Necessity being the mother of invention, the English conductor Ben Woodward has arranged the full-symphonic textures of some of Wagner’s operas for eighteen-part chamber orchestra to bring them within range of the forces available to Regents Opera in London – arrangements which should, indeed, put them with the reach of smaller companies everywhere. This new 'room-sized Wagner' enhances the sense of scale of the originals with a striking degree of clarity. Of the first volume in this series, Theater Jones wrote: “Vizcarra’s pianistic talent is the real star of these discs...it makes me anxious to see what else Vizcarrahas up his very talented sleeve.”

The tetralogy of four operas that form Der Ring des Nibelungen (‘The Ring of the Nibelung’) explores the conjunction of love and power in a mythic landscape in which true power resides in possession of the ring. Composed over more than a quarter of a century, monumental in scale, and structured after the precedent of Greek drama, the cycle was first performed in 1876. Staged by the award-winning director Stefan Herheim, this innovative new production from Deutsche Oper Berlin features a leading international cast conducted by Sir Donald Runnicles.

REVIEW:

The Deutsche Oper Berlin is an important Wagner house, once dubbed “the winter Bayreuth”. This Ring, directed by the Norwegian Stefan Herheim, had a very long-serving predecessor in Götz Friedrich’s much-admired cycle that ran for 33 years (1984–2017).

Das Rheingold introduces several of the design tropes that unite the cycle visually and dramaturgically. Herheim is aware that this is in Berlin, and there are some World War Two and Wehrmacht references, about which he is quite unapologetic, speaking in the Rheingold booklet of “a chapter in German history which…systematized the extinction of entire people groups”. Those suitcases symbolize more than voluntary migration.

Derek Welton and Annika Schlicht have impressive voices well suited to their roles, although Fricka’s affectedly silly acting manner sometimes takes playfulness a bit far. Equally well sung are the Loge of Thomas Blondelle, the Freia of Flurina Stucki, and the Erda of Judit Kutasi, but then, this whole cycle deploys a seasoned Wagner cast, with few weak links.

The final scene leads us to Die Walküre, for which we need major new characters to be born, namely Brünnhilde, Siegmund, and Sieglinde. That means Wotan has some procreative work to do, so he does not enter Valhalla, but goes down through the prompt box whence Erda arose, there to sire with her the warrior maiden who is the Valkyrie of the title.

Die Walküre brings a change of Wotan, and another experienced Wagnerian, Iain Paterson, gives a sympathetic, authoritative, and well-sung account of his immensely demanding role. His huge Act 2 monologue – sometimes cited as one of longueurs of the Ring – is compelling. Hunding’s rather one-dimensional role is always watchable in Tobias Kehrer’s strongly played interpretation. Brandon Jovanovich’s Siegmund has pathos and when needed, vocal power, but Elisabeth Teige’s Sieglinde takes the vocal honors for a beautiful and touching portrayal. Nina Stemme is now a veteran Brünnhilde, having sung that and other Wagner leading roles all over the world, and she is probably still heading the list for casting directors of major opera houses; certainly she is on ringing form.

Herheim brings a surprise addition to the cast of Die Walküre in inventing the role of Hundingling, a young, soft-toy cuddling offspring of Hunding and Sieglinde. He is not mere decoration but plays a real role in Act 1, interacting with his bullying father and occasionally irritable mother, and often being comforted by the newly arrived stranger who seems to resemble his mother. Herheim explains in the booklet that this child is the embodiment of the shame Sieglinde feels about her enforced marriage. As Siegmund pulls the sword from the tree (or piano keyboard), Sieglinde slits the throat of Hundingling, who falls dead. Herheim references Medea, and says Sieglinde makes the tragic mistake of thinking the sacrifice of Hundingling is necessary for her to extricate herself.

