Richard Wagner
297 products
Wagner: Gotterdammerung / Altmeyer, Janowski, Staatskapelle Dresden
Wagner: Gotterdammerung / Janowski, Ryan, Lang, Haller, Salminen, Bruck
WAGNER Götterdämmerung • Marek Janowski, cond; Lance Ryan ( Siegfried ); Petra Lang ( Brünnhilde ); Matti Salminen ( Hagen ); Markus Brück ( Gunther ); Edith Haller ( Gutrune ); Jochen Schmeckenbecher ( Alberich ); Marina Prudenskaya ( Waltraute ); Julia Borchert ( Woglinde ); Katherine Kammerloher ( Wellgunde ); Kismara Pessatti ( Flosshilde ); Susanne Resmark ( First Norn ); Christa Mayer ( Second Norn ); Jacquelyn Wagner ( Third Norn ); Berlin R Ch & SO • PENTATONE 5186 409 (4 SACDs: 243:42 Text and Translation) Live: Berlin 3/15/2013
In the fall of 2010, PentaTone announced plans to release new concert recordings of Wagner’s 10 mature operas—all with the same conductor, orchestra, and chorus plus top Wagnerian singers—by the end of the composer’s 200th birthday year. A given was that, as with all PentaTone releases, these would be hybrid multichannel SACDs featuring the best possible sound that the Polyhymnia engineering team could muster. Well, they did it. My copy of Götterdämmerung , recorded in May of last year, arrived on my doorstep on December 11, 2013. Almost three weeks to spare. It’s a successful conclusion to an ambitious undertaking, even if a couple of key singers here were not in top form.
Marek Janowski, as usual, favors brisk tempos. He brings in this Götterdämmerung in about 4:04:00; a quick check of five other audio-only versions of the work, of various vintages, revealed a range of 4: 17:00 (Keilberth, 1955) to 4:34:00 (Thielemann, 2010). Sometimes, this penchant for speed is quite evident, as with a third act Funeral March that’s something other than a dirge. Mostly, Janowski’s tempo choices translate into an increased sense of dramatic urgency rather than seeming rushed or perfunctory.
As signaled above, two key performers were not at the top of their game. Lance Ryan sang Siegfried for Zubin Mehta in the Valencia Ring —my favored video version—and, as I noted there, while no Melchior, he gave a dramatically effective account of the misguided hero. Here, his voice seems closed-in, pinched, sometimes even a little nasal in character—though his softer singing, as when he remembers his history to Hagen’s men right before he’s murdered, is better. Petra Lang is a top-tier Wagnerian who always brings intelligence and strong sense of character to her portrayals. Best here is her scene with Waltraute (capably sung by Marina Prudenskaya) where she begins with the same aura of radiant happiness she manifested when she waved goodbye to Siegfried in the Prologue—and then evolves into defiant fury. Lang’s Brünnhilde is set up perfectly for the gigantic disappointment in the form of Siegfried-as-Gunther who is the next visitor to her rock. “Verrat!”—“Betrayed!”—she cries out, and really sounds like she means it. In the last act, though, Lang’s vocal instrument does show some wear in more demanding passages: The voice is a little rough on top with some imperfect intonation. Violeta Urmana was the Brünnhilde for PentaTone’s Siegfried and she’s more technically secure—but, of course, the role in Götterdämmerung makes very different and more extreme demands on a vocalist than does the earlier drama.
But then there’s Hagen. Give me a choice between a grade B-plus Brünnhilde/Siegfried combination with a grade B Hagen, and a B-minus Brünnhilde/Siegfried with an A Hagen, and I’ll take the latter deal every time. And Matti Salminen is an A-plus Hagen: As Peter Rabinowitz noted in a review of the Valencia Ring in Fanfare 34:2, “he virtually owns the part these days.” Salminen’s act I monolog “Hier Stiz’ ich zur Wacht” is darkly horrifying, dripping with contempt not just for Siegfried but for the rest of humanity as well. Janowski backs him up with tritone-laden brass declamations of crushing power.
Markus Brück and Edith Haller capably sing Gunther and Gutrune. At least vocally, there’s no obvious attempt to make the former into a puffed-up fop and the latter into a floozy, as is so often the case in staged productions. They are there to function mechanistically in the scheme Alberich and Hagen have devised to recover the ring and there’s really no need to vilify them further. The trios of Norns and Rhine Maidens are dramatically and musically effective as well.
