| Wagner - Der Ring des Nibelungen / Pierre Boulez, Bayreuth Opera (Complete Ring Cycle, Parts 1-4) | 
| Director: Brian Large
Actors: Donald Mcintyre, Martin Egel, Siegfried Jerusalem, Heinz Zednik, Hanna Schwarz
Studio: Deutsche Grammophon
Category: DVD
List Price: $159.98
Buy New: $93.98
You Save: $66.00 (41%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:   (7 reviews)
Sales Rank: 42681
Format: Box Set, Classical, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dvd-video, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), German (Subtitled), French (Subtitled)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Media: DVD
Running Time: 832 minutes
Number Of Items: 6
Discs: 6
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.2
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.5 x 2.9
MPN: 000506209
UPC: 044007340578
EAN: 0044007340578
ASIN: B0009F2EPU
Release Date: October 11, 2005
Theatrical Release Date: July 11, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com
The first opera (the prologue) in Wagner's Ring Cycle, Das Rheingold, is a beautifully conducted and thoughtfully staged performance. As soon as the clouds of mist have dissipated, while the daring, long-held opening chord is still reverberating, the screen clears to show not only the River Rhine and the three maidens (dressed like prostitutes in this production) assigned to guard the gold hidden there. It also shows an enormous dam (not mentioned in Wagner's text). This is the underwater base of a hydroelectric plant, and its presence tells us two things immediately: that this production takes the story out of the vaguely medieval fantasy world in which Wagner had placed it, and that a basic theme of the four-opera cycle would be power. Alberich, the Nibelung, is willing to renounce the love of women, after stealing the gold from the Rhine, to become the ruler of the world. Another basic theme is greed. The cast is uniformly excellent. The approach of stage director Patrice Chereau carefully balances realism, symbolism, and fantasy. The two giants (Matti Salminen and Fritz Huebner) tower over the gods who are waiting to enter the newly constructed Valhalla; Loge (brilliantly played by Heinz Zednick) appears in a burst of flame; the subterranean lair of the Nibelungs looks something like a prison and something like a mass-production sweatshop. In contrast, the gods look like members of a rather aimless leisure class. Freia, the goddess of youth (Carmen Reppel), whose fate is one of the basic items in the plot, is presented as a lovely but helpless beauty queen. Pierre Boulez conducts this episode. like the entire cycle, with power and precision. Wagner's ideas of "racial purity" reach a logical conclusion in Act I of Die Walkuere. Siegfried, the tragic hero of the cycle, is begotten in an adulterous, incestuous mating of Siegmund (Peter Hoffmann) and Sieglinde (Jeanne Altmeyer), a twin brother and sister. No miscegenation here. Siegfried will not be seen until the next opera in the cycle. For now, the Valkyries (after their famous, musically spectacular ride) are asked to protect Sieglinde, his pregnant mother-to-be, until he can be born. His father is killed in a fight with Hunding, Sieglinde's brutish husband, with Wotan intervening against his will to help the wronged spouse. Wotan has been forced by his wife Fricka, who is the goddess of marriage, elegantly played by Hanna Schwartz. Her victory is a striking display of Wotan's diminishing powers. Brunnhilde, Wotan's daughter and leader of the Valkyries (Gwyneth Jones), disobeys a paternal prohibition, rescues Sieglinde and hides her in safety to wait out her pregnancy. For this, she is punished by losing her divine status and being left asleep for years, surrounded by a circle of magic fire, until a hero (Siegfried, who has not yet been born) will come to rescue her. This episode is extremely well-sung, with particularly notable work by Hoffmann, Altmeyer, Schwartz, Jones and Donald McIntyre as Wotan, while conductor Pierre Boulez and director Patrice Chereau work smoothly together to define the opera's overall form and continuity. Siegfried is the most eventful of the four Ring operas: the hero of the cycle grows to maturity, forges his father's broken sword Notung, kills the dragon Fafner and the dwarf Mime, takes the cursed ring, frees Brunnhilde from the spell that has kept her asleep, and falls in love with her. It is all presented, powerfully and as efficiently as the self-indulgent text will permit. Not seen in the cycle's previous operas are Manfred Jung (Siegfried) and Norma Sharp (the Forest Bird), the central figure of the cycle