# Anybody going/listening in to the Ring Cycle at the Met?



## Celloissimo (Mar 29, 2013)

Although the Met's previous Ring was not up to par with many opera lovers' standards, it still must be admitted that listening to or watching the Ring is a beautiful and cathartic experience. The Met is staging the ring 1:00 PM EST on April 6th and is going to be broadcasted on various radio stations. 

Anyone either going or listening in?


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## Cavaradossi (Aug 2, 2012)

I'll be in town a few times this month, may try and catch at least one installment. I was eyeing family circle tix for tomorrow's Rheingold, but they've all been snatched up. Otherwise they're just too expensive without rush or other discount.


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## Gizmo (Mar 28, 2013)

I might listen to it Saturday, but I intend to record it from the replay at some point next week.


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## guythegreg (Jun 15, 2012)

I'm taking a break from the Ring ... I think my next attempt to scale Wagner will be the Furtwangler T&I, so movingly recommended by moody a little while back.


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## Gizmo (Mar 28, 2013)

I wanted to take advantage of the good weather so I put on my bathing suite, got a bottle of wine, got all settled and just as it started the guy across the street fired up his lawn mower ! I did get it recorded Sunday.


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## Cavaradossi (Aug 2, 2012)

Just booked some Family Circle tix for Siegfried this Saturday! I'll bring the binoculars. By way of bragging, I've met two of the cast members and performed on stage with another one. (OK, her in the front with the soloists and me in the very back row of the mostly amateur Messiah orchestra.)


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## Gizmo (Mar 28, 2013)

Cavaradossi, Enjoy ! I will be listening to it on the radio.


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## expat (Mar 17, 2013)

I am going this week (Rheingold, Walkuere). As a newbie (started listening to Wagner less than a year ago) I am familiar with Das Rheingold having listened to it maybe 50 times. How can I speed up my understanding of Walkuere until then? I heard it 3 times and will listen to it with the Libretto until then.


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## Cavaradossi (Aug 2, 2012)

OK, so I finally got to experience "the machine" live. I have to say it was quite effective from our Family Circle vantage point. Maybe Siegfriend's naturalistic settings - Mime's hut, Fafner's cave, Erda's lair, and Brunnehilde's mountaintop - are the most amenable the giant planks. While it might not be the ultimate Ring staging, no harm was done either. Except... yes, the movement of the planks was audible occasionally even up in the far reaches of the Family Circle. Just an occasional metal-on-metal 'clack' - but a surprising bit of amateurism for the Met, with all its resources, to tolerate.

The orchestra's playing under Fabio Luisi was adequate, if not fully inspired. Sections and soloists performed admirably but the ultimate effect was also "do no harm". 

The cast was uniformly strong:
Brünnhilde: Deborah Voigt 
Erda: Meredith Arwady 
Siegfried: Jay Hunter Morris 
Mime: Gerhard Siegel 
Wanderer: Mark Delavan 
Alberich: Eric Owens 

Jay Hunter Morris lived, sold (and survived!) the challenging singing and even more challenging acting of Siegfried admirably. From what I heard on the radio of his Valkure and saw and heard in Siegfried, Mark Delavan is about as good Wotan/Wanderer as I've come across.


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## katdad (Jan 1, 2009)

I've been a classical music fan all my life, and have also loved vocal arts, including opera, all that time as well. And I'm no dummy, either. I'm a classically trained baritone and have sung (chorus and comprimario) in a number of operas, also in chorales (mostly sacred music). And I've got a good general liberal arts and scientific education (double major, chemistry and English lit). And please believe me, I dearly love classical music, I genuinely do, from Bach and Handel to Philip Glass and John Adams.

And I've tried, tried hard, to like Wagner. I've tried for years. And I just cannot like it. The only Wagner opera I've found that I appreciate is Rheingold.