In the third act, the opening “Ride of the Valkyries” begins with the Valkyries appearing out of the migrant crowd and donning proper Valkyrie kit – well, helmets and spears. The playing of the “Ride” itself has the usual wrong accenting, but most conductors ignore Wagner’s specific instruction that the main stress is always on the first beat (“I’m sick on a see saw”, not “I’m sick on a see saw”). Maybe the singers, as they perused the score on stage, and who do occasionally ‘conduct’ one another, could have given the correct beat! The fallen heroes arise from under their winding sheets and act as sex pests to the Valkyries, with Wotan’s seeming approval, a sign maybe of how he sees love. The end of Act 3 is strong as ever, tenderly affecting as Wotan bids farewell to his favourite daughter, and banishes Brünnhilde to her rock (or piano) against a curtain of flames, as the migrants look on in concern.

Talking points in Siegfried begin with Mime’s costume. He has the whiskers and hat of the mature Wagner, and the striped jacket of a concentration camp prisoner – so both notorious antisemite and a victim of that racist prejudice. Siegfried’s bear is none other than Alberich, who wonders into other scenes where the text does not place him. Siegfried is garbed traditionally, for some costumes reference the design history of the Ring. He also forges Nothung convincingly enough, hammer taps and all, and when it’s done, a map of the world briefly covers the stage, suggesting he could now conquer it all. The Woodbird is a boy soprano, as the composer initially intended. He does not sing his music very convincingly alas, and for some reason later adopts Alberich’s clown make-up. The dragon is a pair of enormous glowing eyes, and a mouth full of sharp teeth, and extras wielding the giant bells of brass instruments (the fight is a noisily brassy piece, and the weakest music in the Ring). We have a new singer for Alberich, Jordan Shanahan, who is as effective as his predecessor.

In Götterdämmerung the now familiar features of this production are used and varied, adding aspects of the opera house itself including its audience. Thus the sculptural metal feature of interlinked discs from the foyer is now an onstage backdrop to the opening scene, where Hagen, in modern dress, sips his interval drink at a table. He fetches Waltraute from the front row of the stalls, where he dozes through his nocturnal colloquy with Alberich. As before characters operate some of the time, e.g. for the blood brotherhood oath, in their underwear. There are some details of which the meaning is elusive, such as the burning man crossing the stage in Act 2, just as Hagen begins to summon the Gibichungs. Others, such as Gunther joining Siegfried in visiting Brünnhilde in the final scene of Act One and sharing his lines, instantly make some dramatic sense. As befits this mighty closing work of the tetralogy, there is plenty of spectacle to bring the cycle to a blazing conclusion.

The new singers are uniformly very good. Hagen is the vocally and physically imposing Albert Pesendorfer, wonderfully baleful in his night watch. His half-brother Gunther is also well sung and acted by Thomas Lehman. His sister Gutrune is the assured Aile Asszonyi, and Okka von der Damerau sings Waltraute with touching beauty; her scene with Brünnhilde is a strong one.

The Brünnhilde of Nina Stemme and Siegfried of Clay Hilley bring the same qualities heard in Siegfried. The American Heldentenor was a sensation as a last-minute replacement at Bayreuth’s 2022 Götterdämmerung, and should be heard by anyone who fears that no-one can truly sing the role these days. He has the range, the shining sound, the musicality and stamina required. Nina Stemme also has those qualities, but is about twenty years Hilley’s senior. All those performances of the repertoire’s most demanding roles begin to take a toll, of course, and she perhaps tires as this performance progresses, with one or two top notes ‘spreading’ – but really it matters little, for she triumphs over the difficulties and remains the consummate performer of this role.

Runnicles and the Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin are superb throughout, as is the chorus (in Götterdämmerung Act 2). Their familiarity with this work shows in the confidence of the playing, and the orchestral set pieces such as Siegfried’s Funeral Music are tremendous. If you want to hear incandescent playing in Wagner, try the Prelude to Act 3 of Siegfried, but the many subtle moments (always listen for the bass clarinet in Wagner) are deftly touched in, too. You will realise that Nietzsche, in calling Wagner a supreme miniaturist, was not just indulging his fondness for paradox.

The filming and surround sound are excellent. The filmed interview and Herheim’s contribution to the booklets are very useful addition in explaining his concept. Perhaps it will be worth consulting both ahead of viewing each opera, but there is also merit in viewing these works as if it is opening night in the Deutsche Oper, and you don’t know what you will see until the curtain rises. Then, to quote T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, you can “get the beauty of it hot”. If that beauty is mainly in the highly eloquent singing and playing, you will find much to impress, question, debate and decode in the innovative production.

