Classical Music

While the theme of this album may seem contradictory, the chamber music of powerhouse composer Richard Wagner has been taken by Gerald Schubert and proven to be of substance and beauty. Gerald Schubert, who is a long time member of the Vienna Philharmonic, joins with pianist Bernadette Bartos for this recording. The works on this recording include Wagner’s Duo for Violin and Piano on Motifs from Wagner’s “Tannhauser”, Walther’s Prize Song from “Die Meistersinger von Numberg,” Five Poems for a Female Voice after Texts by Mathilde Wesendonch, and Isolde’s Love Death from “Tristan and Isolde”, Sigfried- Paraphrase, and Parsifal-Paraphrase. +

Classical Music

Note: This Blu-ray Disc is only playable on Blu-ray Disc players and not compatible with standard DVD players.

Also available on standard DVD

Richard Wagner
DIE MEISTERSINGER VON NÜRNBERG
(Blu-ray Disc Version)

Hans Sachs – Franz Hawlata
Veit Pogner – Artur Korn
Kunz Vogelgesang – Charles Reid
Konrad Nachtigall – Rainer Zaun
Sixtus Beckmesser – Michael Volle
Fritz Kothner – Markus Eiche
Balthasar Zorn – Edward Randall
Ulrich Eisslinger – Hans-Jürgen Lazar
Augustin Moser – Stefan Heibach
Hermann Ortel – Martin Snell
Hans Schwarz – Andreas Macco
Hans Foltz – Diógenes Randes
Walther von Stolzing – Klaus Florian Vogt
David – Norbert Ernst
Eva – Michaela Kaune
Magdalene – Carola Guber
Ein Nachtwächter – Friedemann Röhlig

Bayreuth Festival Chorus and Orchestra
(chorus master: Eberhard Friedrich)
Sebastian Weigle, conductor

Katharina Wagner, stage director
Tilo Steffens, stage and costume designer
Michaela Barth, costume designer
Andreas Grüter, lighting designer

Recorded live at the Bayreuth Festival, 2008

Bonus:
- Cast gallery
- The Making of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg

Picture format: 1080i High Definition
Sound format: LPCM Stereo / DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: English, French, German, Spanish
Running time: 4 hours 45 mins
No. of Discs: 1 (BD 50)

Total Playing Time: 04:45:00

WAGNER Lohengrin • Andris Nelsons, cond; Klaus Florian Vogt (Lohengrin); Annette Dasch (Elsa); Jukka Rasilainen (Friedrich von Telramund); Petra Lang (Ortrud); Georg Zeppenfeld (Heinrich); Samuel Youn (Herald); Bayreuth Fest O & Ch • OPUS ARTE OAA BD7103 D (Blu-ray: 209:00) Live: Bayreuth 8/14/2011

& Interviews with Katharina Wagner, Hans Neuenfels, Klaus Florian Vogt, and Annette Dasch. Animations

I saw this vastly entertaining Lohengrin at Bayrueth in August 2011, six days before it was filmed with the same cast for this Blu-ray release, and can attest that it was as enthusiastically received as it appears to be on its video representation. Yes, a few boos can be heard at the close of each act, but this is easily the most successful Bayreuth production since “the girls” (as Katharina Wagner and Eva Wagner-Pasquier, the composer’s great-granddaughters, are known to the locals) officially took over the festival from the long-lived Wolfgang Wagner.

The director Hans Neuenfels, and those who designed the production, imagine Lohengrin as a kind of bio-psychological scientific experiment and the set evokes a “Skinner Box,” the apparatus used for operant conditioning testing. The good people of Brabant are, indeed, rats with cartoon-like hands, feet, tails, and large mesh heads with glowing rodent eyes. A briskly efficient crew of men in blue hazard suits supervises them periodically. These are, it should be noted, rats with a real sense of style, and the stage picture at the end of act II is stunning. The element of fantasy (and, yes, humor) is entirely in keeping with the conception of Lohengrin as a “fairy tale opera.” It’s magical, but there’s plenty of darkness lurking below the surface as well, as there has always been in fairy tales from the Grimm Brothers to Maurice Sendak.

The scientific issue being considered here centers on Elsa, of course: will she or won’t she? Remarkably, these Bayreuth performances represent the German soprano Annette Dasch’s first go at the role and she gives a richly complex realization. Her opening lines in act II (“Euch Lüften, die mein Klagen”) are anything but chaste, a quasi-erotic reverie that concludes with her kissing a swan with a phallicly elongated neck. On the other hand, Dasch makes it clear early on in the act III bedroom scene that Elsa has something else on her mind other than connubial bliss, that is, her obsession with her new husband’s identity.

