# Clever Stagi ng Idea In The Amsterdam Siegfried on DVD



## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

I've been watching the Ring production by the Amsterdam opera from the late 90s on DVD , which I got recently on library interloan. So far, I've gotten up to Siegfried , and Gotterdammerung has just come for me to pick up .
The director is Pierre Audi, who directed the Met's first production of Verdi's Attila a couple of years ago.
In the second act of Siegfried, the forest bird is sung not by the usual soprano, but by a boy soprano from the well-known Tolzer choir boys of southern Germany .
Not only that, he actually takes part in the action, is dressed in an outlandish blue bird costume , and interacts with Siegfried . When Siegfried tries to make a reed to blow on, the bird has a pained expression on his face ! It's all very clever, and adds some humor to the Ring .
The production as a whole is suprisingly free of the usual Eurotrash idiocy and lacks all the ludicrous 
arbitrary gimmicks we've come to expect from Wagfner productions in Europe .The spare sets are by George Tsypin , and consist largely of metal bars and effectivew lighting .
The cast is pretty good, with Jeanine Altmeyer as Brunnhilde, John Brocheler as Wotan,Anne Gjevang as Erda ,Henk Smit as Alberich,Heinz Kruse as Siegfried, Nadine Secunde as Sieglinde, Graham Clark as Mime and Anne Gjevang as Erda . The conductor is Hartmut Haenchen, a solid and experienced Wagnerian , and there are two different orchestras dividing the work in the cycle, the Rotterdam Philharmonic and the Netherlands Radio orchestra .
Alberich and Mime in this production bear a striking resemblance to the Ferengi aliens on Star Trek ,the next generation .
The orchestra is not in a pit, but is surrounded by the singers .


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

Ive mentioned this ring quite a few times here to little response. Recently another member, whos named eludes me, also brought it up.

Pierre Audi is the artistic director at the Netherlands Opera, which incidentally is just around the corner from where I live. He has single-handedly raised the company up to the world stage.
The Amsterdam ring is visually fantastic, awe inspiring and very creative. The music lacks some.

Ill be seeing his staging of Parsifal with Anish Kapoor in June, super excited.


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