhilly said:


> I judged that this event was worthy of its own thread. You can check it out *here*.


I have made a contribution to your thread there, but don't you think it would be best to place that thread in the Opera forum?


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## Chi_townPhilly

Almaviva said:


> I have made a contribution to your thread there


Thanks!


Almaviva said:


> but don't you think it would be best to place that thread in the Opera forum?


Guess you have a point... but in my defense, 
I have to say that working it that way falls in the category of an old habit.________:devil:


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## sospiro

mamascarlatti said:


> They've just added Hamlet, so several months.


I listened to that Live from the Met on BBC Radio 3 & Margaret Juntwait interviewed Simon as he came off stage at the end of Act II still covered in red gunge. Now that I've watched the DVD (Liceu) & seen what the character looks like, the interview must have been surreal.


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## Almaviva

Similarly to Met in HD, there is also the other broadcast to movie theaters from various European houses (La Scala, Liceu, ROH, etc). They are showing in October a Ring from La Scala. Does anybody here know this production? Is it good? I won't go myself (enough Rings for me for a while, with the Met and my recent purchase of the Barenboim Ring) but I want to be able to advise a friend.


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## Rangstrom

I was looking to play some of Das Rheingold as part of my lobbying efforts with my wife for the Met simulcast (she's more into Baroque or Bel Canto), but I realized that all my rings on CD are low-fidelity (Furtwängler '50 and '53, Krauss '53 and Knappertsbusch '56). Not the recordings to show off the sound quality I'm hoping for in the theatre. I do have Solti on LP and various DVDs so I don't really need another ring, but they are darn near giving these things away. When I bought the Solti Siegfried in college it cost nearly all of that month's spending money.

I see that the Sawallisch and Haitink EMI Rings are on sale. Any thoughts as to sound quality or performance as a backup up-dated sound Ring for these options?


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## Poppin' Fresh

Unfortunately I've never heard the Haitink or Sawallisch Ring Cycles, but my favorite audio recording period is the one by Marek Janowski on RCA. The sound quality is what you'd expect from a digital studio recording, crisp and wonderful. While the performance is not as heavy or textural as others I've heard, the intricacies of the score are really elucidated in the recording. The singing overall is very good also and features a consistent cast -- some of the singers are not the most powerful you will hear in their roles, but everyone commits themselves fully and give convincing dramatic performances. At the moment it looks like it's more expensive than the Sawallisch but cheaper than the Haitink...although I picked it up a while ago for the current price of the Sawallisch. A real bargain. Something to consider I guess.


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## DarkAngel

*Mama S*
What is your overall impressions now of the Barenboim DVD Ring after initial screening and how do you compare it to Levine, Boulez........

I will do Siegfried this weekend.....


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## mamascarlatti

DarkAngel said:


> *Mama S*
> What is your overall impressions now of the Barenboim DVD Ring after initial screening and how do you compare it to Levine, Boulez........
> 
> I will do Siegfried this weekend.....


Overall it's my favourite version by far and the one I will be re-watching most. I can't really get it out of my head

Jerusalem made a really good job of Siegfried and even managed to make me feel some sympathy for the character, a first. His love songs to Brünnhilde were heartbreaking. You just have to look at him during the forging song, the way he wields his hammer so naturally but in time, and compare it to the tense eyes-on-conductor performance by Lance Ryan in the mehta ring, to see he was born for this role. He's also better here than in the Levine Ring where he comes over as just plain smarmy.

I thought Anne Evans was fantastic in Götterdämmerung, full of righteous rage and dignity at the end. I loved her costume, that long red coat and trousers and boots hinted back at the Valkyrie she was originally, and made a good contrast with the satisfyingly air-headed Gutrune's silly evening gown. They even aged her by putting white streaks in her hair. Waltraud Meier was amazing as Waltraute, I often get a bit distracted during this but I was spellbound, it seemed like genuine interaction with a lot hanging on the outcome. And Hagen and Gunter were very fine and convincing too.

I'll never watch the Levine Ring again because of Behrens - I'm really glad I didn't buy it. The Boulez didn't make a hugely strong impact on me but I will revisit it, mainly for Jones and McIntyre. The Copenhagen ring is not Wagner's Ring, but Brünnhilde's, and as long as you approach it in that frame of mind it's very entertaining. And the Mehta is really interesting only for the projections, but best not watched in one go as it gets visually exhausting.

Enjoy this weekend, DA!


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## Elgarian

mamascarlatti said:


> Jerusalem [is] ... also better here than in the Levine Ring *where he comes over as just plain smarmy.*


That's it. That's exactly what the problem is, and I've never been able to pin it down. You've completely nailed it, Natalie.


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## mamascarlatti

Elgarian said:


> That's it. That's exactly what the problem is, and I've never been able to pin it down. You've completely nailed it, Natalie.


It's funny, after our last discussion about Jerusalem where I felt I hadn't got to the bottom of my previous disatisfaction with him, I was lying in bed at 2am thinking about opera (as one does) and I thought "what is it about the smarmy git I'VE GOT IT, that's what it is, he's smarmy!".

He's even worse in "The bartered bride" where he spends the whole opera sauntering around with his hands in his pockets looking disgustingly pleased with himself.


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## Almaviva

mamascarlatti said:


> It's funny, after our last discussion about Jerusalem where I felt I hadn't got to the bottom of my previous disatisfaction with him, I was lying in bed at 2am thinking about opera (as one does) and I thought "what is it about the smarmy git I'VE GOT IT, that's what it is, he's smarmy!".
> 
> He's even worse in "The bartered bride" where he spends the whole opera sauntering around with his hands in his pockets looking disgustingly pleased with himself.


Poor Jerusalem. When young, he was an outstanding singer. I have an old made-for-TV _Der Zigeunerbaron _with him, and I was highly impressed with his voice. Acting was never his forte, though.


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## mamascarlatti

Almaviva said:


> Poor Jerusalem. When young, he was an outstanding singer. I have an old made-for-TV _Der Zigeunerbaron _with him, and I was highly impressed with his voice. Acting was never his forte, though.


I think he may have got bored. The Barenboim was his first Ring, according to the interview with Tomlinson, and Jerusalem was pulling out all the stops. And I think from a performer's point of view it was more stimulating to participate in than Schenk's which is quite stodgy. Tomlinson talks about being asked to go to extremes by Kupfer.


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## Rangstrom

Changed directions and ordered the Testament early stereo recording of the Keilberth '55 Ring. The '56 Knappertsbusch is my currant favorite (I'm still waiting for the rest of the Barenboim DVDs to show up), but I'm hoping the sound is a step up on the Keilberth.


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## DarkAngel

Rangstrom said:


> Changed directions and ordered the *Testament early stereo recording of the Keilberth '55 Ring*. The '56 Knappertsbusch is my currant favorite (I'm still waiting for the rest of the Barenboim DVDs to show up), but I'm hoping the sound is a step up on the Keilberth.


The Keilberth 1955 sound is indeed a step up, live stereo recording made by Decca's top recording team, it got lost in the shuffle when Culshaw began Solti studio Ring for Decca a few years later, this is what is inside (my set):


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## mamascarlatti

Poppin' Fresh said:


> Unfortunately I've never heard the Haitink or Sawallisch Ring Cycles, but my favorite audio recording period is the one by Marek Janowski on RCA. The sound quality is what you'd expect from a digital studio recording, crisp and wonderful. While the performance is not as heavy or textural as others I've heard, the intricacies of the score are really elucidated in the recording. The singing overall is very good also and features a consistent cast -- some of the singers are not the most powerful you will hear in their roles, but everyone commits themselves fully and give convincing dramatic performances.


I've ordered that Janowski today, I've already got the Solti in mono on my Ring CD-Rom but I feel that I can't live without one on CD. And it was a great price on Amazon UK.


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## Poppin' Fresh

mamascarlatti said:


> I've ordered that Janowski today, I've already got the Solti in mono on my Ring CD-Rom but I feel that I can't live without one on CD. And it was a great price on Amazon UK.


Awesome. Yeah, you can't beat it's value at it's price. I don't think you'll regret it. If you're ever looking for a good libretto, I really love the one translated by Stewart Spencer, especially because it follows the paths of several dozen of the most prominent leitmotifs and indicates when they occur during the drama. Really comes in handy and definitely adds to my enjoyment of the cycle.


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## mamascarlatti

Poppin' Fresh said:


> Awesome. Yeah, you can't beat it's value at it's price. I don't think you'll regret it. If you're ever looking for a good libretto, I really love the one translated by Stewart Spencer, especially because it follows the paths of several dozen of the most prominent leitmotifs and indicates when they occur during the drama. Really comes in handy and definitely adds to my enjoyment of the cycle.


Thanks for the suggestion. At the moment I'm following the libretto on the Ring CD-rom which is synchronised with the music. The German libretto is also written in the synchronised score and the leitmotifs identified as they appear in the music.

I think some of the translation in the Barenboim Ring subtitles is rather inventive although quite amusing. Anyone else notice this?


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## Almaviva

mamascarlatti said:


> Thanks for the suggestion. At the moment I'm following the libretto on the Ring CD-rom which is synchronised with the music. The German libretto is also written in the synchronised score and the leitmotifs identified as they appear in the music.
> 
> I think some of the translation in the Barenboim Ring subtitles is rather inventive although quite amusing. Anyone else notice this?


Natalie, I haven't received my Barenboim Ring yet, but I read in one of the customer reviews on Amazon.com that they took liberties with the text and that the subtitles have things that are not in the original libretto by Wagner. Whether true or not, I don't know.


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## mamascarlatti

Almaviva said:


> Natalie, I haven't received my Barenboim Ring yet, but I read in one of the customer reviews on Amazon.com that they took liberties with the text and that the subtitles have things that are not in the original libretto by Wagner. Whether true or not, I don't know.


Some of the flavour of the translations seemed not quite 19th century so it doesn't surprise me in the least.


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## Almaviva

OK, my friends, here is what I thought of the Met in HD broadcast of _Das Rheingold_.

Overall, underwhelming. I'm disappointed.

Pros:

1) Levine and the Met Orchestra did a much better job this time. Faster tempo, more energetic, fuller sound. This is a significant "pro"which may save the day on its own.

2) Patricia Bardon was an outstanding Erda, arguably the highlight of the day.

3) Franz-Josef Selig and Hans-Peter König were very decent Fasolt and Fafner; among the best ever, and they looked better than the stereotypical look that we always get as far as the giants are concerned.

4) Eric Owens started lukewarm as Alberich but improved later.

5) One out of three Rhinemaidens was very hot. For a change, we got a very attractive Rhinemaiden. Better than zero out of three which is the rule.

6) Gerhard Siegel as Mime, although his part in _Das Rheingold _is very small, was very good. I'm looking forward to his more extended part in _Siegfried._

7) The rainbow bridge was cool.

8) Bubles coming from the Rhinemaidens and fire following Loge around were cool.

9) The production improves as it goes. The middle is better than the beginning, and the ending is better than the middle.

