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Product Description
Christian Thielemann, by common consent the leading Wagner conductor of our time (Die Presse), returns to Bayreuth for this radiant account of Die Walküre filmed at the 2010 Festival. Appearing on DVD and Blu-ray for the first time, it provides the only audio-visual document of Tankred Dorsts Ring production, and follows the hugely successful release of the whole cycle on CD. Two new singers join the cast: Johan Botha as Siegmund, who was showered with praise by the press (ideal vocal casting in the words of the critic on the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) and Edith Haller, with her beautiful, strong soprano voice (Süddeutsche Zeitung) as his sister and lover Sieglinde.
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Valchiria (La) / Die Walkure
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19 of 22 people found the following review helpful
Format:Blu-ray|Amazon Verified Purchase
At the opening scene I thought "Oh No! Here we go again"; A family with young children on stage in modern dress (one carrying a fishing rod and reel) in an opera that is supposed set in a mythical bygone age. Moreover they have no relevance to the opera or the story. They depart, however, it quickly gets worse. Siegmund enters the stage dressed like a Rag and Bone Man and collapses in front of the hearth (as the story dictates; but there is no hearth to be seen). There is a large telegraph pole (complete with insulators and wires) with a sword embedded in it (substituting for the tree that should have been growing in the middle of the house). This pole, some years earlier had crashed through the wall and obviously Sieglinde and her husband are not house-proud as the leave the gaping hole in their wall with the telegraph pole as a permanent feature in their living room.
Enter Hunding (Sieglinde's husband) who looks like an escapee from a Kurasawa film but is dressed like a Russian Kommissar. His men are all wearing dog's head helmets that look like they came from the wardrobe department from the Egyptian sequences in Stargate. Why Hunding has to have this entourage of men, who do not sing or do anything except sit against the wall like stuffed mannequins, is beyond me.
Siegmund and Sieglinde whilst vocally good are terrible actors. Their mannerisms reminded me of the overacting that was prominent in silent films.
Everyone moves as if they have been told to move occasionally by the Director, but really don't know when and why.
I lost interest in this Blu-ray very quickly. I couldn't be bothered to sit through the rest as I don't think it got any better.... Read more ›
Enter Hunding (Sieglinde's husband) who looks like an escapee from a Kurasawa film but is dressed like a Russian Kommissar. His men are all wearing dog's head helmets that look like they came from the wardrobe department from the Egyptian sequences in Stargate. Why Hunding has to have this entourage of men, who do not sing or do anything except sit against the wall like stuffed mannequins, is beyond me.
Siegmund and Sieglinde whilst vocally good are terrible actors. Their mannerisms reminded me of the overacting that was prominent in silent films.
Everyone moves as if they have been told to move occasionally by the Director, but really don't know when and why.
I lost interest in this Blu-ray very quickly. I couldn't be bothered to sit through the rest as I don't think it got any better.... Read more ›
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD|Amazon Verified Purchase
I tried. Vakyries I have known, from the 1935 Bruno Walter set of 78's transferred to CD, up to the present day, including the Chereau production, the MET set produced by Otto Schenk and the set from Valencia were better than this. The cast look like Hoffnung caricatures, podgy Siegmund, podgy Brünnhilde, swathed in a blood red stola, which emphasized her ungainly podginess, a nice middle class lady Sieglinde doing a genteel dance, and a breathless Fricka who couldn't get her words out because the conductor doesn't give her time to do so! Clipped Noel Coward-style language from all. except the Wotan. It made me laugh. Hunding comes in with 6 henchman, it's too dark to see exactly how many, all wearing dog-head shaped helmets! (Hund = dog?) It looked like a production that was trying to send up the whole thing. That Bayreuth lends its name to such a dark rigmarole may please some and the audience reacts in raptures, but that can be doctored, otherwise sound quality is reasonable. The main interest for me was to hear the conducting of Thielemann, but that was the one feature that disappointed me the most. He clearly had a train to catch. This performance was even worse than the experience recently published on CBS as a Met Saturday afternoon broadcast, under Berislav Klobucar, who was in a hurry to the detriment of a sterling, but bored cast. Better Valkyries are available. Avoid this one! Unless you want a good laugh!