What is it about Wagner's operas that I don't like? Well, they are overly ponderous and grandiose, and there isn't a "tune" such as we find in Mozart, Verdi, Puccini, etc. And I understand taking time to generate emotions via music, and know full well that many people don't like classical because it's "too long" but I find Wagner exactly that. I also don't care much for the characters, knights and kings and princesses and gods and such. I'm more of a Papageno-type person.

Sorry to have this feeling about Wagner, and I have no objections to other people who like his operas. It's just not my cuppa tea.


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## guythegreg (Jun 15, 2012)

katdad said:


> I've been a classical music fan all my life, and have also loved vocal arts, including opera, all that time as well. And I'm no dummy, either. I'm a classically trained baritone and have sung (chorus and comprimario) in a number of operas, also in chorales (mostly sacred music). And I've got a good general liberal arts and scientific education (double major, chemistry and English lit). And please believe me, I dearly love classical music, I genuinely do, from Bach and Handel to Philip Glass and John Adams.
> 
> And I've tried, tried hard, to like Wagner. I've tried for years. And I just cannot like it. The only Wagner opera I've found that I appreciate is Rheingold.
> 
> ...


I too have tried to like Wagner for years. With some success. I love Parsifal, and I enjoy Lohengrin. I've attempted Meistersinger many times, without success. I've been to live productions of Fliegende Hollander and Das Rheingold and went away feeling like, that production was not a good job. I've watched DVDs of Tristan und Isolde and Das Rheingold and been unmoved.

But my feeling is, as with opera in general, seeing or hearing the right production makes all the difference. I didn't used to like Rigoletto - then sospiro recommended the classic recording with Sutherland, Pavarotti and Milnes, and I was hooked. I didn't used to like Traviata, and then I saw the Willy Decker production with Natalie Dessay in the title role, and suddenly I understood. I must have six different versions now. (It's still Dessay's DVD in a different production from Aix-en-Provence, though, that means the most to me.)

So I keep working at it.


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## MAuer (Feb 6, 2011)

When I began seriously exploring the operatic repertoire (mid-teens), I thought I hated Wagner. This belief persisted until I bought Siegfried Jerusalem's first recital disc, where he sang (among other things) Tamino's Bildnisarie AND Lohengrin's Grail Narrative as well as Walther von Stolzing's Preislied. Decided Wagner wasn't so bad after all. I still don't like Wagner's operas as much as I like Mozart's or Verdi's, but I liked them sufficiently to attend the Met's late '80s/early '90s Ring cycle (in which Jerusalem just happened to be singing three of the four major tenor roles). I've discovered that if voices I find attractive sing a particular composer's music, that will usually be enough to "sell" it to me.


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## katdad (Jan 1, 2009)

I keep trying, too, greg. Last year I liked the PBS broadcast of the new Met ring cycle but I still think that much of Wagner is too slow. And yes, I know that he takes his time to build his sequences but I'm still of the opinion that it's too long. I don't actually "hate" Wagner like I do Britten's operas, but I still don't immediately find myself enraptured by Wagner.

I also agree that the production is much of it. I made the mistake a few years ago of buying a "new" interpretation of Don Giovanni DVD and I could only get through about half the video, despite the great singers. Conversely, the Royal Opera DVD of Marriage of Figaro is superb. Both videos were about the same age, maybe 20 years ago, and such divergence! (sorry I don't have the DVDs in front of me to refer to the actual director right now).


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## WAWilson (Nov 8, 2011)

I just bought a ticket today to Götterdämmerung next Saturday! So excited! I've never seen Wagner live and I'm excited to see the machine in person after watching the cycle in HD. The experience of sitting through the entire thing I'm sure will be amazing. I can't wait.


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## Jiraiya (May 2, 2013)

I saw Das Rheingold and Die Walkure......I had a ticket to Siegfried but I have a hard time in cities so I decided to give that one away.