Neutral:

1) Freia, Donner, and Froh were correct, nothing more.

Cons:

1) Bryn Terfel was a big, big disappointment. He seemed indifferent, not really into it. His costume made him look fat and short and pathetic, as opposed to powerful. He didn't really convey Wotan's ambivalence. His singing was OK but nothing more. I believe he is more convincing as a baritone buffo.

2) I was expecting more from Lepage. He managed to make the Met stage look small and cramped. The famous "machine" takes a lot of space but isn't as awesome as anticipated. The staging seems indecisive between making use of the technology (like in the rainbow bridge, the fire surrounding Loge, the lightning) and just being minimalistic. By the end of _Das Rheingold _I was already tired of the "machine," I wonder how he'll manage to sustain the novelty over 13 more hours in 3 more operas.

3) In spite of all the new visuals, this production is still very static. There's a lot of "park and bark."

4) The first scene just doesn't work. It starts very well but when the "machine" moves into place and the Rhinemaides are up there and Alberich is trying to get them, it becomes clear that having them up there hanging by wires looks cool, but takes away the possibility of dynamic action. Everybody moves too slowly in the scene, and the effect ends up being very artificial. I almost miss the same scene in the previous Levine DVD.

5) Lepage has managed to make of certain scenes of _Das Rheingold_ a bit of comedy with some goofy moments. Again, this doesn't work. The previous Met Ring was solemn, ponderous, gloomy. It was stiff and traditional, but it conveyed a certain gravitas. This one doesn't. I don't want to laugh when I'm watching the Ring.

6) That's why I didn't like Loge very much. He seems goofy rather than cunny and smart. He looks more like Papageno than Loge. I can understand why some people booed Richard Croft.

7) All that sliding down the "machine" to enter and exit wasn't that interesting, and in the case of Alberich in the first scene, became rather silly. Yes, I know that he slides down when he's trying to catch the Rheinemaidens, but he didn't need to look like a cartoon character or a slapstick comedy character while doing it.

8) I like my Rheinemaidens somewhat misterious and ethereal. These three looked rather like ****s (one of them was hot, but still). This scene had too much light. Lepage should have done it in a more misty, darker mood.

9) Some low tech solutions were distracting. Come on, what's with those lights in Loge's hands that look so fake? And all the hanging cables showing? And that toad looked ridiculous.

10) They couldn't they get anybody less fat than Stephanie Blythe for the Fricka role? Opera these days is getting passed the stereotype of the fat lady singing. Please, don't go back to it. OK, I'd better stop, before PETF (People for the humane Treatment of Fatsos) gets me.

In summary, very good orchestra and conductor, some very decent singing, many strong points, but overall, this will probably not be our reference modern Ring.


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## mamascarlatti

Sounds a bit of a disappointing experience. I hope my kid will like it anyway!

I wonder if some of those aspects that looked so fake on film might have been OK as seen live from the stage?


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## scytheavatar

Almaviva said:


> Similarly to Met in HD, there is also the other broadcast to movie theaters from various European houses (La Scala, Liceu, ROH, etc). They are showing in October a Ring from La Scala. Does anybody here know this production? Is it good? I won't go myself (enough Rings for me for a while, with the Met and my recent purchase of the Barenboim Ring) but I want to be able to advise a friend.


I have seen their Das Rheingold and the singing is very good, and the staging would have been one of the best ever if not for the bloody idiotic dancers. If you want to check out their Ring I hope you have an interest in ballets, cause if you don't you are going to hate the dancers as much as I do. Still Rene Pape and Barenboim makes this worth checking out.

Tip for everyone: check out the very recent Valencia Ring if you haven't; to me it's the second best Ring caught on DVD yet, behind Barenboim's:

http://www.amazon.com/Das-Rheingold...ON64/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1286693238&sr=8-2


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## Almaviva

mamascarlatti said:


> Sounds a bit of a disappointing experience. I hope my kid will like it anyway!
> 
> I wonder if some of those aspects that looked so fake on film might have been OK as seen live from the stage?


I'm not sure if that's what it is, Natalie. Met in HD looks more realistic than a DVD. One does have the impression of being there, there's a "what you see is what you get" effect as a way of speaking. I think that the people attending the performance may have had about the same experience, except for the close-ups for us (unless they had binoculars) and the natural sound for them.

PS - after a long day yesterday, I made typos and mistakes in my post above. The ones I could spot have been corrected.


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## Almaviva

scytheavatar said:


> I have seen their Das Rheingold and the singing is very good, and the staging would have been one of the best ever if not for the bloody idiotic dancers. If you want to check out their Ring I hope you have an interest in ballets, cause if you don't you are going to hate the dancers as much as I do. Still Rene Pape and Barenboim makes this worth checking out.
> 
> Tip for everyone: check out the very recent Valencia Ring if you haven't; to me it's the second best Ring caught on DVD yet, behind Barenboim's:
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/Das-Rheingold...ON64/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1286693238&sr=8-2


Thanks. I like ballets when I'm going out to see a ballet, not when I'm going out to see an opera, so, chances are that I'll hate the dancers as much as you did.


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## mamascarlatti

Almaviva said:


> Thanks. I like ballets when I'm going out to see a ballet, not when I'm going out to see an opera, so, chances are that I'll hate the dancers as much as you did.


OT a bit, but sometimes the dancing adds to the experience, if it's well integrated:

















(After all who could watch Rameau and not want to dance)

But sometimes it takes up a big chunk of time and leaves a gaping hole in the plot and you get desperate for it to finish.


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## Almaviva

mamascarlatti said:


> OT a bit, but sometimes the dancing adds to the experience, if it's well integrated:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> (After all who could watch Rameau and not want to dance)
> 
> But sometimes it takes up a big chunk of time and leaves a gaping hole in the plot and you get desperate for it to finish.


True. I like this Les Paladins, and I own this Acis and Galatea - bought it exactly because I was told that this time the ballet was well integrated and was done by a proper ballet company - although I haven't seen it yet. So, yes, I'm being a bit contradictory here. Then, I should clarify that what I mean is that I don't like bad ballet and most opera companies don't have the most exquisite ballet corps, so, I prefer to watch outstanding ballet on its own and outstanding opera rather than opera with mediocre ballet. But like you said, when it's well done - sadly the exception rather than the rule - then all is good.


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## Elgarian

Almaviva said:


> I own this Acis and Galatea - bought it exactly because I was told that this time the ballet was well integrated and was done by a proper ballet company - although I haven't seen it yet.


I'll be interested to know how you find it. _Acis & Galatea_ is one of my most loved and most often-listened-to Handel favourites, and so I had great hopes of this DVD. In the event, though, it bored me to distraction, I'm afraid (quite literally), and having broken off halfway through in an attempt to diffuse the tedium, I still haven't summoned the will to watch it through to the end. Danielle, wonderful though she is, just isn't right for Galatea (or at least, my imagined ideal Galatea), and I couldn't get past that jarring clash between expectation and what I was actually seeing. The dancers just made a bad job worse, for me, but I could imagine the immediacy of the theatrical experience having been more convincing.

The contrast was the more marked because around that time I attended a concert performance of _A & G_ by the Dunedin Consort, the vitality of which blew this DVD performance out of the sky, dancers or no dancers, stage set or no stage set.

[I just noticed this morning how far I dragged this off-topic when I was writing last night - my apologies. I'd forgotten this was the Ring thread!]


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## Rangstrom

*Would Wotan wear a comb-over?*

The Met Das Rheingold yesterday was my first simulcast. I was a season ticket holder with the Lyric Opera for over a decade, but stopped going as the very late nights and the long drive were wearing me down. I have many recorded operas and with the newer DVDs I was satisfying my cravings. Still I was curious to see the new production and I'm glad that I went. I'm not totally sold on the concept (I really did not miss the sound of candy being slowly unwrapped) but I enjoyed the performance. Clearly not the same as being at the performance: too many closeups, I'd prefer the wide angle view, and the sound level at my location was--unexpectedly--too low. I know I listen to some music, string quartets e.g., too loudly at home but this is a Wagner opera.

Some thoughts:

1) I enjoyed the staging. It felt closed in at times but I blame that more on the camera work. The Rhinemaidens worked for me and the parking may have lead to some of the more glorious singing than usual. The treatments of the Nibelungs, the Lightening, the Rainbow bridge, the arrival of the giants were all very effective.

2) The lesser roles (Rhinemaidens, Erda, DFF, Giants and Mime) all did a good job visually and singing.

3) Visual aspect is important. The Fricka was painful to watch. I watched Jane Eaglen ruin a Siegfried where she had to sit through the whole performance. Maybe ok on recordings but not live.

4) Alberich was top notch.

5) In the introduction, Terfel made a comment to the effect that in Rheingold Wotan is more of a spectator. I hope that means a more forceful approach in the next two because he seemed too light for Wotan (listening to Hotter recently didn't help). The costume didn't work either. What was with the Veronica Lake look?

6) Loge. Mixed feelings. Well enough sung but the current standard is much higher and I think it is the role that drives Rheingold.

7) As to the conducting, nothing amiss but no real magic until the final scene. Volume too low in the local theater?

I'll go to Walkure but at this point won't pick up the DVDs.


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## Almaviva

Rangstrom said:


> The Met Das Rheingold yesterday was my first simulcast. I was a season ticket holder with the Lyric Opera for over a decade, but stopped going as the very late nights and the long drive were wearing me down. I have many recorded operas and with the newer DVDs I was satisfying my cravings. Still I was curious to see the new production and I'm glad that I went. I'm not totally sold on the concept (I really did not miss the sound of candy being slowly unwrapped) but I enjoyed the performance. Clearly not the same as being at the performance: too many closeups, I'd prefer the wide angle view, and the sound level at my location was--unexpectedly--too low. I know I listen to some music, string quartets e.g., too loudly at home but this is a Wagner opera.
> 
> Some thoughts:
> 
> 1) I enjoyed the staging. It felt closed in at times but I blame that more on the camera work. The Rhinemaidens worked for me and the parking may have lead to some of the more glorious singing than usual. The treatments of the Nibelungs, the Lightening, the Rainbow bridge, the arrival of the giants were all very effective.
> 
> 2) The lesser roles (Rhinemaidens, Erda, DFF, Giants and Mime) all did a good job visually and singing.
> 
> 3) Visual aspect is important. The Fricka was painful to watch. I watched Jane Eaglen ruin a Siegfried where she had to sit through the whole performance. Maybe ok on recordings but not live.
> 
> 4) Alberich was top notch.
> 
> 5) In the introduction, Terfel made a comment to the effect that in Rheingold Wotan is more of a spectator. I hope that means a more forceful approach in the next two because he seemed too light for Wotan (listening to Hotter recently didn't help). The costume didn't work either. What was with the Veronica Lake look?
> 
> 6) Loge. Mixed feelings. Well enough sung but the current standard is much higher and I think it is the role that drives Rheingold.
> 
> 7) As to the conducting, nothing amiss but no real magic until the final scene. Volume too low in the local theater?
> 
> I'll go to Walkure but at this point won't pick up the DVDs.