The choral work in act II is thrilling—and the recording lets you hear everything. Orchestral sonorities are wonderfully warm and richly textured: Listen to the blend of the eight horns in the music between scenes 1 and 2 of the second act (after Alberich and Hagen’s exchange), or to the glowing majesty of the work’s closing pages. The packaging is in the same luxuriant mode as the preceding nine releases: PentaTone provides a 320-page bound booklet that holds the four hybrid multichannel SACDs as well as a German/English libretto, another lengthy essay from Steffen Georgi, and plenty of information on the cast. By the way, I did it. I managed to hang onto the vouchers that came with the nine earlier releases in the series, so I’m entitled to a “special CD collection box.”
As the final D? chord so handsomely recorded by the Polyhymnia engineering team fades away, one is left marveling at the achievement of Marek Janowski and the many top-notch singers who joined him for PentaTone’s project. But mostly, one is left in awe at the remarkable staying power of the music penned by one Wilhelm Richard Wagner.
FANFARE: Andrew Quint
DAS RHEINGOLD (DVD)
Richard Wagner: Rienzi
Wagner: Siegfried, Act III (abridged)
Alexander Maria Wagner: Symphony No. 1 "kraftwerk"; Chromatic Fantasy; Prokofiev: Piano Sonata No. 7
The most amazing piece that this teenager, who is reaching for the stars if not beyond, has composed – and at the age of fourteen – is his First Symphony for large orchestra entitled “Kraftwerk”. It is almost an understatement to prophecy this young man a great future. That the pianist Alexander M. Wagner is in no way inferior to the composer is proven by this recording of piano works, recorded by the sixteen-year-old in February
Wagner: Der Ring des Nibelungen
Behn: Der Ring / Garben, Zeyne, Hoppe
| The Hamburg composer Hermann Behn (1859-1927) bore, like numerous other composers of that time, the hard fate of Wagner’s succession. After he had largely ended his compositional activities around 1883, he developed another great talent, i.e., the transference of compositional structures and the musical content of symphonic works by other composers to two pianists on two pianos. Here he broke new ground exactly at the time as the circus of excessive virtuoso opera rhapsodies of the super virtuosos collapsed. Through the use of two instruments and the development of a completely new tonal arrangement, Hermann Behn succeeded in overcoming the limits of the piano. If his arrangement of Gustav Mahler’s Second Symphony for two instruments turned out more or less traditional, in that the substance of the score was divided up, well-playable, between four hands, then an entirely new dimension of the rendition of symphonic music on the piano began, after Behn’s extensive studies of individual works, primarily overtures from various epochs, with the turn to Richard Wagner. The undoubtedly most extensive project ever realized in the area of transcriptions for piano, the “Fifty Symphonic Movements from Richard Wagner’s Master Dramas,” was commenced in 1914. Behn found his very personal symphonic sound already in the arrangement of the first fragments of the “Ring of the Nibelung”. To this end, he skillfully employed the doubling of chord progressions and nearly absurdly wide spans in the left hand, which could only be performed in “broken” style, i.e., by means of the rapid arpeggiation of the notes from bottom to top. In this way, an entirely intended inexactness in the congruence between the two players was inevitably produced, which – with ample use of the pedal – leads to an until then unheard-of tonal richness. |
Wagner: Der Fliegende Hollander / Youn, Brimberg, Minkowski, Les Musiciens du Louvre
Der fliegende Holländer is considered to be the first ‘true’ Wagner opera. The story of the phantom ship and its haunted master becomes a sensually charged drama with love and tragic sacrifice at its heart, and this original 1841 version leaves the ultimate redemption of its central characters unresolved. Wagner originally conceived the opera for Paris, so it is fitting that this production from the Theater an der Wien is driven by French director Olivier Py’s unique vision, with a staging that dispels many of the misconceptions surrounding Wagner’s art.
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REVIEW:
Played out in stylish black and white on Pierre-André Weitz’s ingenious, frequently revolving set, actors and set elements come and go to sometimes dizzying effect. There’s a dreamlike quality to the action—something only has to be mentioned and it magically appears. The graveyard that springs up at the Dutchman’s feet, the waves that appear at the end, the skull and skeletons, are all theatrical coups. It’s sometimes brain-taxing, yet never less than theatrically engaging and dramatically compelling.