and one of the most peripheral. Sharp is lovely in her brief appearance. Jung is the most controversial bit of casting in the cycle; his voice and acting have been criticized, but they seem to be up to the standard for this role, Perhaps the criticism really applies to Siegfried, who is neither intelligent nor compassionate, but a naive youth who knows nothing of the world and has never seen a woman. Jung conveys these qualities effectively. Wagner's ideal hero turns out to be a bit of a proto-Nazi in his own naive way, swaggering arrogantly, killing the dragon Fafner and the dwarf Mime with hardly a second thought, and blithely assuming that he deserves all the good fortune that comes his way. Wagner may have thought he was inventing another sort of hero, but this Siegfried rather faithfully reflects his creator's personality. Jung's characterization faithfully follows the text of the opera and it is compelling for those who can take their Wagner without illusions, those who have come to terms, for example, with the self-centered, unsympathetic personality that emerges from his wife Cosima's voluminous and blindly adoring diaries. According to director Patrice Chereau, "Goetterdaemmerung undoubtedly presents a world in which no values exist any more... a world in which it is difficult for anyone to believe in anything any longer." It is truly, as its title proclaims, "The twilight of the gods." Siegfried is tricked, drugged, and treacherously murdered by power-hungry humans, deceived into betraying Brunnhilde, who remains faithful without hope. An air of weariness and decadence pervades the action and much of the music (though the score includes two of Wagner's finest instrumental inventions: Siegfried's Rhine journey and his funeral music.) A new note is the introduction of a chorus of humans (effectively used by Chereau) for the first time in the cycle. The heyday of the gods is over; now, world domination is sought by a human family, the Gibichungs. The cursed ring is stolen from Brunnhilde, who has kept it as a token of Siegfried's love. Siegfried, who has taken the ring in disguise, has been drugged and deceived into wooing Gutrune, a Gibichung. Brunnhilde is forced to marry Gunther, another Gibichung, but still faithful to Siegfried she commits suicide on his funeral pyre. The fire spreads to destroy Valhalla. The ring, snatched from Siegfried's dead hand, is dropped into the Rhine, where it is restored to its rightful place, and the situation returns to the normality of the time before Das Rheingold. The Gibichungs, new to the cycle, are well-portrayed by Franz Mazura and Jeanne Altmeyer, and Fritz Huebner is impressive as the treacherous Hagen. Gwemdolyn Killibrew stands out as Brunnhilde's ally Waltraute. As always, Pierre Boulez conducts with a clear vision of the total work. --Joe McLellan
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| Customer Reviews: Read 2 more reviews...
 Great production December 14, 2008
I'm sure I have reviewed this issue before but every time I watch any part of it I want to write again.
It is a towering example of what the classic operas can be when there is a considerable amount of thought and an outstanding concept which manages to live up to and serve the music not over run it. All the singers sing beautifully and Jones rises above all with her expressive singing and acting.
Cheers to Boulez and Chereau.
 Drinking from the Puddle (Is There a Ring in There?) December 13, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Sieglinde meets her long-lost brother, cups in her hands stagnant water from a puddle, wipes it all over his face, and drags him over to the puddle, where he proceeds to lap water out of it like a dog. This is neither primeval nor proletarian. Even incestuous siblings presumably drink water out of a cup? We had a hydroelectric dam in the Rheingold, but not a cup to drink from in the Walkure? Is this progress? When was it ever a mark of hospitality, in any age from golden to silver to dark, that a guest would have to drink stagnant water in the yard? When not contrary to any sense, the production is boring, the singers left to stand about in mismatched costumes while listening to glorious music from the orchestra pit. By the fourth opera, the viewer really would like Boulez to speed things up and liberate the singers from their misery. There have been some pretty repugnant Ring cycles since then, but Chereau lowered the bar to prepare the way for them. They drink from his stagnant pool. The music is five stars, the staging one. Take away one star from Boulez for consenting to be in the same building with the nonsense.