So you enjoyed the staging, but my question is, while it is fine for 2 hours and 50 minutes of Rheingold, will it hold for another 13 hours? It does feel closed in.

You are right about Terfel and Loge - their weak performances are at the core of why this Rheingold was disappointing. Terfel will have to do a lot better next time, and I wish they'd change his costume.

Probably the low volume was a factor in your feelings about the conducting. In my theater it was loud enough and I found it very good; in any case, way better than in the old Levine DVD.


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## Rangstrom

Almaviva,

I agree that they will have to be much more creative with the machine going forward. And I've got my fingers crossed wrt Terfel.


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## Chi_townPhilly

*Catty waffle alert*

I saw the March issue of _Opera News_, and was reminded of this passage-


Almaviva said:


> They couldn't they get anybody less fat than Stephanie Blythe for the Fricka role? Opera these days is getting passed the stereotype of the fat lady singing. Please, don't go back to it.


- since I noticed that Ms. Blythe took the role of Katisha in Lyric Opera of Chicago's run of _The Mikado_.

Works for me!


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## Elgarian

I just ordered a Karajan _Ring_. It's been sitting around on Amazon for some time at £68 - about two-thirds of its usual price - and the number in stock had dwindled to one. They would get more stock, of course - but at what price? So I've ordered one. I feel weirdly guilty, because now I have far more _Ring_s than I ever dreamed I would own. I remember how much we stretched ourselves to buy a Bohm set on LP back in the 70s, and what an enormous 'event' it was when this huge box arrived in the post. It had cost so much more than we could afford that we were almost afraid to play the discs!

My present_ Ring_ recordings would have seemed unimaginable to me, then: 
*On CD: *Solti, Bohm, Goodall, Boulez - and shortly to join them, Karajan.
*On DVD:* Boulez, Levine, Barenboim, Copenhagen. (The UWP will be after me soon - I still haven't done more than dip into the last two.)

Am I happier for having so many? Probably not, is the sad reply. It's simply not possible to recapture the spirit of those first days, where each LP brought new discoveries, progressively revealing the sheer vastness anhd richness of the _Ring_ for the first time.


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## MAuer

Elgarian said:


> I just ordered a Karajan _Ring_. It's been sitting around on Amazon for some time at £68 - about two-thirds of its usual price - and the number in stock had dwindled to one. They would get more stock, of course - but at what price? So I've ordered one. I feel weirdly guilty, because now I have far more _Ring_s than I ever dreamed I would own. I remember how much we stretched ourselves to buy a Bohm set on LP back in the 70s, and what an enormous 'event' it was when this huge box arrived in the post. It had cost so much more than we could afford that we were almost afraid to play the discs!
> 
> My present_ Ring_ recordings would have seemed unimaginable to me, then:
> *On CD: *Solti, Bohm, Goodall, Boulez - and shortly to join them, Karajan.
> *On DVD:* Boulez, Levine, Barenboim, Copenhagen. (The UWP will be after me soon - I still haven't done more than dip into the last two.)
> 
> Am I happier for having so many? Probably not, is the sad reply. It's simply not possible to recapture the spirit of those first days, where each LP brought new discoveries, progressively revealing the sheer vastness anhd richness of the _Ring_ for the first time.


You can never have too many recordings of your favorite operas! Enjoy your latest addition to the collection!


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## Elgarian

MAuer said:


> You can never have too many recordings of your favorite operas! Enjoy your latest addition to the collection!


Thanks for the encouragement. I shall do my best!

And of course I know it's not a mere collector's whim, because each of these _Rings_ offers its unique approach. I think of Solti's as The Dramatic _Ring_; of Bohm's as The Exciting _Ring_; of Goodall's as The Epic _Ring_; and Boulez ... well unashamedly I think of that as The Gwyneth Jones _Ring_. According to reports, I guess Karajan's will turn out to be something like The Lyrical _Ring_, but I'll wait and see for myself.

Even so ... I suppose nothing is ever going to recapture that breathtaking sense of discovery of those records - reading the big, heavy booklets (they were terrific, and beautifully illustrated) in preparation for launching into the music. I remember coming home from work each evening, desperate for the time when the children were in bed, so we could carry on with our exploration of the _Ring_, courtesy of Bohm and his chums. I suppose, realistically, it could only have lasted a few weeks, but the memory is still vivid, and precious.


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## sospiro

MAuer said:


> You can never have too many recordings of your favorite operas! Enjoy your latest addition to the collection!


Alan, I echo MAuer's view but reading this



Elgarian said:


> Thanks for the encouragement. I shall do my best!
> ... I suppose nothing is ever going to recapture that breathtaking sense of discovery of those records - reading the big, heavy booklets (they were terrific, and beautifully illustrated) in preparation for launching into the music. I remember coming home from work each evening, desperate for the time when the children were in bed, so we could carry on with our exploration of the _Ring_, courtesy of Bohm and his chums. I suppose, realistically, it could only have lasted a few weeks, but the memory is still vivid, and precious.


gives me goosebumps. You describe the experience so passionately. The anticipation will never be the same but I hope enjoyment will be.


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## rgz

Elgarian said:


> Thanks for the encouragement. I shall do my best!
> 
> And of course I know it's not a mere collector's whim, because each of these _Rings_ offers its unique approach. I think of Solti's as The Dramatic _Ring_; of Bohm's as The Exciting _Ring_; of Goodall's as The Epic _Ring_; and Boulez ... well unashamedly I think of that as The Gwyneth Jones _Ring_. According to reports, I guess Karajan's will turn out to be something like The Lyrical _Ring_, but I'll wait and see for myself.
> 
> Even so ... I suppose nothing is ever going to recapture that breathtaking sense of discovery of those records - reading the big, heavy booklets (they were terrific, and beautifully illustrated) in preparation for launching into the music. I remember coming home from work each evening, desperate for the time when the children were in bed, so we could carry on with our exploration of the _Ring_, courtesy of Bohm and his chums. I suppose, realistically, it could only have lasted a few weeks, but the memory is still vivid, and precious.


What a great story


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## Almaviva

Elgarian said:


> Thanks for the encouragement. I shall do my best!
> 
> And of course I know it's not a mere collector's whim, because each of these _Rings_ offers its unique approach. I think of Solti's as The Dramatic _Ring_; of Bohm's as The Exciting _Ring_; of Goodall's as The Epic _Ring_; and Boulez ... well unashamedly I think of that as The Gwyneth Jones _Ring_. According to reports, I guess Karajan's will turn out to be something like The Lyrical _Ring_, but I'll wait and see for myself.
> 
> Even so ... I suppose nothing is ever going to recapture that breathtaking sense of discovery of those records - reading the big, heavy booklets (they were terrific, and beautifully illustrated) in preparation for launching into the music. I remember coming home from work each evening, desperate for the time when the children were in bed, so we could carry on with our exploration of the _Ring_, courtesy of Bohm and his chums. I suppose, realistically, it could only have lasted a few weeks, but the memory is still vivid, and precious.


Nice, Alan, very nice. And now that they are older, you should tell the story to your children and encourage them to listen as well.:tiphat:


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## Rangstrom

I hate to tell you, but you need at least one more on cd--the '55 Keilberth on Testament.

So which Ring on DVD do you suggest buying. I've sampled Boulez, Barenboim, Mehta, Levine, and de Billy and I'm not totally sold on any of them.


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## Almaviva

Rangstrom said:


> I hate to tell you, but you need at least one more on cd--the '55 Keilberth on Testament.
> 
> So which Ring on DVD do you suggest buying. I've sampled Boulez, Barenboim, Mehta, Levine, and de Billy and I'm not totally sold on any of them.


If you allow me to jump in, I believe that there is no ideal Ring on DVD. Even the best ones have ups and downs. I attribute this to the scope of the work. It is very hard to hire a bunch of Wagnerian singers who can *also* act and look their parts, and a stage director who doesn't go overboard (why, oh why, do Regies like to tamper so much with Wagner's works?).

Within the many limitations of all versions, I personally prefer the Barenboim Ring. In our little DVD recommendation project, it won the endorsement of 50% of our voters. Levine came second with 25% of endorsements.

What ends up happening is that I like parts of each Ring on DVD, but I haven't seen an entirely satisfactory one, first to last scene.


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## StlukesguildOhio

Elgarian... I fully understand. For whatever reason I had put off purchasing a full Ring cycle until late last year. I finally settled on the Karajan set. I greatly admire Karajan as a conductor. I love his _Tristan und Isolde_ and _Parsifal_ and felt the need to begin with a modern recording of Wagner's masterpiece. The choice was really between him and Solti. But then just as I put in the order... the Clemens Kraus recording dropped down to just above $30 US... and I couldn't resist. Last week I was looking at Furtwangler's _Tristan und Isolde_ when I stumbled upon the 1956 Knappertsbush set for just over $30... and again I could not resist.:lol:


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## jflatter

Rangstrom said:


> I hate to tell you, but you need at least one more on cd--the '55 Keilberth on Testament.
> 
> So which Ring on DVD do you suggest buying. I've sampled Boulez, Barenboim, Mehta, Levine, and de Billy and I'm not totally sold on any of them.


I agree that if you are going to buy one more recording it has to be Keilberth. Karajan's is worth a purchase particularly for Die Walkure.


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## Elgarian

Rangstrom said:


> So which Ring on DVD do you suggest buying. I've sampled Boulez, Barenboim, Mehta, Levine, and de Billy and I'm not totally sold on any of them.


I'm not surprised. If I had to give up my Ring recordings one by one, ALL the DVDs would go before I started to worry about losing the CDs. For sheer dramatic 'presence' the Solti(/Culshaw), even though purely audio, knocks the lot of 'em out of the running. The reason why Barenboim and Copenhagen remain largely unwatched is that I've seen enough already to know they're disappointing.



> I hate to tell you, but you need at least one more on cd--the '55 Keilberth on Testament.


I know, but it's terribly expensive, and what finally swayed me about the Karajan was the big reduction in price.

There's another (personal) aspect to this though. Back when we were trying to decide which _Ring_ to buy in the 70s, there were basically four contenders: Furtwangler, Solti, Bohm (newly released) and Karajan. We ruled out the Furtwangler. Even though it was cheap, we knew we wouldn't be satisfied with the mono, 'historic' sound. For the rest, we pored over every available review. It was clear that all were, in their various ways, exceptional; in the end Bohm won because it was cheaper, and we were stretching ourselves quite desperately to buy a _Ring_ at all.

But even though we loved the Bohm, those Solti and Karajan _Ring_s had an allure that never went away, and to own them now is a kind of fulfilment of something that, 30-odd years ago, seemed completely unattainable. So you see, there's more to my purchase of the Karajan than might normally be the case.