As the Dutchman, Samuel Youn sings with incisive power and great attention to text. Ingela Brimberg’s Senta is viscerally felt with thrilling top notes, if occasionally strident, while Bernard Richter’s warm-toned tenor is spot on as Georg. Lars Woldt’s grasping bully of a Donald raises a nasty misogynist flag about the world in which his daughter is bartered and sold. François Roussillon’s astute video direction manages to focus the action without losing the appropriate sense of scale. Sound—especially orchestral detail—is excitingly meticulous.
– Limelight (Australia)
Wagner: Famous Opera Scenes / Lugansky
Wagner: Die Walküre / Young, Hamburg Philharmonic
After Rhinegold, the first evening of the Ring tetralogy, Oehms Classics released The Valkyries at the same time as the premiere of Siegfried at the Hamburg State Opera, which took place on October 18, 2009.
Including a booklet printed in four colours throughout and containing many impressions of Claus Guth’s production as well as the complete libretto, this is once again an exceptionally elaborate product. While the premiere of the Valkyries suffered due to Falk Struckmann (Wotan) having to pull out at short notice because of illness, this production was recorded during later performances which show Struckmann in full possession of his vocal powers. Simone Young guided her orchestra and the chorus through the famous score in great, irresistible waves of sound while still paying attention to the finest, meticulously rehearsed structural details.
REVIEW:
This performance, recorded live in Hamburg in October, 2008, is a wonderful surprise. Conductor Simone Young brings out the score's mood changes with great drama; you can practically see the shadow of Hunding passing behind the Twins in Act 1, and with each entrance of the tender love music--sometimes just the leitmotif itself--the listener feels a sense of joy.
Young has a particularly youthful-sounding Siegmund in tenor Stuart Skelton, a tireless, intelligent singer without the baritonal low register some prefer, and she emphasizes the brightness of the brass to play against his sound. She also takes the Brünnhilde/Wotan duet in the second act at a nicely quick conversational pace, making it less introspective than usual but also bringing it great urgency. And her final act is glorious, from a thrillingly played and sung ride (complete with trills from the Valkyries), to an ecstatic "O hehrste wonne", through a psychologically exhausting "War es so schmälich", and an exquisite, touching final scene. There isn't a dull moment in this Walküre.
Opposite Skelton's young, impetuous Siegmund we have a mezzo Sieglinde--Yvonne Naef--and rather than this being a drawback, it is a dark-hued, emotionally telling portrayal. There's the occasional strain in the upper register, including at "O hehrste wonne", which, as suggested above, is a knockout--perhaps because it does not sound easy. Mikhail Petrenko's Hunding is too mellow and carries little danger. Jeanne Piland's Fricka is second-rate.
Falk Struckmann's Wotan is brilliantly thought out, and save for a lunged-at high note or five, it's handsomely sung, with a beautiful legato and long breath. His concept of the role (or the director's, or conductor's) is as a loving father to Brünnhilde primarily--hence his rage (which abates) in the third act. He has the authority, but not the inner depth of feeling, of Thomas Stewart or Hans Hotter...I found it poignant in this context.
Deborah Polaski's Brünnhilde, as she nears 60 years of age, seems more solid than ever before. A wobble rarely enters the voice, and though she seems to tire in the third act's second scene, she recovers entirely for her confrontation with Wotan. And when she sings pianissimo, as in the Announcement of Death and "War es so schmälich", she's riveting.
In short, this is a Walküre that is all of a piece, like Furtwängler's, with seamless moves from scene to scene. It isn't nearly as dark or "cosmic", but it is a beautiful reading, and the singing, despite the fact that there are no Varnays or Vickers, is quite fine.
-- ClassicsToday.com (Robert Levine)
Young's balancing of orchestral textures is interestingly calculated, often novel, and most attentive to the written dynamics. …Polaski… is compelling. With Struckmann's Wotan… she achieves a rather wonderful, and sadly beautiful, account of the final duet in the closest communion with Young in the pit.