Personally I prefer the lavish, 19th-century style production on those DVD's with James Levine from the 90's....to this production...for example, I wish there could have been a Valhalla to see in Rheingold. Though I appreciate that Hunding had an entourage in this one, it makes the scene more dramatic. One of the most amazing things was Fricka.....(Stephanie Blythe), her voice was HUGE. Her throne in her scene in Die Walkure was also really cool, with ram's heads for armrests  I thought it was a nice touch.

Wagner is probably my favorite opera composer, the depth, complexity, power and voluptuousness of his music, as well was the mythic story material, is what draws me. Though Meistersinger is my favorite opera.


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## guythegreg (Jun 15, 2012)

Welcome Jiraiya! I'm glad you had a good time at the shows you did see. It's too bad there won't be any Wagner for you here in NYC next year (well, none at the Met; I have no idea what the other opera companies here may be doing), but perhaps you'll be able to find some in another city. Good luck.


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## Cavaradossi (Aug 2, 2012)

Got Götterdämmerung tickets for Saturday too!


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## WAWilson (Nov 8, 2011)

So I saw Gotterdammerung on Saturday - my first time at the Met, and my first time seeing Wagner live. 

So let's just say I was completely blown away. It was just incredible. Voight sounded much better in person than she did on the HD broadcasts, she seemed in really good voice and not nearly as shrieky at the top. Cleveman did not have Jay Hunter Morris's charm and charisma but he was sturdy and sang well. He did have a bad habit of looking down while he sang which was distracting. What can be said about Hans Peter Konig that hasn't already? His singing was absolutely astounding. 

Again I have nothing to compare it to as far as being at a live performance, but the orchestra/Luisi was just amazing as well. I moved up to the fourth row for Act 2+3 and watching him conduct from so close was... (i'm running out of superlatives). He would often sing the words with the singers at the intensely dramatic parts which was so fun to watch. During the "Betrug!! Betrug!!" when Brunnhilde is going crazy in Act 2 Luisi drew the most amazing sound from the orchestra with complete full body precision and then threw his whole body up straight to Voight and with the most intensely devoted expression mouthed the words with her. It was like he was possessed. I was in awe of him. 

The whole thing was more than I could handle. I cried at least three times just from the immense beauty of it all. The music is still thundering through my head and immediately on the way home from NYC I had to put on Das Rheingold to start it all over again.


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## guythegreg (Jun 15, 2012)

I'm so glad you had a good time. Now if you would just move to NYC you could have that kind of experience ALL THE TIME!!! :lol:


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## Cavaradossi (Aug 2, 2012)

WAWilson said:


> So I saw Gotterdammerung on Saturday - my first time at the Met, and my first time seeing Wagner live.
> 
> So let's just say I was completely blown away. It was just incredible. Voight sounded much better in person than she did on the HD broadcasts, she seemed in really good voice and not nearly as shrieky at the top. Cleveman did not have Jay Hunter Morris's charm and charisma but he was sturdy and sang well. He did have a bad habit of looking down while he sang which was distracting. What can be said about Hans Peter Konig that hasn't already? His singing was absolutely astounding.
> 
> ...


I was there on Saturday too. Agreed on all counts: Voigt was in fine form throughout, Cleveman was solid, and the orchestra was magnificent. Particularly, from Siegfried's funeral music through the end was some of the most gripping music drama I've seen at the Met - but then that's just as Wagner intended. I would only that add the Met chorus never sounded better to me either.


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## WAWilson (Nov 8, 2011)

Cavaradossi said:


> I was there on Saturday too. Agreed on all counts: Voigt was in fine form throughout, Cleveman was solid, and the orchestra was magnificent. Particularly, from Siegfried's funeral music through the end was some of the most gripping music drama I've seen at the Met - but then that's just as Wagner intended. I would only that add the Met chorus never sounded better to me either.


Again, first time for me there, but the vassal chorus was so intense that it almost hurt my ears. They were also a huge highlight. It was thundering.


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