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## Elgarian

Almaviva said:


> And now that they are older, you should tell the story to your children and encourage them to listen as well.:tiphat:


Even though they grew up in a house full of music, with walls full of art, neither of them has more than a passing interest in either. Most particularly, I think, there's no chance at all of getting them to listen even to 5 minutes of Wagner. C'est la vie!


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## Elgarian

StlukesguildOhio said:


> Elgarian... I fully understand. For whatever reason I had put off purchasing a full Ring cycle until late last year. I finally settled on the Karajan set. I greatly admire Karajan as a conductor. I love his _Tristan und Isolde_ and _Parsifal_ and felt the need to begin with a modern recording of Wagner's masterpiece. The choice was really between him and Solti. But then just as I put in the order... the Clemens Kraus recording dropped down to just above $30 US... and I couldn't resist. Last week I was looking at Furtwangler's _Tristan und Isolde_ when I stumbled upon the 1956 Knappertsbush set for just over $30... and again I could not resist.:lol:


I sympathise. It's a complicated set of compromises that we have to juggle. These days there can be some astounding bargains on offer, often only fleetingly available, and one just has to take the plunge when the moment seems right. They all sound like very wise purchases to me!


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## mamascarlatti

Elgarian said:


> Even though they grew up in a house full of music, with walls full of art, neither of them has more than a passing interest in either. Most particularly, I think, there's no chance at all of getting them to listen even to 5 minutes of Wagner. C'est la vie!


Out of interest, Alan, did either of them play an instrument? I wonder sometimes if mine would be have been interested if they hadn't started playing violin from a relatively early age.


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## Rangstrom

In college back around '71 the Solti Gotterdammerung on LP used up my entertainment budget for the next 3 weeks. It is amazing how relatively inexpensive some of this music has become, but it is still a treat to listen to some incredible performances.

The Testament recording is on the pricier side. I was lucky enough to find a bargain from an Amazon seller in Germany. Now I'm waiting for the Solti cds to drop in price so I can replace my LPs while I wait for the DVD release that gets everything right.


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## Elgarian

mamascarlatti said:


> Out of interest, Alan, did either of them play an instrument? I wonder sometimes if mine would be have been interested if they hadn't started playing violin from a relatively early age.


Both: piano in one case and violin the other. Seems to have been the kiss of death.


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## mamascarlatti

Elgarian said:


> Both: piano in one case and violin the other. Seems to have been the kiss of death.


OK, bang goes that theory. I must just be lucky that mine both like opera.


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## Bill H.

mamascarlatti said:


> OK, bang goes that theory. I must just be lucky that mine both like opera.


Same here. My 17 year old (a serious violin student) went with me to the Met HD simulcast of Rheingold, and we have our tickets bought for Die Walkure in May.

Yet I still have no "modern" recordings of the Ring (as in post 1960). I have the 1953 Krauss and Furtwangler sets, and I got the integral Keilberth set when I found it on sale (for about the same price as the Solti). Having many of the singers that appeared on the later 60s sets in voices that were 10 years younger sealed that deal for me.


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## Almaviva

Bill H. said:


> Same here. My 17 year old (a serious violin student) went with me to the Met HD simulcast of Rheingold, and we have our tickets bought for Die Walkure in May.
> 
> Yet I still have no "modern" recordings of the Ring (as in post 1960). I have the 1953 Krauss and Furtwangler sets, and I got the integral Keilberth set when I found it on sale (for about the same price as the Solti). Having many of the singers that appeared on the later 60s sets in voices that were 10 years younger sealed that deal for me.


Nice for you guys. My daughter shows some polite interest, not to disappoint her dad, and my son hates opera.

By the way, welcome to the forum!:tiphat:


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## Bill H.

Almaviva said:


> By the way, welcome to the forum!:tiphat:


Thanks, it's nice being here!


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## sospiro

Bill H. said:


> Thanks, it's nice being here!


Welcome to the forum Bill.










 I can't believe I've actually posted two comments in 'The Ring' thread, neither comments about The Ring though.

This is totally alien territory for me :lol:


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## Elgarian

sospiro said:


> This is totally alien territory for me :lol:


The _Ring_ will get you in the end, Annie - you'll see.

Meanwhile, I've been sampling my new Karajan recording, plunging straight in to Act 3 of _Walkure_. I hardly know how to write about this. Though the _Ring_ is an essential part of the fabric of my being, and although I know that Solti's _Ring_, and Boulez's _Ring_, and Goodall's _Ring_, and Bohm's _Ring_ are all importantly different, I can't articulate exactly how or why. I've never been able to decide on a 'best' - I don't think I believe in such a thing: they are all in their various ways superb. They all offer tickets to a transcendent operatic experience of one kind or another.

It helps that a few days ago I was listening the end of Goodall's _Walkure_, with its great, sweeping, majestic, epic approach, tempered by Rita Hunter's fabulous softened tone. By contrast the Karajan seems airier. The Berlin PO shimmers and shivers in all the right places, but is still capable of delivering staggering weight in the climaxes to threaten bringing the roof down. I'm reminded vaguely of that orchestral quicksilveriness that Carlos Kleiber achieves in his _Rosenkavalier_. Both Crespin (Brunnhilde) and Stewart (Wotan) are more lightweight in tone than I'm used to, though I say that not as a criticism but merely as a description. Wotan is a touch less grand in stature than usual, and more human. Brunnhilde seems so young and vulnerable (if set against Nilsson's Brunnhilde, for example). But when all is done, these comparisons, these words, are nothing compared to the experience of listening. I was _there_ this afternoon, as the flames licked and flickered around the mountaintop: familiar (I've been there so often), yet unfamiliar (never before in this company). If there was any doubt about whether I should have made this purchase, it was all dispelled today.


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## Almaviva

Elgarian said:


> The _Ring_ will get you in the end, Annie - you'll see.
> 
> Meanwhile, I've been sampling my new Karajan recording, plunging straight in to Act 3 of _Walkure_. I hardly know how to write about this. Though the _Ring_ is an essential part of the fabric of my being, and although I know that Solti's _Ring_, and Boulez's _Ring_, and Goodall's _Ring_, and Bohm's _Ring_ are all importantly different, I can't articulate exactly how or why. I've never been able to decide on a 'best' - I don't think I believe in such a thing: they are all in their various ways superb. They all offer tickets to a transcendent operatic experience of one kind or another.
> 
> It helps that a few days ago I was listening the end of Goodall's _Walkure_, with its great, sweeping, majestic, epic approach, tempered by Rita Hunter's fabulous softened tone. By contrast the Karajan seems airier. The Berlin PO shimmers and shivers in all the right places, but is still capable of delivering staggering weight in the climaxes to threaten bringing the roof down. I'm reminded vaguely of that orchestral quicksilveriness that Carlos Kleiber achieves in his _Rosenkavalier_. Both Crespin (Brunnhilde) and Stewart (Wotan) are more lightweight in tone than I'm used to, though I say that not as a criticism but merely as a description. Wotan is a touch less grand in stature than usual, and more human. Brunnhilde seems so young and vulnerable (if set against Nilsson's Brunnhilde, for example). But when all is done, these comparisons, these words, are nothing compared to the experience of listening. I was _there_ this afternoon, as the flames licked and flickered around the mountaintop: familiar (I've been there so often), yet unfamiliar (never before in this company). If there was any doubt about whether I should have made this purchase, it was all dispelled today.


I do seriously think that you should write a book about opera.
I'm not kidding, have you thought of it?
You have undeniable literary talent, entertaining prose, and very powerful expression of emotions. Why not try to earn money from it?


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## scytheavatar

Elgarian said:


> The _Ring_ will get you in the end, Annie - you'll see.
> 
> Meanwhile, I've been sampling my new Karajan recording, plunging straight in to Act 3 of _Walkure_. I hardly know how to write about this. Though the _Ring_ is an essential part of the fabric of my being, and although I know that Solti's _Ring_, and Boulez's _Ring_, and Goodall's _Ring_, and Bohm's _Ring_ are all importantly different, I can't articulate exactly how or why. I've never been able to decide on a 'best' - I don't think I believe in such a thing: they are all in their various ways superb. They all offer tickets to a transcendent operatic experience of one kind or another.
> 
> It helps that a few days ago I was listening the end of Goodall's _Walkure_, with its great, sweeping, majestic, epic approach, tempered by Rita Hunter's fabulous softened tone. By contrast the Karajan seems airier. The Berlin PO shimmers and shivers in all the right places, but is still capable of delivering staggering weight in the climaxes to threaten bringing the roof down. I'm reminded vaguely of that orchestral quicksilveriness that Carlos Kleiber achieves in his _Rosenkavalier_. Both Crespin (Brunnhilde) and Stewart (Wotan) are more lightweight in tone than I'm used to, though I say that not as a criticism but merely as a description. Wotan is a touch less grand in stature than usual, and more human. Brunnhilde seems so young and vulnerable (if set against Nilsson's Brunnhilde, for example). But when all is done, these comparisons, these words, are nothing compared to the experience of listening. I was _there_ this afternoon, as the flames licked and flickered around the mountaintop: familiar (I've been there so often), yet unfamiliar (never before in this company). If there was any doubt about whether I should have made this purchase, it was all dispelled today.


I think it's hard to disagree that Karajan's Rheingold and Walkure are the best part of his cycle and are massively superior to Solti's and Bohm's ring. Vickers/Janowitz is about as good a Siegmund/Sieglinde pairing as you can get. Stewart is light but he's a very good actor and an highly intelligent singer, and it's a shame that there are too little recordings of him (and way too many recordings from that Theo Adam). You should check out Kubelík's Meistersinger if you haven't, Stewart is one of the best Hans Sachs on record. Crespin has always been underrated too and I love her performance in Solti's Der Rosenkavalier. It's a shame that Karajan did an awful job in casting his Siegfried and Götterdämmerung (I understand that it's always hard to find good Siegfrieds, but I can never understand why he replaced Crespin with that Dernesch), otherwise his Ring could have easily been first choice material.


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## Elgarian

Almaviva said:


> I do seriously think that you should write a book about opera.
> I'm not kidding, have you thought of it?
> You have undeniable literary talent, entertaining prose, and very powerful expression of emotions. Why not try to earn money from it?


They're very kind comments Alma, and thank you. But there are more holes in my knowledge of opera than there are in a colander, so it would be a hopelessly inadequate book! Truth is that all my writing energy is devoted to those tiny areas where I have some knowledge and expertise to back up my enthusiasm, and even there, despite many years of experience, I don't think I have a whole book in me. My natural bent is towards the essay, rather than the book.


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## Elgarian

scytheavatar said:


> I think it's hard to disagree that Karajan's Rheingold and Walkure are the best part of his cycle and are massively superior to Solti's and Bohm's ring.


Well, I _would_ disagree, in fact, though I say so only in terms of my personal response rather than any reliable knowledge of what might be good or bad. I'm sure you have grounds for saying what you do, but as I said in my previous post:


> I've never been able to decide on a 'best' - I don't think I believe in such a thing: they are all in their various ways superb. They all offer tickets to a transcendent operatic experience of one kind or another.