-- Gramophone
Wagner: Die Walkure / Keyes, Secunde, Brocheler, Rydl, Haenchen
DIE WALKÜRE
Wotan – John Bröcheler
Siegmund – John Keyes
Hunding – Kurt Rydl
Sieglinde – Nadine Secunde
Brünnhilde – Jeannine Altmeyer
Fricka – Reinhild Runkel
Gerhilde – Irmgard Vilsmaier
Ortlinde – Annegeer Stumphius
Waltraute – Hanna Schaer
Schwertleite – Hebe Dijkstra
Helmwige – Kirsi Tiihonen
Siegrune – Catherine Keen
Grimgerde – Regina Mauel
Rossweise – Elzbieta Ardam
Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra
Hartmut Haenchen, conductor
Pierre Audi, stage director
George Tsypin, set designer
Eiko Ishioka, costume designer
Wolfgang Göbbel, lighting designer
Recorded live from the Het Muziektheater, Amsterdam, 1999
Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format; LPCM Stereo / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Japanese
Running time: 260 mins
No. of DVDs: 3
Wagner: Wesendonck Lieder, Arias / Charlotte Margiono, Et Al
This is a Super Audio CD playable only on Super Audio CD players.
Wagner: Die Walkure / Theorin, Rutherford, Rattle, BRSO
Reasons why "The Valkyrie" has become the most popular part of the tetralogy include the heart-rending encounters between the two Wälsungs Siegmund and Sieglinde, the all-too-human gods – and, of course, such musical highlights as Siegmund's "Winter Storms" monologue, “The Ride of the Valkyries”, or "Wotan's Farewell and Magic Fire Music”. Wotan, the father of the gods, is sung by the English bass-baritone James Rutherford; Elisabeth Kulman is back as his argumentative wife Fricka; Eric Halvarson, who was the giant Fafner in Rattle's "Rheingold", now sings the part of the evil Hunding. New additions to the star-studded ensemble of soloists include Irène Theorin as Wotan's favorite daughter Brunnhilde, and Stuart Skelton and Eva-Maria Westbroek as the incestuous twins Siegmund and Sieglinde.
Wagner: Götterdämmerung
Wagner: Orchestral Music from The Ring / Falletta, Buffalo Philharmonic
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REVIEW:
Conductor JoAnn Falletta creates a magical Forest Murmurs when Siegfried first understands the meaning of the songbird, and sends the Valkyries on a really wild ride. The sound coming out of Buffalo for the Naxos label is some of the best.
– David's Review Corner (David Denton)
Siegfried Wagner: Der Kobold / Strobel, Broberg, Horn, Et Al
S. WAGNER Der Kobold • Frank Strobel, cond; Rebecca Broberg ( Verena ); Regina Mauel ( Gertrud ); Andreas Mitschke ( Ekhart ); Achim Hoffmann ( Trutz ); Johannes Föttinger ( Fink ); Philipp Meierhöfer ( Kümmel ); Volker Horn ( Friedrich ); Nicholas Isherwood ( Der Graf ); Martina Borst ( Die Gräfin ); Ksenija Lukic ( Jeannette ); Marco Bappert ( Jean ); Joachim Höchbauer ( Knorz ); Heike Kohler ( Käthe ); Young Jae Park ( Seelchen ); PPP Music Theatre Ens; Nuremberg SO • Marco Polo 8.225329 (3 CDs: 195:27)
Each time I listen to this recording of The Goblin , I am utterly unnerved—do not be fooled by the descending flute figures that cue the overture, like Pan himself coming down to bless the land. Obviously, there is no shortage of warped and twisted librettos, which tend to serve as jumping off points for music yet more warped and twisted, but my goodness, our man Siegfried was exorcising some personal demons with this work—ironically, by enlivening some.
The first “sung” note, once the gentle, autumnal instrumental opening has concluded, is a scream, one that comes through on the recording like a spike—no reverb, no vibrato, just fear, hammered home. We are dealing with a dramatis personae of goblins (including one whose entrance into the world comes courtesy of a mixture of a hanged man’s seed and the yellow grass below), a wizard, some assassins, night phantoms, a few satyrs, a circus collective, a rapist, and such cheery pursuits as infanticide, abortion, flesh trading, and prestidigitation for, shall we say, less than salubrious ends. Good luck sorting out the plot, which is about as close to postmodernism as Siegfried ever got, and features an opera within the opera, and a climax not dissimilar to F. W. Murnau’s Nosferatu , which had the subtitle, intriguingly enough, of “A Symphony of Horrors.”
