Christian Thielemann on Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelung “From 2006 to 2010, I spent some 300 hours in the orchestra pit in Bayreuth just on the Ring… Each year I looked forward to this task anew, and I am by no means of the opinion that I have completely finished with it. The Ring is so multifaceted musically that it can never exhaust one’s curiosity and one’s urge to explore further. In the Ring, the conductor feels like a battery that is permanently being recharged. That’s because of the contrasting worlds you move through for 15 whole hours, and the four highly different temperaments of the tetralogy. The orchestra is gigantic, with contrabassoon, bass tuba and eight horns – yet how nuanced and differentiated Wagner’s handling of this machine is!... As I see it, then, the Ring cuts a swathe through “the German sound”, it shows its extremes and its facets, from light and playful to heavy, serious and fraught with meaning. The German sound, Wagner teaches us, is never only the one thing and never just the other. Holländer, Tannhäuser, Lohengrin, Tristan, Meistersinger: when he comes to the Ring, Wagner starts again from scratch. In its compositional technique, in its treatment of the orchestra, in terms of its dimensions, harmonically, everything is different. When he composed the Ring, Wagner had no orchestra at his disposal to test whether what he imagined actually worked. Everything was playing out in his head. When he finally heard it in 1876, he did alter a thing or two – and would undoubtedly have liked to make even more alterations later. Not that I see any point in speculating about it. We have to address ourselves to the work as it is, and that task is hard enough.”

Wagner’s tetralogy Der Ring des Nibelungen concludes with Götterdämmerung. The composer’s original draft, in which the gods are redeemed by the hero Siegfried’s sacrifice, had fundamentally changed by 1874. Now in this ‘cosmic catastrophe’ Brünnhilde rides into Siegfried’s funeral pyre, the Rhine overflows and Valhalla perishes, and the gods with it. It’s the longest and most complex of the four music dramas, and its orchestration is also the most colorful and sophisticated. Siegfried’s Rhine Journey and Funeral March and Brünnhilde’s immolation scene are some of Wagner’s most potent theatrical moments and bring this drama to a shattering conclusion.

If there is one work that has been crucial to Daniel Barenboim’s conducting career, it has to Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde: he has been working on piercing its secrets for more than 35 years. In the pit of the newly renovated Staatsoper Berlin and at the head of his Staatskapelle, he once again makes magic happen. Entrusted with the stage direction, Dmitri Tcherniakov delves into the psychological aspects of the drama and gives a new realistic depth to this opus. Thanks to his demanding direction of the cast, but also to a clever use of video projections, he manages to craft intense images which effectively resonate with the rapturous and voluptuous enchantments of the score. To complete this high-level artistic crew, the Staatsoper called upon some of the finest Wagner experts: Andreas Schager, already a superb Parsifal and a regular guest at the Bayreuth Festival, is Tristan, Anja Kampe is an unforgettable Isolde, and Ekaterina Gubanova thrills as Brangäne.

In Palermo, where Richard Wagner composed this monumental opera during a long stay, conductor Omer Meir Wellber makes a highly successful debut as music director of Palermo’s Teatro Massimo, architecturally and artistically one of Italy’s most impressive opera houses. “With the Teatro Massimo’s excellent orchestra he succeeded in a reading that was absolutely straight forward” (Opera Today). The singers are excellently cast, especially Julian Hubbard as Parsifal “who was a sensation” (neue musikzeitung). Stage director “Graham Vick strips Parsifal of mysticism to deliver a powerful indictment of divisive ideologies” (Musical America).

Hans Rosbaud was the chief conductor of the Southwest Radio Symphony Orchestra from 1948 until his death in 1962. He transformed the orchestra, later renamed as the SWR Symphony Orchestra Baden-Baden and Freiburg, into a leading European ensemble. His interests lay in both contemporary music and the classical and romantic symphonic repertoire. This new series from the SWR Classic label presents largely unpublished recordings by Rosbaud of classical and romantic repertoire, starting with overtures by Richard Wagner.

‘Gotterdammerung’ (Twilight of the Gods) is the epic fourth and final opera of Wagner’s great Ring cycle, with a plot that depicts the fall of heroes, gods, and the entire world. As ever with the Ring, the joys of love are all too fragile and fleeting, and the drama of ‘Gotterdammerung’ revolves around dark and unsettling reversals of fortune and illusions of hope that synthesize thrilling and powerful grand opera traditions with Wagner’s revolutionary techniques. Containing all of the Ring’s essential elements, ‘Gotterdammerung’ possesses a profoundly satisfying sense of inevitability that makes it both a towering climax and a unified summation of the Ring’s abundant variety.

Die Walküre is the second part of Der Ring des Nibelungen and has remained the most popular of the tetralogy of operas. Prominent are the lovers Siegmund and Sieglinde who incur the anger of Fricka, goddess of marriage, and whose long duet in the superbly sustained Act I is one of the work’s glories. The spectacular Ride of the Valkyries, the spellbinding music of Wotan’s Farewell and the Magic Fire that closes the opera are other highlights of this critically acclaimed production from Sofia National Opera. Sofia National Opera, founded in 1890, is the oldest and most prestigious Bulgarian opera theatre. Drawing upon the tradition of West European and Russian ballet theatre, its founders, singers and producers have established the ensemble method of a permanent troupe of soloists, orchestral musicians, ballet dancers, set design artists and producers. They produce up to 10 premières of classical and modern opera and ballet over a 10-month season.