The best _Ring_ tends to be the one I'm listening to at the moment. Already the Karajan is adding a new dimension, but I'll be very surprised if exposure to it diminishes how much I value the others.


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## Elgarian

Elgarian said:


> I just ordered a Karajan _Ring_. It's been sitting around on Amazon for some time at £68 - about two-thirds of its usual price - and the number in stock had dwindled to one. They would get more stock, of course - but at what price? So I've ordered one.


Following from the above, Amazon now has new stock, I notice, and as I suspected the set now costs substantially more, so I'm delighted that I decided to act!


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## sospiro

Elgarian said:


> Following from the above, Amazon now has new stock, I notice, and as I suspected the set now costs substantially more, so I'm delighted that I decided to act!












Nice one Alan!


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## Elgarian

Tell you what really baffles me though, Annie. Bohm's Bayreuth _Ring_ is still available on Amazon for a mere £25, and has been so for some time now. Must be the _Ring_ bargain of the century. (I know you're not a _Ring_ fan, but still, at less than £2 per disc, I don't know how they're doing it.)


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## sospiro

Elgarian said:


> Tell you what really baffles me though, Annie. Bohm's Bayreuth _Ring_ is still available on Amazon for a mere £25, and has been so for some time now. Must be the _Ring_ bargain of the century. (I know you're not a _Ring_ fan, but still, at less than £2 per disc, I don't know how they're doing it.)


Blimey, more than twelve discs make up the _Ring_?

I'm running out of room as it is. If I have to put many more DVDs & CDs under the bed my nose will be touching the ceiling.


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## Elgarian

sospiro said:


> Blimey, more than twelve discs make up the _Ring_?
> 
> I'm running out of room as it is. If I have to put many more DVDs & CDs under the bed my nose will be touching the ceiling.


14 in the Bohm set. Actually the box is very small. Not much more than an inch thick (the discs are in thin sleeves).


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## StlukesguildOhio

Has anyone... Couchie... come across Marek Janowski's Ring cycle? It is ridiculously priced if it is at all decent. There are only two reviews on Amazon and both are quite positive and written well-enough as to be persuasive of the reviewer's experience and opinion. I looked on Spotify, but they don't have this set... however I did find a _Parzifal_ which seems quite decent. It's not Knappertsbusch or Karajan... but what is? Anyway... anyone with some info and/or experience with janowski would be appreciated. I already have the complete Ring by Karajan, Knappertsbusch, and Krauss... parts of Solti's and I plan on getting the rest of it as well as Keilberth's sometime in the future. I am simply wondering if this inexpensive Ring is actually worth exploring?


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## superhorn

I've never been a fan of Goodall's Wagner. It's just plain too SLOW . A reviewer in Opera News magazine described his Wagner as "turgid and inert ". This is right on target . Goodall robs Wagner's surgingly powerful music of all its momentum. 
The music just sits there, dead in the water . He makes a complete hash of Wagner's tempo relations, almost ocmpletely neutralizing any contrast between fast and slow . Everything proceeds at the same exasperatingly lethargic pace . The louder passages lumber along turgidly, and the quieter ones are completely limp .
We know now that this is exactly what Wagner did NOT want . From all reports, he could not stand excessively slow tempos in his music . Of ocurse, there ARE parts which requite slow, broad tempos, but there also many parts which call for urgent , even frenetic ones . 
The Goodall Ring in all is about four hours longer tha Boehm's fleet but never rushed Ring !
The singers are caught in Goodall's impossibly slow tempi like prehistoric animals in the LaBrea tar pit of California .


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## Bill H.

StlukesguildOhio said:


> Has anyone... Couchie... come across Marek Janowski's Ring cycle? It is ridiculously priced if it is at all decent. There are only two reviews on Amazon and both are quite positive and written well-enough as to be persuasive of the reviewer's experience and opinion. I looked on Spotify, but they don't have this set... however I did find a _Parzifal_ which seems quite decent. It's not Knappertsbusch or Karajan... but what is? Anyway... anyone with some info and/or experience with janowski would be appreciated. I already have the complete Ring by Karajan, Knappertsbusch, and Krauss... parts of Solti's and I plan on getting the rest of it as well as Keilberth's sometime in the future. I am simply wondering if this inexpensive Ring is actually worth exploring?


I've got it on order from Amazon--when I hear it I'll try to post what I think. But since my Ring hearings are mostly of the 1950s cycles from Bayreuth and Furtwängler's, I expect to be at least bowled over by the sound


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## bigshot

The really good opera in Janowski's cycle is Siegfried, oddly enough. It's a real standout.


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## tyroneslothrop

Pappano's Guide to the Ring:


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## Llyranor

I've started the Ring cycle properly for the first time a few weeks ago. I picked up a Solti set a while ago.

Armed with the illustration book to get in the mood








and this German/English libretto on hand









I've listened to Das Rheingold and Die Walkure thus far. I like it! The music can be great _at times_, but not always (sometimes it just feels as though the story is just moving on, without the music actually being at the centerfold). When it's good, it's sooo good, though. It definitely feels like getting into the story and into Norse mythology really helps me appreciate the story more, rather than just as pure music.

(this was the Solti Wagner set I got, btw http://www.amazon.com/Wagner-The-Op...8&qid=1372733437&sr=8-1&keywords=solti+wagner - not a bad deal for 36 discs)


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## Downbeat

Weird, but I find it all acceptable for one reason or another. I have just bought Seigfreid, to complete the cycle, though I only get through an act in a sitting...I take them one act per weekend!


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## Glissando

Llyranor said:


> I've listened to Das Rheingold and Die Walkure thus far. I like it! The music can be great _at times_, but not always (sometimes it just feels as though the story is just moving on, without the music actually being at the centerfold).


I initially felt that way, too, but after listening to the music more, it all starts to come together as a unified structure. Not to say that it isn't sprawling and full of variety, but now when I listen to, for example, the first act of Die Walkure it feels similar to listening to a Mahler symphony. Every minute of it is riveting to me.


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## gellio

scytheavatar said:


> I think it's hard to disagree that Karajan's Rheingold and Walkure are the best part of his cycle and are massively superior to Solti's and Bohm's ring. Vickers/Janowitz is about as good a Siegmund/Sieglinde pairing as you can get. Stewart is light but he's a very good actor and an highly intelligent singer, and it's a shame that there are too little recordings of him (and way too many recordings from that Theo Adam). You should check out Kubelík's Meistersinger if you haven't, Stewart is one of the best Hans Sachs on record. Crespin has always been underrated too and I love her performance in Solti's Der Rosenkavalier. It's a shame that Karajan did an awful job in casting his Siegfried and Götterdämmerung (I understand that it's always hard to find good Siegfrieds, but I can never understand why he replaced Crespin with that Dernesch), otherwise his Ring could have easily been first choice material.


I would disagree. Solti's Rheingold, Siegfried and Götterdämmerung are superior to Karajan's on every level. I'd give the nod to Karajan for Walküre, but not by much. Solti's Walküre is underrated. Even a past-his-prime Hotter is better than most Wotan's on record!

I now have 13 1/2 Ring's on CD. Crazy.


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## Itullian

gellio said:


> I would disagree. Solti's Rheingold, Siegfried and Götterdämmerung are superior to Karajan's on every level. I'd give the nod to Karajan for Walküre, but not by much. Solti's Walküre is underrated. Even a past-his-prime Hotter is better than most Wotan's on record!
> 
> I now have 13 1/2 Ring's on CD. Crazy.


I have 12 Rings myself, and I think Karajans Rheingold is equal or better than Solti's. And his Walkure eeks it out.


----------



## Couac Addict

gellio said:


> I would disagree. Solti's Rheingold, Siegfried and Götterdämmerung are superior to Karajan's on every level. I'd give the nod to Karajan for Walküre, but not by much. Solti's Walküre is underrated. Even a past-his-prime Hotter is better than most Wotan's on record!
> 
> I now have 13 1/2 Ring's on CD. Crazy.


I'll agree with you on that. The orchestra is top notch but Karajan's interpretation seems a bit iffy. He's hardly known as a Wagner conductor but still, with his credentials, you would expect better.  I'd put Bohm in the same boat. he doesn't seem to "get it" either.

If you're after a nice stereo recording (might as well put that pricey hi-fi system to good use), omitting Karajan and Bohm really narrows the field. More so, if you want a studio recording.

Solti's only ***** in the armour is Die Walkure, or rather a wobbly Hotter in Die Walkure. I can tolerate it because my priorities are with the conductor and I think Solti is the best on record. I can understand someone wanting to substitute it though - especially for Wotan fans.
Other recordings have great moments but I do think Solti is better overall.

...until someone splices the highlights from each recording into one almighty _Mega-Cycle_ :lol:


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## Pip

Couac Addict said:


> I'll agree with you on that. The orchestra is top notch but Karajan's interpretation seems a bit iffy. He's hardly known as a Wagner conductor but still, with his credentials, you would expect better.
> 
> I'd put Bohm in the same boat. he doesn't seem to "get it" either.:


Karajan
"Hardly known as a Wagner conductor"? Head of the Aachen Opera in 1934 conducting all the operas, First major Tristan in 1938 at the Berlin State Opera,ect, First Ring conductor at Bayreuth after the war in 1951,also Meistersinger. then Tristan in 1952, conducted the Ring and Parsifal ,Tannhäuser ect during his time as GMD in Vienna 1957 - 1964,also at La Scala in the late 50s then went on to produce direct and conduct almost every Wagner opera at Salzburg between the years 1967 to 1984.
"hardly known as a wagner conductor"!!

BÖHM
Böhm started conducting Wagner at the Bavarian State Opera in the 20s, First Tristan Vienna 1933, took over the Dresden Opera in 1934 - many celebrated Wagner production followed. Vienna State Opera during and after the war as GMD continued to conduct many Wagner works. Went to the Met and remain one of Bing's best permanent guest conductors where he conducted Walküre, Tristan, Meistersinger, Parsifal, Holländer between 1957 and 1978, and he was Wieland Wagner's ideal Wagner conductor, beginning in Bayreuth in 1962 and ending in 1971.

Böhm and Karajan may not have had the same effect as Solti, but their interpretations were equally, or even more valid than Soti's
Reading the book "Ring Resounding" again by John Culshaw, one realises that the Decca Ring, including the sound picture, was
Culshaw's dream and he went on to produce it His way, by choosing a conductor(Solti), who had little or no experience of conducting the Ring.
Solti's very first staged Rheingold was at Covent Garden in 1964(6 years after the recording) - His first Siegfried - 1962(just after beginning the recording) His first Götterdämmerung - 1963 one year before starting the recording.
Walküre was the only one he had conducted before, and it was on that basis that Culshaw picked him to do the Ring.
When one listens to the Decca Ring - one hears Culshaw's Vision much more than Solti's. Anyone who remembers Solti's Rings
from Covent Garden in the 60s will confirm that his conducting was nothing like as dynamic as on the recordings.
Karl Böhm's Ring is a record of live performances from the 1966 and 1967 Bayreuth Festivals and as such stand in a different category when comparing Ring Cycles. (live performances against Studio productions)
Karajan's Ring cycle was entirely his concept, right down to the last piece of casting. He put them together, one a year, as he
simultaneously mounted the productions at Salzburg. 
Whether his concept is to our taste is, just that a matter of taste.
Unfortunately to hear Solti's own concept of the Ring, one has to listen to the Bayreuth 1983 productions on youtube. They, for all their faults are Solti's interpretations. Decca is 75% Culshaw, 25% Solti.