The quality of the recording itself will jar you, but that’s part of its effectiveness—weapons crash to the ground as though they’ve landed on microphones, or like something is kicking inside the speakers and trying to get out. It’s a fascinating, weird kind of audio-vérité, that further unsettles the nerves; but distortion was Siegfried’s ally in the creation of this work, and some passages even appear, at first, to be atonal. Rebecca Broberg as Verena, the opera’s heroine—a default designation, really, in this case, given her successive and ultimately defeating tragedies—is really stretched on the rack in her exceedingly taxing role, and it is through her vocal lines that we experience whatever empathy—which often takes the forms of anxiety and fear—the opera has to offer. It’s been remarked that for all of its fantastical elements, Der Kobold is something of a gangster story, but the noir -ish element becomes almost hallucinatory in the constant churn of crises, a vortex of demonism, you might say—of both the supernatural and human variety, the latter, of course, always being worse. Cpo has a Siegfried Wagner sampler disc with the West German Radio Symphony Orchestra and Roman Trekel handling an excerpt, but for the whole, vivid nightmare, you’ll need this set to be properly shocked and disturbed. And for those who cherish their illusions of childhood, there is perhaps no 20th-century opera that poses such a menacing threat to any and all forms of latency.
FANFARE: Colin Fleming
Wagner: Parsifal
Wagner: Siegfried / Kollo, Janowski, Staatskapelle Dresden
Wagner: Orchestral Excerpts, Vol. 2 / Gerard Schwarz, Seattle Symphony
Under the dual influences of Goethe and Berlioz, Wagner wrote A Faust Overture in Paris. Years later, in 1855, he returned to the work, revising it to create an even greater sense of drama and narrative conviction. In the excerpts from his romantic opera Lohengrin we hear the visionary Prelude to Act I and the Act III Prelude, which includes the well-known Wedding March. Elsa’s Dream is sung by the internationally acclaimed soprano, Alessandra Marc. The orchestral music from Parsifal contains some of the most transcendent music Wagner ever wrote.
Wagner: Tannhauser / Pape, Seiffert, Prudenskaya, Barenboim, Staatskapelle Berlin
A brand new production of ‘Tannhäuser’ from the Staatsoper Berlin, conducted by Daniel Barenboim, staged and choreographed by Sasha Waltz, who has brought to the stage this Romantic Wagner opera with a star cast of some of today's best Wagnerian singers: Peter Seiffert in the title role, Réne Pape as Landgraf and Peter Mattei as Wolfram, Ann Petersen sings Elisabeth and Marina Prudenskaya is Venus.
HD recording: Staatsoper im Schiller Theater, Berlin – 04/2014
DVD Running time: 192 min.
Booklet: French / English / German, Subtitles: French / English / German
16/9, NTSC, Audio: Dolby Digital 2.0, Dolby Digital 5.1
PARSIFAL
WAGNER, R.: Opera Highlights (Italian Wagner Singers, Vol. 2
Wagner: Tannhauser / Youn, Kerl, , Eiche, Kober, Bayreuth Festival [blu-ray]
Also available on standard DVD
Richard Wagner’s Tannhauser, a tale of the struggle between spiritual and profane love, and of redemption through love, is given a radical visual update in Sebastian Baumgarten’s controversial Bayreuth production. • Joep van Lieshout’s giant installation ‘The Technocrat’ dominates the stage, its industrial interior suggesting that Tannhäuser is in fact one big experiment. • Torsten Kerl interprets the title role, with Camilla Nylund in the role of Elisabeth. • ‘‘Camilla Nylund’s Elisabeth and Kwangchul Youn’s Landgraf deservedly received the most applause at the curtain calls.’’ (Bachtrack)
Richard Wagner
TANNHÄUSER
Hermann / Landgrave of Thuringia - Kwangchul Youn
Tannhäuser - Torsten Kerl
Wolfram von Eschenbach - Markus Eiche
Walther von der Vogelweide - Lothar Odinius
Biterolf - Thomas Jesatko
Heinrich der Schreiber - Stefan Heibach
Reinmar von Zweter - Rainer Zaun
Elisabeth / The Landgrave’s niece - Camilla Nylund
Venus - Michelle Breedt
A Young Shepherd - Katja Stuber
Bayreuth Festival Chorus and Orchestra
(chorus master: Eberhard Friedrich)
Axel Kober, conductor
Sebastian Baumgarten, stage director
Joep van Lieshout, set designer
Nina von Mechow, costume designer
Franck Evin, lighting designer
Recorded live at the Bayreuth Festival, July 2014
Bonus:
- Interviews with Sebastian Baumgarten, Axel Kober, Eberhard Friedrich, Torsten Kerl and Camilla Nylund