-- MusicWeb International

In their exploration of the symphonic repertoire of the Romantic era, Thomas Dausgaard and his Swedish Chamber Orchestra have previously recorded Bruckner, Tchaikovsky and most recently Brahms, in performances described as ‘exhilarating’ (The Observer) and ‘stirring’ (ClassicsToday.com). As they take on the music by another archetypal nineteenth-century composer, Richard Wagner, they are joined by one of today’s foremost Wagner singers. Named ‘Singer of the Year’ by the magazine Opernwelt in 2012, Nina Stemme has been the Isolde of choice at Glyndebourne, Bayreuth and Covent Garden. She here performs the five Wesendonck Songs – of which two in particular, Im Treibhaus and Träume, were referred to by their composer as ‘studies’ for Tristan and Isolde. Wagner himself prepared a version for violin and orchestra of Träume, which the conductor Felix Mottl incorporated when, supervised by the composer, he made an orchestration of the set. These songs to texts by Mathilde Wesendonck, Wagner’s muse during the 1850s, are framed by two versions of the overture to The Flying Dutchman, the rarely heard 1841 original version and the composer’s final creation from 1860, with its new ending inspired by Tristan, composed three years earlier. Concerning his revisions, Wagner wrote to Mathilde: ‘Now that I have composed Isolde’s last transfiguration, I could at last find the right close for this Fliegender-Holländer overture’. Included is also the Siegfried Idyll, composed in 1870 as one of Wagner’s few purely orchestral works. It is known by this title because it was presented as a gift to Cosima Wagner, who had recently given birth to the couple’s son Siegfried, but also because it uses themes from the opera Siegfried, which was then nearing completion. Closing the disc is the stately prelude to another opera, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, in which Wagner with a spectacular use of counterpoint – ‘applied Bach’ was his own description – aspires to express the idea of a reconciliation between artistic freedom and respect for tradition.

Classical Music

This live recording of Wagner’s great opera Tristan und Isolde was recorded in August of 1958.; Wolfgang Windgassen, who champions the role of Tristan, was known for his powerful voice and successful performances in Wagner operas. He is often considered the most accomplished Wagner tenor of the twentieth century.; Swedish soprano Birgit Nilsson was also a Wagner specialist, along with works from Strauss. Her voice is remembered for its force and brilliance in the upper register.

Also available on Blu-ray

This is one of the most beautiful and brilliant recordings of Wagner´s Tristan und Isolde and it´s first time available on video. Leonard Bernstein’s way of conducting this opera is unique and he makes orchestra and singers perform at their very best. The Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks was the only German orchestra with which Leonard Bernstein regularly collaborated for many years and it has numbered among the top ten orchestras in the world. A star cast of singers with Peter Hofmann and Hildegard Behrens in the title roles completes this exceptional semi-staged production. Bernstein’s 1981 recording of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde is still considered an outstanding interpretation and has set the bar until this day. When he heard this performance Karl Bohm said, “Bernstein has conducted Tristan und Isolde the way that Wagner intended it to be conducted”.

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REVIEW:

Bernstein prefers a very personal, emotionally spontaneous approach, and the orchestral playing is, as to be expected, sensational. in all Peter Hoffmann and Hildegard Behrens sound fresh, youthful, and intense, if not highly dramatic or heroic in the more traditional Wagnerian sense.

The resolution of the film falls short of the technical possibilities inherent the Blu-ray format. Away from the grandiose soundtrack, the DVD / Blu-ray is of more historical interest, lacking the modern degree of visual splendor.