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By axiomatic
Format:DVD
I acquired this DVD as a souvenir of the actual production I saw in Bayreuth last year. When all discussion was of the 'Lohengrin' rats, and this year of the 'Tannhauser' drug factory with a middle-aged Venus pregnant with tadpoles, it was a refreshing relief to see a 'Ring' which was not traditional to look at but had none of the irritating, ugly and exasperating Regietheater afflictions that infect most opera productions in Germany these days. Tancred Dorst's production appeared traditional but there were many touches that gave one a new angle on the Wagner myth. The supernumeraries that most of your reviewers complain about were in fact integral to Dorst's vision of the piece. Many directors attempt to make the story relevant for today by setting it in a hospital ward or a car park littered with used needles and all the characters abusers of some substance or other. This is m eant to be relevant to whom? Dorst, on the other hand, depicted the ancient myth taking place among the ordinariness of the present day. Surely this says a lot about myth, it's very nature being that it is relevant in all periods of time and for all cultures and people. Dorst holds it up as a mirror for our particular period in history, while keeping the universal application intact. For example, at the beginning of Act I we have a modern family sheltering in a derelict mansion from the storm and then leaving, giving way to the myth acted out by the characters of the opera in costumes of indeterminate period. What better way of showing that myth is part of the fabric of our own existence, than this attempt to explain existential questions that are valid in all epochs?
On the DVD, Botha and Haller, the Seglinde and Siegmund, are cheered to the rafters.... Read more ›
On the DVD, Botha and Haller, the Seglinde and Siegmund, are cheered to the rafters.... Read more ›
6 of 9 people found the following review helpful
By Keris Nine
TOP 500 REVIEWER
Format:Blu-ray|Amazon Verified Purchase
Traditionally, Die Walküre is seen as the start of the Ring story proper, the previous episode Das Rheingold being only a prelude, musically as well as thematically, for what is to follow. It's in Die Walküre moreover that what is seen as the human element enters into the story after the mythological struggle of dwarves, giants and gods in the first part. Personally, I'd argue that the human element is there from the first notes of Das Rheingold, the origins of the Ring being inextricably tied up in Wagner's philosophy towards the creation of a new German art form, and the expression and attainment of those highest ideals that humanity can aspire to is evident in every aspect of the mythological symbolism of the whole work, as well as in its method of operatic expression. That's perhaps a debate for another area, but in as far as it concerns this 2010 Bayreuther Festspiele production, one would have hoped to see more of the underlying humanism in the story brought out than is actually achieved here.
As if mindful of the need to relate the great struggle that continues to be fought out largely on an epic scale level to some kind of human level, Tankred Dorst introduces a few irritating and ultimately pointless elements into the staging. The opera opens with a very brief sequence showing a modern-day family, seemingly on a picnic, wandering through a deserted, semi-ruined manor house, the young boy unveiling the figure of Sieglinde and in the process setting off the retelling of the ancient myth that is to follow. In Act 2, the father sits in the background throughout, reading his newspaper, his bicycle by his side, while Wotan and Fricke carry on what I suppose could be termed a domestic argument, albeit one on which the eventual fate of all humanity depends.... Read more ›
As if mindful of the need to relate the great struggle that continues to be fought out largely on an epic scale level to some kind of human level, Tankred Dorst introduces a few irritating and ultimately pointless elements into the staging. The opera opens with a very brief sequence showing a modern-day family, seemingly on a picnic, wandering through a deserted, semi-ruined manor house, the young boy unveiling the figure of Sieglinde and in the process setting off the retelling of the ancient myth that is to follow. In Act 2, the father sits in the background throughout, reading his newspaper, his bicycle by his side, while Wotan and Fricke carry on what I suppose could be termed a domestic argument, albeit one on which the eventual fate of all humanity depends.... Read more ›
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