- Short films
- Cast gallery
Picture format: 1080i High Definition
Sound format: LPCM 2.0 / DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: English, French, German, Korean
Running time: 252 mins (opera) + 30 mins (bonus)
No. of Discs: 2 (BD 50)
Wagner: Die Walküre / Thielemann, Staatskapelle Dresden
Overall this production, designed originally and very specifically for the very wide stage of the Festspielhaus, impresses as a worthwhile piece of theatrical archaeology, for the initial production concept of the Ring as a whole cosmos, and its homage to the stripped-back aesthetic of Wieland Wagner’s Bayreuth, remain highly effective scenically. There are just enough long shots to remind us of the epic scale within which the intimate drama is unfolding. The giant tree that also forms Hunding’s hut in Act I, and the ring-shaped platform for Act II, still functions well – simple, effective design does not date. The chalked up listing of the cast of characters on the floor, then back wall, in Act II is an intelligent reminder that after Das Rheingold, the Ring is deeply engaged with its own back-story, like the Oresteia of Aeschylus that formed part of its genesis. One wonders what Karajan would have made of some new directorial details, such as Hunding’s nastily aggressive groping of Sieglinde’s crotch, but generally the characters and their situations are well served by the direction. There is little here to upset a traditionalist, for Brünnhilde even has a winged helmet and a spear for the great ‘annunciation of death’ scene with Siegmund in Act II. The filming, editing and sound recording do it all justice.
Karajan liked younger, fresher voices rather than what he called the “old Wagnerian cannons”. He would not have liked Siegmund’s ill-focussed barking of “Wälse, Wälse” in Act I, but for much of the part Peter Seiffert still makes a very good Walsung. Anja Harteros has the measure of his twin Sieglinde to a still greater degree, vocally bright and secure through the range, and looking the part. Christa Mayer as Fricka is outstanding too, imposing in her insistence on her moral stance, but in full command of her rich voice so that she is never shrill or shrewish, which gives her an authority that makes the drama more interestingly ambiguous. It’s not just a case here, as it sometimes is, of ‘Fricka wrong, Wotan right’. The Wotan of Vitalij Kowaljow is splendidly focussed of voice and suitably imposing in presence – not at all the sort of woolly-voiced veteran Wotan which is the undoing of too many recordings of this work. Anja Kampe is on top vocal form as Brünnhilde, whose interactions with Wotan are the emotional heart of this most human of the Ring dramas. Her wide experience in Wagner really tells, and she acts and sings those scenes with her father most affectingly. Her eight spear-voiced (and spear-carrying) Valkyrie sisters make a joyous noise in the opening to Act III.
Christian Thielemann’s pedigree could hardly be more auspicious for this enterprise, since as a young man he was an assistant to Karajan, as well as to Barenboim at Bayreuth. He even followed the traditional route of progressing through smaller German opera houses, learning his craft en route to his current eminence as one of the world’s leading Wagner conductors. His musical direction is superb, for he has the essential long-term perception of Wagner’s musico-dramatic structures, control of the broad tempi he often favours, and a truly magnificent orchestra in the Dresden Staatskapelle. Like Karajan, he understands that the drama is essentially in the pit. Perhaps too Thielemann was inspired by this reclamation of a classic production by his mentor. Karajan once said in a BBC interview “When I see staging and lighting that is right, the music runs out of my hand without effort”. So it does for Thielemann here, not least in the magnificent account of Wotan’s moving farewell to his favourite daughter that closes the opera.
– MusicWeb International (Roy Westbrook)
The sound of Thielemann’s orchestra, darker-sounding than usual from more Western-based orchestras and with plangent winds and an aggressively present timpani balance, is one of the pleasures of this set. Thielemann has long been a ‘stopgoer’ in Wagner with large tempo contrasts. Now, perhaps following his Bayreuth Tristan, he is even more daringly slow in his pointing up of love and suffering. For that and the cast this set is valuable.
– Gramophone