– Merker Online
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DETAILS:

Subtitles: G, E, F, Sp, It, Kr, Jp
Booklet: English, German, French
No. of Discs: 3
Run time: 291 minutes
Disc Format: DVD 9
Picture: NTSC 4:3
Audio: PCM Stereo
Region Code: 0 (worldwide)

Classical Music

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

Richard Wagner
TRISTAN UND ISOLDE
(Blu-Ray Disc Version)

Tristan – Robert Gambill
Isolde – Nina Stemme
Brangäne – Katarina Karnéus
Kruwenal – Bo Skovhus
King Marke – René Pape
Melot – Stephen Gadd
Young Sailor / Shepherd – Timothy Robinson
Steersman – Richard Mosley-Evans

The Glyndebourne Chorus
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Ji?í B?lohlávek, conductor

Nikolaus Lehnhoff, stage director

Recorded live at Glyndebourne, Lewes, Sussex on 29 July, 1 and 6 August 2007

Bonus:
- Illustrated synopsis and cast gallery
- Do I hear the light? A film by Reiner E. Moritz
- On the set – a slide show of the set being built
- Trimborn on Tristan – a talk about the musicological and philosophical backgrounds of Tristan und Isolde.
- Artists biographies

Picture format: 1080i High Definition
Sound formats: 2.0 and 5.0 Dolby TrueHD
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Menu language: English
Subtitles: English, German, French, Spanish, Italian
Running time: 358 mins
No. of Discs: 2 (BD50)

At or near the height of his conductorial powers, Herbert von Karajan's live April, 1959 La Scala Tristan und Isolde overflows its banks with top vocal talent; tenor Wolfgang Windgassen as Tristan and soprano Birgit Nilsson alone should be enough to interest any Wagner aficionado. Adding to the mix Hans Hotter, Gustav Neidlinger and a late-1960s noted Tristan tenor in Claude Heater as Melot layers in considerably more justification for this set’s desirability despite an orchestra not quite able to reach true Wagnerian proficiency and expectedly allowing for less-than-pristine sound.

While I was thoroughly enjoying myself listening to this disc an analogy sprang to mind regarding 19 ^th Century war-horse piano transcriptions. It struck me that – from a 'modern' perspective – they are rather like a great steam locomotive, totally redundant and outmoded but actually rather inspiring and a triumph of engineering!
 
I have written before that I have an enduring pleasure in hearing a good transcription of something utterly preposterous ... and what could be more preposterous than transcribing Wagner’s Ring for solo piano? The key to raising both the transcription and indeed the performance of it hangs on several far less absurd considerations. These are as follows. How well does the transcriber retain the essence of the work in question? How successfully does the transcriber satisfy the twin musical imperatives of writing a work pleasing as both a virtuoso piano piece and as ‘simple’ music? Lastly, how well is the performer able to surmount the vast technical hurdles implied by the genre whilst producing a performance of real musical value? The reason for my pleasure in this disc is that on every count I would have to say: very well indeed.
 
To start with the composer/transcriber; August Stradal was yet another of those acolytes of Liszt who seem to have spent a good part of their creative careers trying to out-arrange their master. One can imagine an unspoken conflict between Liszt’s many disciples each trying desperately to produce piano music of ever greater complexity and virtuosity. Along the way Stradal had Bruckner as a teacher and in later life provided important biographical information on both those masters. He also transcribed Bruckner’s Symphonies 1-2 and 5-8 for piano … now there’s a project for Toccata to consider! For those interested the Bruckner transcriptions as well as the 2 Liszt Symphonies, Brandenburg No.3 and other works too can be viewed and downloaded from the IMSLP website – unfortunately none of the works recorded here can be so viewed.
 
I quite enjoy playing a little game when listening to transcriptions such as this – it’s called “count the imaginary fingers”. The closer you get to twenty the better. Pianist Juan Guillermo Vizcarra makes a staggeringly powerful case for these transcriptions and he is no mean interpreter of Wagner either. The six excerpts from the Ring are grouped sensibly together in chronological order. Hence the disc opens with three selections from Die Walküre. The first two are rather dwarfed by an extended transcription of its closing pages. Siegmund’s Love-song comes first and shows Stradal’s skill at retaining the original voicing of the opera with the hero ‘singing’ in the middle register of the keyboard and the ‘orchestra’ fully represented above and below. Vizcarra is especially skilled at layering the dynamics within these complex textures ensuring that the ear is guided to primary and secondary material. He is a very dynamic player – his performance had me thinking back to the days of LPs and Michael Ponti’s trail-blazing discs on Vox-Turnabout of various Opera paraphrases. Occasionally I did wonder if Vizcarra was overly-muscular which, allied to a quite close and dynamic recording, does risk ‘virtuosity-awareness-fatigue-syndrome’. Conversely, this is music that should overwhelm one in whatever format it is performed. Vizcarra goes on to prove that he is by no means ‘just’ a virtuoso. Indeed I found his pacing of the seventeen minute selection from the end of Die Walküre very impressive. Likewise the single excerpt from Siegfried – Forest Murmurs – is beautifully paced. I say this even if just occasionally the leading melodic line feels a fraction heavy in comparison to the accompanying material but I do feel rather mean-spirited mentioning this.
 