Bad Review/Legendary Stage Production/Terrible Video Direction April 5, 2008
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
This Bayreuth centennial production of Wagner's Ring is historically one of the most celebrated and scandalous in the entire history of the festival. It's strengths and weaknesses have been well documented for over thirty years, from the controversial staging by a young filmmaker to the consistancy (or lack of) of the cast.
Although the cast is a group of some of the best Wagnerians at time, it is sometimes painfully obvious that not every generation has a Nilsson/Flagstad/Melchior caliber of singer, but over all the music is served well. Gwyneth Jones in particle was inconsitant vocally, her upper register at times sounding worn, flapping in the breeze uncontrollably. On a good day however, she could sing like an absolute goddess. Here she is NOT a goddess, but her high notes don't flap either....at least not too much. Her strongest point in this production is her stage acting...she is intense and unashamedly committed to Chereau's direction. Her Siegfried, Manfred Jung, is serviceable and not much more, which isn't neccesarily a bad thing considering the demands of the role. Jung also stepped in at the last minute a few years later and saved the Solti/Hall Ring when Reiner Goldberg fizzled out. Also notable is a young Peter Hoffman as Siegmund near the start of his short operatic career. Overall the singers may not be great, but they are good.
Chereau's Marxist 19th century setting is definitely not to everyone's taste, but at least he has specific ideas that work, for good or bad.
While Chereau's direction is cutting edge and exciting, it is Brian Large's camera work that is the major flaw in this set. He has been called the most musical video director today with a keen eye for detail, but detail can be nothing and even destroy art if you miss the forest for the trees. To completely ignore the entire production because of a fascination with the second tenor from the left, or to ignore Desdemona's death just to get an extreme close-up of Placido Domingo's right eye and nostril, or to edit out the end of Don Carlos because we have to see Nicolai Ghiaurov in close up pining away, is downright heinous. While close ups add to the theatrical experience when done correctly at appropriate times, it should NOT be done at the expense of the entire production. At times I wish they had set up a single camera dead center with the entire stage in view...and left it alone. It is absolutely maddening to be forced for eternity to watch a small fraction of the drama with a flicker of flame in the corner of the screen, or obvious stage action just off-camera. Thank heavens BJ didn't direct something like Ben-Hur or no one would ever know who won the chariot race since the camera would be zoomed in on some Judean Noble-person in row 47.
Overall, this is a memorable document of one of the high points in Bayreuth's controversial history, permantly marred by subjectively selective camera work.
my initiation, January 8, 2008
7 out of 10 found this review helpful
My main reason for reviewing this is to criticize the Amazon sin-opsis given on this page. The references to Nazism are completely out of place. please, save this for some secret meeting somewhere. Sure, I'm aware of Wagner's "jews in Music" and whatnot. But Jesus didn't cause the Hundred Years War, did he? I don't know, maybe he did. Basically, I think the review is slightly objective but too whiny and cranky little baby stuff..."oh, siegfried didn't ask the dragon's permission to kill it" boo-hoo....When will it ever end? And why mix in the 'racial purity' joke about the incest element? That isn't funny to me, because it is completely out of line with the scenario. The incest has nothing to do with the supposed Nazi blood purity schlogg. Okay, Parsifal definitely has some overtones in that direction. but the incest is more about proto-alchemical manifestations of the sub-kawnshiss....anyway. I really dig this video, never saw it on DVD...and this official Amazon review was pretty insulting, It's writer is probably a real whining dish rag
TWO MAJOR DEFECTS MAR AN OTHERWISE SPLENDID PRODUCTION July 2, 2006
16 out of 19 found this review helpful
I enjoyed this Ring cycle a great deal, but I had two huge problems with it. First, this Ring cycle rips all four installments out of their mythological context and sets them in the 19th century. The result is an absurd mish-mash of mythological and realistic elements that obscures the cycle's meaning and, above all, its magic. Take the great set-piece with Hagen's men in "Gotterdammerung." Hagen's vassals are here a citizen militia rounded up from the local proletariat. How absurd is the sight of these French-looking working class townspeople singing in German and wielding long, primitive spears while being instructed by Hagen, dressed in suit and tie, to "kill a boar for Froh, and sacrifice a goat to Donner, but slaughter sheep for Fricka"? What are these