That Hansjorg Albrecht is becoming increasingly involved with conducting, ever since his highly successful Braunfels orchestral songs, is no longer a secret. In the following recording, some of which was recorded live in Weimar, he has turned to Richard Wagner's Ring. He has once again selected the Staatskapelle Weimar for this task, an ensemble whose history extends all the way back to the year 1491. Thus this orchestra has one of the richest traditions of any ensemble in the world, and is more than familiar with the works of Richard Wagner.

REVIEW:

The sound is high-quality digital, with the Weimar orchestra as full and deep as on many audiophile recordings of Wagner, so the recording could only be improved with a multichannel version. Perhaps of greatest interest to newcomers is the inclusion of all the standard concert pieces, as well as generous portions of music that convey important aspects of the drama, though without any vocal parts. Maazel’s recording is still available, but Albrecht’s interpretation gives it a salutory renewal, so The Ring Without Words continues to make Wagner’s masterpiece accessible to listeners who haven’t taken the plunge.

– AllMusicGuide.com (Blair Sanderson)

Also available on Blu-ray

Wagner sourced material for his national legend Der Ring des Nibelungen in medieval German and Scandinavian sagas, though much was his own invention. Das Rheingold is the prologue to this tetralogy of music dramas. It introduces the principal events in this visionary work, the theft by the Nibelung dwarf Alberich of the ring made from Rhine gold, and its seizure by Wotan, ruler of the Gods. This production was recorded in 2010 at the Sofia Opera and Ballet theatre as the first title of the complete Wagner cycle that we will be releasing entirely in separate titles. The theatre’s managing director Plamen Kartaloff succeeded in creating an amazing “Sofia Ring” with local cast and crew, chiseling each detail with care: from singers’s vocal training to set design, lights and costumes, thus delivering a most modern and captivating rendition which was acclaimed by international press.

Also available on Blu-ray Audio

Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung) is one of the most remarkable achievements in all music, and Siegfried, the third in the cycle, contains some of the greatest moments in Wagner’s entire output. Wagner conceived Siegfried as a heroic ‘man of the future,’ and his fantastical tale is one in which the human dramas of treachery and violent struggles for power become magnified in a world of gods, dragons and magic. The previous opera in this cycle, Die Walkure, was acclaimed in The Guardian as “thrillingly vivid... easily maintains the high standard and promise of Das Rheingold.” (Naxos NBD0049).

------

REVIEW:

The Dutch conductor Jaap van Zweden once again has assembled an international cast with a background of Wagnerian stage appearances. Siegfried is sung by the New Zealand-born Simon O’Neill, one of today’s most sought after Heldentenor’s, his forging scene, at the close of the first act, superbly sung after the rather pedestrian opening tempo. David Cangelosi is the type of whining Mime that was given birth by Gerhard Stolze in Solti’s recording, and has been copied ever since, and as such he is a perfect foil to O’Neill’s vibrancy. Matthias Goerne’s Wotan, who here appears on earth as ‘The Wanderer’, is smooth, dignified and without exaggeration. In Werner van Mechelen’s Alberich we have a vocally likeable character whose second act enraged confrontation with The Wanderer becomes a beautifully sung sociable meeting. I particularly enjoyed Valentina Farcas’s Forest Bird, and, later in that act, her immaculate intonation comes with the ideal silvery sound that is required. In the third act Deborah Humble’s Erda is suitably tired and old as she counsels Wotan as to his future, and maybe Goerne had been ‘saving’ his voice for the subsequent angry encounter with Siegfried. The Australian dramatic soprano, Heidi Melton, sings Brunnhilde, her big and powerful voice heard at its best in the outgoing passages, and, with O’Neill’s voice untiring, the finale scene is as good as I have heard in recent times.

It hardly seems fifty-four years ago that I was reviewing Solti’s revelatory recording, and there have been so many more to review since then. Now Hong Kong is placing a performance on disc that is a major achievement, and in unparalleled recorded sound.

– David's Review Corner (David Denton)

The Hallé completes its highly regarded Ring cycle, with the live recording of its acclaimed Bridgewater Hall performance under Sir Mark Elder. “Roaring jubilation and radiant beauty from Elder and the Halle…. Elder is a superb Wagnerian, acutely conscious of the complex relationship between tempo and pace, and immaculate in his judgment both of the span of each act and the ebb and flow of detail within it. Thrilling climaxes alternated with moments of astonishing beauty and quiet, almost exquisite terror.” (The Guardian on the Halle’s performance of Siegfried) The third element of Wagner’s Ring cycle contains humor, drama and a concluding ecstasy as the eponymous hero meets his heroine Brünnhilde, setting up the explosive finale of the concluding opera. With enormous orchestral forces and dramatic use of leitmotiv themes the music portrays the full gamut of emotions and provides a perfect vehicle to display the heights of the Hallé’s powers under Elder. This production was recorded at the Bridgewater Hall, capturing all the drama of the acclaimed live performance.