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## gellio

I love both the Böhm and Karajan's Rings. I listen to Karajan more. His vision was different, but I love that vision. I have Solti's '83 Bayreuth Ring and the conducting sounds on par with his studio Ring. I love Culshaw's vision. The Solti Ring is by far the most exciting Ring on CD, in my opinion.


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## Pip

gellio said:


> I love Culshaw's vision. The Solti Ring is by far the most exciting Ring on CD, in my opinion.


I understand why it is so appealing. It is a sonic wonder, but it can make things very difficult when one goes to hear/see the real thing in an opera house.I saw my first Ring in 1967 at CG and since then have seen probably 50 or more cycles, plus many more individual components, which here in Europe is more common with so many houses still using the repertory system.
The Böhm Ring along with the 1955 Keilberth Ring are difficult to separate, but I prefer the 1955, it has THE cast of the best of the Bayreuth Years after the war. I have always preferred Live over studio, but will always keep a place on the shelves for Solti's 
Rheingold and Götterdämmerung.


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## DavidA

StlukesguildOhio said:


> Has anyone... Couchie... come across Marek Janowski's Ring cycle? It is ridiculously priced if it is at all decent. There are only two reviews on Amazon and both are quite positive and written well-enough as to be persuasive of the reviewer's experience and opinion. I looked on Spotify, but they don't have this set... however I did find a _Parzifal_ which seems quite decent. It's not Knappertsbusch or Karajan... but what is? Anyway... anyone with some info and/or experience with janowski would be appreciated. I already have the complete Ring by Karajan, Knappertsbusch, and Krauss... parts of Solti's and I plan on getting the rest of it as well as Keilberth's sometime in the future. I am simply wondering if this inexpensive Ring is actually worth exploring?


Yes it certainly is. I have it and enjoy it as a good 'middle road' performance. Janowski is an intelligent conductor who doesn't impose himself on the music and conducts with a swift, light touch. The Dresden orchestra is magnificent and well recorded. The cast is as good as one gets these days, with only Altmeyer's Brunnhilde a bit below par - she struggles sometimes. But all-in-all a fabulous bargain.


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## DavidA

Couac Addict said:


> I'll agree with you on that. The orchestra is top notch but Karajan's interpretation seems a bit iffy. He's hardly known as a Wagner conductor but still, with his credentials, you would expect better.  I'd put Bohm in the same boat. he doesn't seem to "get it" either.
> 
> _Mega-Cycle_ :lol:


Karajan not known as a Wagner conductor? You are joking, of course. He was hailed as 'Das Wunder Karajan' for his Tristan in the 1930s!


----------



## gellio

Pip said:


> I understand why it is so appealing. It is a sonic wonder, but it can make things very difficult when one goes to hear/see the real thing in an opera house.I saw my first Ring in 1967 at CG and since then have seen probably 50 or more cycles, plus many more individual components, which here in Europe is more common with so many houses still using the repertory system.
> The Böhm Ring along with the 1955 Keilberth Ring are difficult to separate, but I prefer the 1955, it has THE cast of the best of the Bayreuth Years after the war. I have always preferred Live over studio, but will always keep a place on the shelves for Solti's
> Rheingold and Götterdämmerung.


Don't leave out Solti's Siegfried - it's miraculous. My favorite.


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## Oreb

What do people think of the Haitink Ring on EMI?


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## Don Fatale

StlukesguildOhio said:


> Has anyone... Couchie... come across Marek Janowski's Ring cycle? It is ridiculously priced if it is at all decent. There are only two reviews on Amazon and both are quite positive and written well-enough as to be persuasive of the reviewer's experience and opinion. I looked on Spotify, but they don't have this set... however I did find a _Parzifal_ which seems quite decent. It's not Knappertsbusch or Karajan... but what is? Anyway... anyone with some info and/or experience with janowski would be appreciated. I already have the complete Ring by Karajan, Knappertsbusch, and Krauss... parts of Solti's and I plan on getting the rest of it as well as Keilberth's sometime in the future. I am simply wondering if this inexpensive Ring is actually worth exploring?


Janowski's ring seems to become more respected as the years go by. I collect Ring cycles in LP box set and to me this is possibly the best overall LP listening experience, particularly taking recording quality into account.


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## bigshot

Janowski's Ring looks better as newer ones look worse and worse!


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## Couac Addict

Alexander said:


> Janowski's ring seems to become more respected as the years go by. I collect Ring cycles in LP box set and to me this is possibly the best overall LP listening experience, particularly taking recording quality into account.


Janowski's Siegfried is one of the better ones, admittedly by default.


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## Couac Addict

Oreb said:


> What do people think of the Haitink Ring on EMI?


It's okay. Not the best but not the worst either. The biggest downfall is Marton's wobbly Brunnhilde. You can hear her voice going down the gurgler as you listen through the cycle. It gets ugly by the time you get to Gotterdmerung.
If you can overlook that, it's enjoyable enough.

Don't take my word for it - have a listen. Are you using Spotify?


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## Itullian

Couac Addict said:


> It's okay. Not the best but not the worst either. The biggest downfall is Marton's wobbly Brunnhilde. You can hear her voice going down the gurgler as you listen through the cycle. It gets ugly by the time you get to Gotterdmerung.
> If you can overlook that, it's enjoyable enough.
> 
> Don't take my word for it - have a listen. Are you using Spotify?


I can overlook it fine. I like this Ring very much.
Beautifully recorded.


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## Reinhold

If you have not listened to all four operas, you should as soon as possible (I recommended the Solti)! It is a true masterpiece of German opera, and opera in general. As a horn player, Siegfried is irresistible!


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## bigshot

Haitink is no Wagnerian. He is a streetcar conductor in this.


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## DavidA

It is always a matter of speculation for me as to why John Culshaw did not allow Karajan to conduct more Wagner when he had him under contract with Decca. Karajan was hugely experienced in the operas at the time. He had conducted a successful Ring at Bayrueth and was conducting an admired Tristan with Nilsson and Windgassen at Vienna when Culshaw was trying to make his duff spider and fly recording with Solti. From his own admission years later, Solti was far to inexperienced to conduct Tristan at that stage in his career. The Ring was a different matter as Karajan was not in contract with Decca when it was begun.


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## DavidA

Reinhold said:


> If you have not listened to all four operas, you should as soon as possible (I recommended the Solti)! It is a true masterpiece of German opera, and opera in general. As a horn player, Siegfried is irresistible!


Although I can admire some of the music the hero is a boorish bully who I feel like slapping every time I hear him Hi-Hoing! And that dwarf screeching and snarling gets on one's nerves after a time.


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## Oreb

bigshot said:


> Haitink is no Wagnerian. He is a streetcar conductor in this.


 I like his _Tannhauser_ very much, but I certainly can accept that the _Ring_ is a special case.


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## Oreb

Couac Addict said:


> Are you using Spotify?


 I haven't used it, but will investigate. My problem is that I have Slow Ear Syndrome. I have to live with recordings for a while before I can come to conclusions about them, which is a bit of a pain when it comes to taking things for a Test Drive.


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## Pip

DavidA said:


> It is always a matter of speculation for me as to why John Culshaw did not allow Karajan to conduct more Wagner when he had him under contract with Decca. Karajan was hugely experienced in the operas at the time. He had conducted a successful Ring at Bayrueth and was conducting an admired Tristan with Nilsson and Windgassen at Vienna when Culshaw was trying to make his recording with Solti. From his own admission years later, Solti was far too inexperienced to conduct Tristan at that stage in his career. The Ring was a different matter as Karajan was not in contract with Decca when it was begun.


David, It is well documented that Karajan and Culshaw did not get on at all, Hvk knew exactly what he wanted and expected the producer to go along with his wishes no matter what. This was anathema to Culshaw who wanted always to be the dominant force of any recording. Karajan left Decca because he was given carte blanche by DGG with an engineer(Hermaanns) who remained with him until the end, and producers who would tow the line.
The Tristan saga was no one's fault except Nilsson's. She virtually forced Decca to record it, threatening not to renew her contract, so it was very hastily put together. Karajan refused to touch it and Solti was persuaded to do it.
He would not conduct Tristan in the opera house for the first time for another 2 years.(MET February 1963).
It was a mistake then and it is the one Wagner opera that Solti never really came to terms with. He had similar problems with it at the Met in 1963, Nilsson sang, but the Tristan was again poor(Karl Liebl).
He next conducted it at Covent Garden in a new production as his farewell as Music Director in 1971, with again mixed results.
The Isolde's were good (Dvorakova & Nilsson), Tristan, less so(Jess Thomas), however Solti himself never really found the answer to this Work. He would conduct the "purple passages" well while skating over the rest of it. There was no great arc or sweep of a performance that knew where it was going from start to finish. This was a criticism that was leveled at Solti many times over the years.


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## DavidA

Pip said:


> David, It is well documented that Karajan and Culshaw did not get on at all, Hvk knew exactly what he wanted and expected the producer to go along with his wishes no matter what. This was anathema to Culshaw who wanted always to be the dominant force of any recording. Karajan left Decca because he was given carte blanche by DGG with an engineer(Hermaanns) who remained with him until the end, and producers who would tow the line.
> The Tristan saga was no one's fault except Nilsson's. She virtually forced Decca to record it, threatening not to renew her contract, so it was very hastily put together. Karajan refused to touch it and Solti was persuaded to do it.
> /QUOTE]
> 
> I know about Nilsson's insistence and the fact she didn't trust record companies. So she insisted on recording Triatan ASAP. As for Culshaw and Karajan, HvK was prepared to record Aida, Carmen and Otello (all exemplary) with the Decca team so why not Tristan? I have never read that he refused (I'd be interested in your source for this) but that both Culshaw and Osborn say that he was most displeased it hadn't been offered him and actually tried to sabotage the sessions by recording Haydn symphonies at the same time.


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## Itullian

Oreb said:


> I like his _Tannhauser_ very much, but I certainly can accept that the _Ring_ is a special case.


I have his Meistersinger and I like it very much too.


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## Couac Addict

Oreb said:


> I haven't used it, but will investigate. My problem is that I have Slow Ear Syndrome. I have to live with recordings for a while before I can come to conclusions about them, which is a bit of a pain when it comes to taking things for a Test Drive.