Malcolm MacDonald in his predictably fascinating and insightful liner cites the two Götterdämmerung excerpts as representing the apogee of Stradal’s art with regard to Wagner. Certainly the sheer complexity of textures that he is able to retain from the original version of Siegfried’s Rhine Journey is astonishing. Again I find Vizcarra’s pacing of the closing pages which then lead with seamless skill into Siegfried’s Funeral March wholly convincing. Given that so much of the orchestral texture in this extraordinarily valedictory passage is built on long-held chords building crescendi this is the one time a piano struggles to maintain the illusion of the original. This is for the simple and obvious fact that a piano cannot play a crescendo without repeating a note or chord. That aside Vizcarra is a very impressive interpreter and Stradal’s transcription builds to a remarkably powerful climax replete with little sky-bursts of keyboard flurries and virtuoso gestures.
 
Sensibly, the final third of the disc is devoted to a far less rhetorical and grandly dramatic transcription of the five Wesendonck Lieder. These do already exist in the original version for piano and voice. MacDonald explains that Stradal stays essentially faithful to Wagner’s original except in two respects; he changes the order of the songs and moves the vocal line into the middle register again whilst at the same time moving Wagner’s right-hand piano part up the octave. This has the twin effect of making that element of the accompaniment sound immediately more ‘brilliant’ whilst keeping the now inner vocal line clear of conflicting part-writing. Vizcarra is beautifully poetic throughout the cycle although again I occasionally wondered if he strove too hard to give the inner/vocal line prominence. Especially since the placing of this line in a tenor/baritone register changes the feel quite significantly from their mezzo-soprano original. Again this seems like minor carping when one has been given the opportunity to hear such startlingly effective transcriptions in such convincing performances.
 
Toccata Classics is one of my favourite labels with the questing and quirky nature of the repertoire they offer very much a reflection on the tastes and passions their founder and executive producer Martin Anderson. This disc is another excellent example of his sure-fire sense of rare and unknown music well worth restoring and exploring. More Wagner please but a set of the Bruckner transcriptions really would be something.
 
-- Nick Barnard, MusicWeb International

The Czech-born pianist and writer August Stradal (1860–1930) – a Bruckner student and Liszt disciple– was one of the more prolific transcribers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He produced a vast quantity of phenomenally difficult piano music, including Liszt’s orchestral works, most of Bruckner’s symphonies, a good deal of the Baroque (a huge amount of Bach) and much more. This is the second in a series presenting his Wagner transcriptions, again featuring pianist Juan Guillermo Vizcarra. “Vizcarra makes a staggeringly powerful case for these transcriptions…” (Music Web Int’l)

Tannhäuser
Richard Wagner
Gran Teatre del Liceu 2008

Director: Sebastian Weigle
Orchestra: Simfonica del Gran Teatre del Liceu
Tannhäuser: Peter Seiffert
Elizabeth: Petra Maria Schnitzer
Wolfram: Markus Eiche
Venus: Béatrice Uria-Monzon
Hermann: Günther Groissböck
Walther : Vicente Ombuena
Biterolf: Lauri Vasar
Heinrich: FranciscoVas
Reinmar: Johann Tilli

Aspect Ratio: 16:9, 1080i
Format: PCM Stereo, DTS HD 5.1
Running time: 201 mins
No. of Discs: 1

Also available on Blu-ray

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

Classical Music

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

Also available on standard DVD

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
BLURAY Running time: 192 min.
Booklet: French / English / German, Subtitles: French / English / German
16/9, Full HD, Audio:PCM 2.0, DTS HD Master Audio