As opposed to Dasch, Klaus Florian Vogt is the world’s most sought-after Lohengrin, a veteran of many esteemed productions and two video representations—this one in addition to an estimable Lohengrin directed by Nikolaus Lehnhoff and conducted by Kent Nagano—plus an SACD version (with Annette Dasch) on PentaTone. Vogt doesn’t disappoint—his voice is so well suited to the part and his musical instincts so good, how could he?—but his interpretation is by no means fixed. (Says Dasch in her interview feature: “He wasn’t just reeling off his standard Lohengrin!”) Vogt, himself, reports that he learned a lot from the director and feels that the character has been more “humanized,” in this production. But irrespective of a director’s interpretation of the story, the dramatic power of the work rides squarely on the shoulders of the singer in the title role and here Vogt delivers as surely as ever. From his act I entrance right through “In fernem Land,” he holds Elsa, the people of Brabant, and us in his thrall.

As Ortrud, Petra Lang is about as malignantly evil as Wagner’s villains get, sneering, leering, and glaring pretty much every second she’s on camera and offering up some venomous vocalism. Jukka Rasilainen is no weak pawn of his consort—he doesn’t invoke nearly as much pity as some Telramunds, and that’s fine. Georg Zeppenfeld has a strong bass instrument but his relatively slight physical presence matches well Wagner’s implication of a weak and insecure monarch. Samuel Youn, an experienced Wagnerian, makes the Herald into something more than a talking head. His wild hair and air of efficiency suggest a mad scientist, maybe the one in charge of this experiment.

The chorus, as always at Bayreuth, is phenomenal and Andris Nelsons leads with a sure hand (impressing me far more than he did on a Blu-ray release of the Shostakovich Symphony No. 8, reviewed last issue). This is the fourth Blu-ray release from Bayreuth on the Opus Arte label, and these discs, especially when played back in multichannel, get you as close to the reach-out-and-touch-it acoustic experience of the Festspielhaus as any previous recording. At the end of the evening, when the crowd stomps its approval on the old wooden floor of the raked amphitheater, the sense of a large space being acoustically energized is uncanny. The cinematography is superb and the imaginative animations that are projected onstage at various points throughout the opera can be ideally viewed in the Extra section along with interviews of Katharina Wagner (vacuous), Klaus Florian Vogt and Annette Dasch (interesting), and Hans Neuenfels (profound.) And which of Vogt’s three commercial, high-resolution Lohengrins should you get—the Blu-ray led by Nagano, the PentaTone SACD, or this one? Sorry. If you’re a true Wagnerite, you need all three.

FANFARE: Andrew Quint

Yondani Butt was born in Macau. He studied conducting with Wolfgang Vacano at Indiana University, majoring in chemistry. He continued to study conducting with Josef Blatt at the University of Michigan while pursuing his chemistry degree. Hailed by Robert Marsh of the Chicago Sun Times as “an outstanding talent,” Yondani Butt has received acclamation from critics and audiences for his many recordings and concert performances. He died on August 28, 2014. “If you’re one of those classical enthusiasts who prefer their Wagner experience to be administered in brief but nonetheless memorable doses this splendid new Nimbus collection could well have been conceived specifically with you in mind. Conductor Yondani Butt and the LSO serve up commanding performances of some of the most evocative and instantly recognizable orchestral passages in the Wagner canon, including ‘Magic Flute Music,’ Siegfried’s ‘Rhine Journey,’ and the [album’s] show stopping finale, ‘Ride of the Valkyries.’ (Halesowen News) “…The sound in these recordings is extremely vivid and realistic… Butt’s Wagner is very impressive.” (Musicweb International)

Classical Music

Siegfried is the third in the tetralogy of music dramas that make up Der Ring des Nibelungen. It charts the progress of the young hero as he unshackles himself from the dwarf Mime, reforges his father’s sword to kill the dragon Fafner, and thus takes possession of the Ring which he ultimately gives to Brünnhilde to symbolize his devotion. Siegfried contains imperishably beautiful passages such as the Forest Murmurs, the profound psychological landscape of the Prelude to Act III and the great duet between Siegfried and Brünnhilde. This performance from Sofia Opera features an acclaimed all-Bulgarian cast.

This is a Super Audio CD playable only on Super Audio CD players.

Classical Music

Classical Music

The opening salvo of Wagner's tetralogy, Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung), Das Rheingold establishes immediately the epic nature of Wagner's intentions in a epochal tale that owes much to Old Norse and Icelandic sagas. Featuring the acclaimed conductor Jaap Van Zweeden with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, this production is graced with the presence of noted soloists such as Matthias Goerne, Kwangchul Youn, Eri Nakamura and Michelle DeYoung, among others.

Classical Music

In honor of Richard Wagner’s 200th birthday in 2013, OehmsClassics presents Volume 5 of the Britannic Organ Series. This was produced in cooperation with the Museum of Mechanical Musical Instruments in Seewen, Switzerland.

Classical Music