It's handy for comparing recordings...just include the conductor/singer etc in the search. If you click on the star next to the listing, it'll be stashed in your library for easy retrieval. I'm only using the free version which means you'll get an ad every now and then between arias...kills the moment but oh well - it's free.
It sure beats buying cd's that should only be used as a drinks coaster.


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## gellio

bigshot said:


> Haitink is no Wagnerian. He is a streetcar conductor in this.


Well said. It's quite a dull and boring Ring. Morris is the highlight, but he's better under Levine.


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## Itullian

gellio said:


> Well said. It's quite a dull and boring Ring. Morris is the highlight, but he's better under Levine.


I like it. ........................


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## OperaGeek

Itullian said:


> I like it. ........................


That makes two of us :wave:. The Haitink Ring isn't a first choice, but I wouldn't want to be without it, either.


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## Autumn Leaves

Chi_townPhilly said:


> Welcome, sufeyang! and thanks for "Tchai-yo" (rough translation: "add more fuel," but you can correct me if I'm wrong ) to the _Ring_ thread.
> By the way, Morigan, I'll certainly disagree with your assessment of Wagner, but differences in musical taste do not merit "flames," and so you'll receive none from me.
> And, so to JohnM, with whom I'd like to discuss the cycle (as well as anyone else who cares to chime in). For starters, maybe we can give our sound-bite impressions of the 4 works. I'll start:
> 1) _Das Rheingold_: underrated, even among Wagner fans. It is, however, handicapped by the complete absence of sympathetic characters.
> 2) _Die Walkure_: Wagner's most seemless welding of words and music.
> 3) _Siegfried_: the fulcrum. The action pivots fatalistically amongst the humor and (false) optimism.
> 4) _Gotterdammerung_: The architectonic majesty of the music is more than enough to make me overlook the "tubeway" plot line.


_Das Rheingold_? Absence of sympathetic characters? What about Fasolt? And Mime - in _Rheingold_ he's undoubtedly sympathetic, when he's not depicted as a total clown.


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## DavidA

I recently bought Furtwangler's 1954 Walkure with the VPO which was to be the first part of a projected Ring, but the conductor died eight weeks after its completion.
The conducting is quite remarkable. It is not the only way with Wagner but Furtwangler makes the orchestra live without brutality. It is a huge, brooding quality of sound from the VPO conducted in long paragraphs. 
The cast is probably the best that could be assembled with Modl, Rysenak, Suthaus, Frick, etc. There is one huge puzzle to me, however, as to why Furtwangler chose Franz as Wotan rather than Hotter. From Hotter's performance with Krauss he is streets ahead of Franz in the role. Anyone have any knowledge as to why Franz was chosen?


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## Albert7

The Solti Ring is my general standard. It may not be the best conducted or the best sung but it is definitely one of the best engineered. Much care was put by Decca into ensuring that would be a Ring for the ages.

Honestly I wish that Sinopoli recorded the Ring. I am most partial to Boulez's complete cycle because it is insightful and elegant with incisive look at the music.


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## GioCar

albertfallickwang said:


> The Solti Ring is my general standard. It may not be the best conducted or the best sung but it is definitely one of the best engineered. Much care was put by Decca into ensuring that would be a Ring for the ages.
> 
> *Honestly I wish that Sinopoli recorded the Ring*. I am most partial to Boulez's complete cycle because it is insightful and elegant with incisive look at the music.


Well, possibly somehow he did....
In the year 2000 the Wagner Society of Milan organized a public listening (open to members only) of the just performed Ring in Bayreuth, conducted by Sinopoli.
I went to those evenings, I remember that the quality of the recordings was high enough to think that they would have been commercially released soon...I have never had any further news of those recordings...
It was a very rewarding experience indeed.


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## Pip

Sinopoli's Wagner got better and better. The 2000 Ring was pretty good, Alan Titus was a little lightweight as Wotan, but it was generally well sung. Had he not died in April 2001 he would have conducted the Ring in 2001 and 2002 as well.
The radio broadcasts of that Ring survive. They are in excellent sound.


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## hpowders

I hope you get to see the Ring live. I have done so several times at the Met and it is so much better than simply listening to recordings.


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## Albert7

Pip said:


> Sinopoli's Wagner got better and better. The 2000 Ring was pretty good, Alan Titus was a little lightweight as Wotan, but it was generally well sung. Had he not died in April 2001 he would have conducted the Ring in 2001 and 2002 as well.
> The radio broadcasts of that Ring survive. They are in excellent sound.


Seriously if there was an official release of Sinopoli's Ring I would buy that in a heartbeat. So heartbreaking that DG just doesn't release his complete conducting stint.


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## Itullian

Don't forget Barenboim's first Ring on Teldec.
It's a great Ring in great sound.


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## GioCar

Pip said:


> Sinopoli's Wagner got better and better. The 2000 Ring was pretty good, Alan Titus was a little lightweight as Wotan, but it was generally well sung. Had he not died in April 2001 he would have conducted the Ring in 2001 and 2002 as well.
> The radio broadcasts of that Ring survive. They are in excellent sound.


Do you know if/where it's possible to get these radio broadcasts? Is there any available recording?
I've done a quick search over the internet but couldn't find anything...


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## Pip

GioCar said:


> Do you know if/where it's possible to get these radio broadcasts? Is there any available recording?
> I've done a quick search over the internet but couldn't find anything...


I have sent you a PM


----------



## Don Fatale

Itullian said:


> Don't forget Barenboim's first Ring on Teldec.
> It's a great Ring in great sound.


It's excellent, but be careful playing it while driving. There's a few bangs and things in this live recording that may have you thinking something just happened to your car!


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## Gaspard de la Nuit

DavidA said:


> I recently bought Furtwangler's 1954 Walkure with the VPO which was to be the first part of a projected Ring, but the conductor died eight weeks after its completion.
> The conducting is quite remarkable. It is not the only way with Wagner but Furtwangler makes the orchestra live without brutality. It is a huge, brooding quality of sound from the VPO conducted in long paragraphs.
> The cast is probably the best that could be assembled with Modl, Rysenak, Suthaus, Frick, etc. There is one huge puzzle to me, however, as to why Furtwangler chose Franz as Wotan rather than Hotter. From Hotter's performance with Krauss he is streets ahead of Franz in the role. Anyone have any knowledge as to why Franz was chosen?


Frantz's is actually a lower and heavier voice than Hotter, he was apparently a bass who trained to become a bass-baritone which _may_ be what Wagner intended for his bass-baritone characters (rather than just a lighter voice). Hotter is definitely a bass-baritone though he has more impressive lows than many others.....he does seem to have a much easier time singing Wotan than Frantz, but there are moments where Frantz's power is unequaled.

Personally, Frantz is probably my favorite Wotan....he's the most powerful voice in the role to be recorded and I think given the character, there's something to be said for that.


----------



## Pip

DavidA said:


> I recently bought Furtwangler's 1954 Walkure with the VPO which was to be the first part of a projected Ring, but the conductor died eight weeks after its completion.
> The conducting is quite remarkable. It is not the only way with Wagner but Furtwangler makes the orchestra live without brutality. It is a huge, brooding quality of sound from the VPO conducted in long paragraphs.
> The cast is probably the best that could be assembled with Modl, Rysenak, Suthaus, Frick, etc. There is one huge puzzle to me, however, as to why Furtwangler chose Franz as Wotan rather than Hotter. From Hotter's performance with Krauss he is streets ahead of Franz in the role. Anyone have any knowledge as to why Franz was chosen?


Hi David, Hotter was Furtwänglers choice until 1950 when Hotter was suffering a mini vocal crisis and his annual hay fever debilitation.
During that time he was booked to sing the Damnation of Faust with WF at the Lucerne Festival 1950.
His voice was in shreds at the rehearsals and Hotter told WF he would cancel the performance. Unfortunately there was no cover for the role and Furtwängler insisted he sing to save the performance. Hotter, in his own words, sang like a dog, and was dropped by the conductor for all of his future projects. It was due to this problem that Hotter did not sing at the 1951 reopening of the Bayreuth Festival, both Furtwängler and Knappertsbusch told Wieland Wagner that Hotter was not in any vocal condition to sing that year. Franz had already begun to sing Wotan for Furtwängler at La Scala earlier that same year and he remained his Wotan of choice till the end. 
Doubly ironic was that Hotter was an EMI contract artist and should have sung on the Tristan and Fidelio recordings but Furtwängler refused to have him.
This information was told to me by Hotter himself back in the 1980s when I knew him quite well.
He was quite "C'est la vie" about it all, but regretted that because of mischance that he never got to work with Furtwängler again who he respected above all other conductors.
Hotter would overcome his vocal problems and started at Bayreuth in 1952 and never looked back.
Franz did not sing the Wanderer for the 1950 La Scala Ring because he had not yet learned it.


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## DavidA

Pip said:


> Hi David, Hotter was Furtwänglers choice until 1950 when Hotter was suffering a mini vocal crisis and his annual hay fever debilitation.
> During that time he was booked to sing the Damnation of Faust with WF at the Lucerne Festival 1950.
> His voice was in shreds at the rehearsals and Hotter told WF he would cancel the performance. Unfortunately there was no cover for the role and Furtwängler insisted he sing to save the performance. Hotter, in his own words, sang like a dog, and was dropped by the conductor for all of his future projects. It was due to this problem that Hotter did not sing at the 1951 reopening of the Bayreuth Festival, both Furtwängler and Knappertsbusch told Wieland Wagner that Hotter was not in any vocal condition to sing that year. Franz had already begun to sing Wotan for Furtwängler at La Scala earlier that same year and he remained his Wotan of choice till the end.
> Doubly ironic was that Hotter was an EMI contract artist and should have sung on the Tristan and Fidelio recordings but Furtwängler refused to have him.
> This information was told to me by Hotter himself back in the 1980s when I knew him quite well.
> He was quite "C'est la vie" about it all, but regretted that because of mischance that he never got to work with Furtwängler again who he respected above all other conductors.
> Hotter would overcome his vocal problems and started at Bayreuth in 1952 and never looked back.
> Franz did not sing the Wanderer for the 1950 La Scala Ring because he had not yet learned it.


Thanks for this! Was this also the reason he was dropped by Legge for the studio Fidelio under Klemperer? The recording of his Pizzaro from Covent Garden makes one wonder whether Legge had taken leave on his senses in replacing him with Walter Berry for the recoding studio. His performance in the 1961 Parsifal under Karajan is outstanding as is the performance in the 1952 Karajan Tristan. Which makes is puzzling why Legge dropped him.


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## SixFootScowl

Edward Elgar said:


> Has anyone actually listened to all four operas? If so, I take my hat off to you! I wouldn't have the patience!


Just like a good book that you can't put down, patience is not needed.

BTW: Another Ring thread dragged up.


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## Pugg

Florestan said:


> Just like a good book that you can't put down, patience is not needed.
> 
> BTW: Another Ring thread dragged up.


There must be at least another one for you to find.