mythological gods doing in this setting, and why are 19th century working class people sacrificing to them? Or take Siegfried: in one scene he's dashing about with his sword and primitive hunting horn while in the next he's elegantly strolling about in a tuxedo. Wearing a tux doesn't preclude you from also being a hunter, but that's not how it comes across here. The result is ridiculous. The sets are equal parts realism and surrealism, making for a confused locale. The hunting scene where Siegfried is murdered by Hagen happens in front of a drab, industrial-looking hydraulic dam. Are we in industrial France, in pastoral Germany, in the legendary world of mythology, or in some strange hybrid dimension that weaves in and out of all three? The result is neither one thing nor the other, very half-baked and confusing. According to Chereau, the director, he was working from two principles. First, being primarily a director of nonoperatic theater, he wanted to intensify the music drama's dramaturgical elements--which in my opinion he does splendidly for the most part. For example, the emotionally charged finale where Brunnhilde has the body of Siegfried burned and jumps into the flames is wonderfully staged; I couldn't have asked for better. (Although I did have some problems earlier in the cycle with the lovers rolling around on the floor, and with some excessively histrionic hand gestures that I found unnecessary.) But Chereau is led astray by his second working principle. He explains in the documentary (it's part of the box set and worth watching), "Wagner used mythology to tell the story of his time, the politics of his time." Starting from this (in my view dangerous) premise, Chereau brings out the latent political content that he (Chereau) claims is implicit in the text. I feel this is where Chereau, probably under the spell of George Bernard Shaw, goes astray. As I understand it, Wagner's main concern was in creating archetypes rather than "real" people in "real" contemporary settings. The Ring cycle is not "verismo." If Wagner wanted to set the Ring in his own time and place, he would have done so. Wagner wasn't shooting for "realism," but Chereau IS shooting for it (hence so many of the conflicting tendencies of his production). It's very unfair for Chereau to categorically state that Wagner's "real" intention was to tell the political story of the late nineteenth century, as though the mythology were merely a vehicle or an expendable by-product. On the contrary, Wagner wanted to do away with the usual settings of so much 19th century opera. Making the Ring about the class warfare and ills of the industrial revolution sinks the play into the morass of a politics that is certainly more Chereau's than Wagner's. While a reaction against the industrialization of society is surely implicit in Wagner's romanticism, Chereau inadvertently undermines it by replacing so much of the nature scenery with industrial realism. He has the Rhinemaidens literally crawling out of the gutter (as prostitutes), rather than simply letting them personify the Rhine. Another problem with this Ring cycle is the casting of Siegfried, who here looks more like a middle-aged Barney Rubble from "The Flintstones" than a young mythological hero. Manfred Jung, who plays Siegfried, has a great voice, but lacks the stage presence to pull off the role. The result is a Siegfried that is more comic than heroic, though I do recognize that I'm being a bit unfair to Mr. Jung as my objection to him has more to do with his appearance than with his formidable vocal talent. If this had been audio-only, I might not have objected to him. However, despite its setbacks, this production still holds its own, thanks above all to the strong cast and the inspired conducting of Pierre Boulez, one of the greatest conductors of our time. Except for Siegfried, there is no weak link in the cast. Gwyneth Jones, as Brunnhilde, brings an otherwordly quality that is just what the part requires. On a technical audio-visual level, this set is great. It's visually stunning and the sound isn't bad, although I've heard better done in the '70s. I used my amped Sennheiser 650 headphones and it sounded fine. If the production had stuck to a mythological setting and not tried to transpose it to the 19th century, making it about the class struggle between the aristocracy and bourgeoisie and then between the bourgeoisie and proleteriat, and if it had cast a better Siegfried, I would undoubtedly be giving this Ring cycle five solid stars. As it is, it's definitely worth watching and even owning, but remains muddled in artistic conception as far as its staging is concerned. On the other hand, many people like the updated setting, so it's a matter of personal taste and choice and not of production value as the quality of this production is undoubtedly high. [Update: After listening to the Levine and Barenboim Cycles on DVD, this Boulez Cycle remains my favorite, despite Chereau's interpretation.]
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