What are heroes made of and why do our societies need them so badly? At the Staatsoper Stuttgart, stage director Árpád Schilling tries to answer this mythological, political and existential question, lying at the core of Richard Wagner’s Lohengrin. “A wonder! A miracle!”, the men and women of Brabant agreed when, against all expectations, someone stood up for Elsa and invalidated the allegations made by the plaintiff Telramund. And yet he does the most normal thing in the world: to help a person in distress. So why is there a need for this savior, surrounded by the aura of mystery, whose name and origin even his new wife Elsa cannot ask? Why does the collective body abdicates its moral and political responsibilities and surrenders them to a single individual? And when does the providential man stops being a savior and becomes a threat? For Hungarian stage director Árpád Schilling, a fierce enemy of the very idea of the cult of a personality, and he himself a political exile, these questions lie at the core of Richard Wagner’s Lohengrin. For his new production at the Staatsoper Stuttgart, the stage director recenters the opera on the expressivity of the direction, and strips the stage of all its ornamental or mythological elements. He creates a coming-of-age tale, pervaded by the themes of responsibility, trust, and the relationship between the individual and the collective. This powerful and ambitious proposition is mirrored in Maestro Cornelius Meister’s expressive and philosophical conducting, and in Michaël König, Simone Schneider, Martin Gantner, Okka von der Damerau’s profound singing.

Wagner’s visionary Ring of the Nibelung was first performed as a cycle of four operas in 1876. Its mythic plot examines the relationship between love and earthly power through the agency of a ring which confers ultimate power on its bearer.

One of the most sustained and remarkable achievements in all of music, the tetralogy is performed by an all-star cast, conducted by the new music director of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, Jaap van Zweden, in performances that have been critically acclaimed worldwide for their “thrilling sense of drama.” (The Sunday Times, London)

Past praise of previously released volumes included in this set:

Das Rheingold

Van Zweden’s approach is closest in memory to Herbert von Karajan’s–intimate and chamber-like. The back and forth between the fine, unexaggerated Fricka of Michelle De Young and the remarkable, surprising Wotan of Matthias Goerne is natural and familiar, and Goerne is the surprise of the performance. His experience and expertise as a Lieder singer comes in very handy in this opera.

– ClassicsToday.com

Die Walküre

This is a Walküre that reveals its treasures slowly; it’s a warm, intimate reading. The Wälsungs are stunning. Stuart Skelton's tone is big and clean, wobble-free. And his cries of “Wälse” in Act 1 have to be heard to be believed. Heidi Melton as Sieglinde is wonderfully expressive. The listener hangs on every perfectly pronounced, clear word she and Skelton sing, and thanks to Zweden, who leads their interactions as if the opera were bel canto, we feel for them. Interrupting their budding love is Falk Struckmann, surprisingly (he’s a baritone, not a bass). He is a grand, scary Hunding.

– ClassicsToday.com

Wagner: Siegfried

Van Zweden's marvelously-rehearsed orchestra play with accuracy, brilliance, and color. I commented on the beauty and sadness of the Walküre performance, and here, added to those two qualities is, by the third act, passion.

Simon O’Neill may not be the most intuitive Siegfried on disc, but he’s among the brightest-toned and most solid, showing no flatting even at the end of his bout with Brünnhilde. Heidi Melton is an excellent Brünnhilde and a marvelous singer/actress, using her half hour to transform with clarity. Everyone proves their mettle, taste, and polish here, and I suspect there will be few who are disappointed.

– ClassicsToday.com

Wagner: Götterdämmerung

This is a grand finale to the Hong Kong Philharmonic’s Ring Cycle. Both Walküre and Siegfried were marvelously conceived, excellent concert performances, each with a minor flaw or two: recording balances out of whack and unfocused mid-voice for Brünnhilde in Walküre; recording too recessed in Siegfried; lack of character delineation in the Wanderer/Mime scene in Act 1 of Siegfried. I was quite taken by the storytelling in both, finding beauty, sadness, and in the Siegfried finale, passion. This set, recorded at two concert performances (and, I suspect, a patch-up session or two—there is NO applause or audience reaction anywhere), is, in one word, majestic, which is a fitting end to the Cycle.

– ClassicsToday.com

Also available on Blu-ray

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.

-----

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)

Also available on Blu-ray

At Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, maestro Fabio Luisi gives “a superb performance” (Operawire) of Der Fliegende Hollander (The Flying Dutchman), the forerunner of grand Wagnerian dramas. His Italian Richard Wagner debut is infused with energy and drive, under his direction the orchestra and chorus of Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, together with Coro Ars Lyrica, sparkle “in what was a five star performance” (Operawire). Thomas Gazheli stars as the Dutchman, who has been condemned to endlessly wander the seas until the day of Judgement. Marjorie Owens shines as his savior Senta.