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## gardibolt

oh, it's fun talking about the Ring and its many versions.


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## SixFootScowl

gardibolt said:


> oh, it's fun talking about the Ring and its many versions.


Yes it is indeed! So, let's talk. We can categorize our Rings:

Historical: How to define? Is there a year before which is historical, after which is not?

Live Performance:
Continuous from one performance (1989 Sawallisch I believe would fit here)
Cobbled together from multiple performances (Think I read Goodall does this)
Live Performance but no audience (there is one of these, think is it Barenboim?)

Studio Performance:
A lot of takes and retakes and sound engineering
Straight out recording such as the above Live Performance with no audience

Other categories or subcategories?

How many Rings does a bona fide Ring enthusiast need to be happy? All of them? Most of them?


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## Barbebleu

Florestan said:


> Yes it is indeed! So, let's talk. We can categorize our Rings:
> 
> Historical: How to define? Is there a year before which is historical, after which is not?
> 
> Live Performance:
> Continuous from one performance (1989 Sawallisch I believe would fit here)
> Cobbled together from multiple performances (Think I read Goodall does this)
> Live Performance but no audience (there is one of these, think is it Barenboim?)
> 
> Studio Performance:
> A lot of takes and retakes and sound engineering
> Straight out recording such as the above Live Performance with no audience
> 
> Other categories or subcategories?
> 
> How many Rings does a bona fide Ring enthusiast need to be happy? All of them? Most of them?


Aaah, I love the questioning of the newly possessed/obsessed. 

Historical. At least fifty years old.

You need as many Rings as you feel you can listen to in a lifetime, plus about another ten! However many you acquire you will always gravitate back to the first one you heard.


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## gardibolt

For me, historical is the Boulez-Chéreau production of 1976 and before. In a lot of ways, that production changed everything about the Ring and how it was perceived. It doesn't hurt that the televised version of it was the first time I got to see the Ring instead of just hear it.  So it changed everything about the Ring for me in particular. :lol:

My favorite live performance is probably the 1953 Krauss, though depending on what day you ask me, the 1955 Keilberth or the 1957 Knappertsbusch might come in first. They all have their merits and they're all incredibly good. 1955 gets bonus points for the amazingly good sound from Decca's engineers.

Favorite studio version is still Solti, despite all its detractors. It was my imprint version and it's hard to imagine it being bettered. It's not like they're making Birgit Nilssons any more. 

How many Rings does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop? I'm around 30 Rings currently, with my eyes on Goodall when I can find it at a reasonable price. I'm very much slowing down because the others that I'm missing tend to have bad enough sound that I'm really not interested, or cost a fortune. But I can name a dozen off the top of my head that I'd never ever want to be without.

Since that'll probably be the next question, here goes,without looking anything up so details may be wrong:

1. Moralt 1949
2. Furtwängler 1950 La Scala (Pristine version only....they did amazing work on totally execrable sound)
3. Krauss 1953 Bayreuth
4. Keilberth 1953 Bayreuth
5. Keilberth 1955 Bayreuth
6. Knappertsbusch 1957 Bayreuth (I have his 1958 also but haven't yet had a chance to listen to it except in snippets, so it might be a contender too)
7. Solti 1958-1965 studio
8. Böhm 1966-67 Bayreuth
9. Boulez 1976 Bayreuth (or 1977.....I forget which one has the better sound quality---I have them both and they're both good but one has somewhat better audio)
10. Karajan's studio version....I forget the dates on that one but 1973ish I think?
11. Caniell's Dream Ring set (I know, I know....) 1937-1951 Met if I remember rightly. Lorenz Melchior was a god.
12. Barenboim 2013 Proms 

1968(?) Sawallisch Bayreuth probably would be on the bubble; its sound quality isn't the best, though.

Waiting with bated breath for the Chicago Lyric Opera to offer tickets for the second part of their cycle this fall. My wife thinks I'm nuts, but sitting through a live Ring Cycle is one of the big things on my bucket list.


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## Woodduck

To all you young folks: "historical" changes with your age. When I first got into Wagner, there was only one _Parsifal,_ the 1951 Bayreuth recording. It wasn't historical; it was contemporary. Now it's historical. Soon I will be too.


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## SixFootScowl

gardibolt said:


> 1968(?) Sawallisch Bayreuth probably would be on the bubble; its sound quality isn't the best, though.


How about the 1989 Sawallisch? Much better sound quality. And do you have Swarowsky's 1968 Ring?


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## gardibolt

Florestan said:


> How about the 1989 Sawallisch? Much better sound quality. And do you have Swarowsky's 1968 Ring?


Alas, I don't know either of those. I'll be interested to hear your reporting on them. 

Edit: Ah, screw it. I had enough Amazon reward points that I could get the 1989 Sawallisch (used) for free, so I did. I've liked all the other Sawallisch Wagner I've heard so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. As DarkAngel says, Buy, buy, buy.


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## SixFootScowl

gardibolt said:


> Alas, I don't know either of those. I'll be interested to hear your reporting on them.
> 
> Edit: Ah, screw it. I had enough Amazon reward points that I could get the 1989 Sawallisch (used) for free, so I did. I've liked all the other Sawallisch Wagner I've heard so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. *As DarkAngel says, Buy, buy, buy.*


That's the spirit!

Now, since you are more experienced at the Ring than I am (me being a 7 week old babe in the Ring), I will look forward to your thoughts on the Swallisch 1989 set.


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## amfortas

Woodduck said:


> To all you young folks: "historical" changes with your age. When I first got into Wagner, there was only one _Parsifal,_ the 1951 Bayreuth recording. It wasn't historical; it was contemporary. Now it's historical. Soon I will be too.


Don't sell yourself short. You're already historical.


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## amfortas

gardibolt said:


> Caniell's Dream Ring set (I know, I know....) 1937-1951 Met if I remember rightly. Lorenz Melchior was a god.


Alternatively, you can get the Naxos Ring set. It draws on largely the same material, but presents the actual live Met broadcasts intact, without tinkering to create consistent casting across the operas (so you get Traubel, Flagstad, and Lawrence each taking a turn as Brünnhilde, rather than Flagstad throughout). Each of the four broadcasts is also available separately.


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## Woodduck

amfortas said:


> Don't sell yourself short. You're already historical.


That's hysterical.


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## Becca

*The Wagner virus*

Stephen Fay followed the production of the 1983 Solti/Bayreuth Ring Cycle from when it was first proposed around 1977 until the actual performances 6 years later and from which he wrote the book _The Ring, Anatomy of an Opera_...

_By mid-May [1983] I had begun to feel oppressed by the gargantuan size of Wagner's work, and I decided that the only explanation for the foolhardiness of those who try to put the whole Ring on stage in a single season is that they have succumbed to a rare allergy [sic]. I named this the Wagner virus, and briefly thought it an original idea; shortly afterwards I read Bernard Levin on the subject of Wagner fever, a slightly different strain of the same bug. Others may well have though of it too. The diagnosis of the Wagner virus is not merely that a sufferer has fallen under the spell of the music; a true victim is under the illusion that the theatrical and musical challenges of the Ring can actually be overcome, and its most virulent form is to be found in Bayreuth, naturally, where the four parts of the cycle have to be produced in a single summer._


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## Woodduck

Becca said:


> Stephen Fay followed the production of the 1983 Solti/Bayreuth Ring Cycle from when it was first proposed around 1977 until the actual performances 6 years later and from which he wrote the book _The Ring, Anatomy of an Opera_...
> 
> _By mid-May [1983] I had begun to feel oppressed by the gargantuan size of Wagner's work, and I decided that the only explanation for the foolhardiness of those who try to put the whole Ring on stage in a single season is that they have succumbed to a rare allergy [sic]. I named this the Wagner virus, and briefly thought it an original idea; shortly afterwards I read Bernard Levin on the subject of Wagner fever, a slightly different strain of the same bug. Others may well have though of it too. The diagnosis of the Wagner virus is not merely that a sufferer has fallen under the spell of the music; a true victim is under the illusion that the theatrical and musical challenges of the Ring can actually be overcome, and its most virulent form is to be found in Bayreuth, naturally, where the four parts of the cycle have to be produced in a single summer._


Huh. So what I've been suffering from isn't the Wagner virus, but some other Wagneropathy?

Medical science obviously has a long way to go.


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## Becca

Woodduck said:


> Huh. So what I've been suffering from isn't the Wagner virus, but some other Wagneropathy?
> 
> Medical science obviously has a long way to go.


I wonder if we can get a research grant from the National Institutes of Health in order to find out more about variants and prognoses. I rather doubt that, short of electro-shock therapy, any cures possible.


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## Woodduck

Becca said:


> I wonder if we can get a research grant from the National Institutes of Health in order to find out more about variants and prognoses. I rather doubt that, short of electro-shock therapy, any cures possible.


You can't get well unless you want to.


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## Barbebleu

Becca said:


> I wonder if we can get a research grant from the National Institutes of Health in order to find out more about variants and prognoses. I rather doubt that, short of electro-shock therapy, any cures possible.


The main thing here is to get as much money out of them as possible before they discover what we're doing, then move our millions to some country without extradition!


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## Becca

*The more things change...*

From a review of the Ring cycle by Max Loppert of the Financial Times...

_The most significant reason the production went off track I believe, is that the entire tetralogy has been made reliant on a single piece of immensely sophisticated stage wizardry. The platform is obviously a brilliant piece of technological invention, even if the unveiling of it was noticeably less that trouble-free. Yet the structuring of a complete Ring upon a single gadget may at some point have taken precedence from all other component parts, visual and dramatic, that go to make up a balanced production._

One would be excused for thinking that this is a criticism of the Met/Lepage Ring but no, there is apparently nothing new under the sun. This is about the 1983 Bayreuth/Hall/Dudley/Solti Ring and it's stage wizardry. I wonder how much Lepage was familiar with it?

The review above was quoted in Stephen Fay's book, The Ring, Anatomy of an Opera, which follows the story of the 1983 production from when it was first planned some years before.


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## Bonetan

Becca said:


> From a review of the Ring cycle by Max Loppert of the Financial Times...
> 
> _The most significant reason the production went off track I believe, is that the entire tetralogy has been made reliant on a single piece of immensely sophisticated stage wizardry. The platform is obviously a brilliant piece of technological invention, even if the unveiling of it was noticeably less that trouble-free. Yet the structuring of a complete Ring upon a single gadget may at some point have taken precedence from all other component parts, visual and dramatic, that go to make up a balanced production._
> 
> One would be excused for thinking that this is a criticism of the Met/Lepage Ring but no, there is apparently nothing new under the sun. This is about the 1983 Bayreuth/Hall/Dudley/Solti Ring and it's stage wizardry. I wonder how much Lepage was familiar with it?
> 
> The review above was quoted in Stephen Fay's book, The Ring, Anatomy of an Opera, which follows the story of the 1983 production from when it was first planned some years before.


Wow I was absolutely sure they were talking about the Lepage lol


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