Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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34 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Finally, the excellent Barenboim Ring comes to DVD, 9 Jan 2006
To my taste the 1993 Barenboim/Bayreuth Ring is the best of the current
commercial video recordings of The Ring, which include as well: 1) the
1985 Bayreuth (Philips DVD), 2) the 1989 Bavarian State Opera
(EMI-Toshiba DVD), 3) the 1990 Metropolitan Opera (DG DVD), 4) the 2002
Stuttgart Staatsoper (TDK DVD), and 5) the 2004 Teatre del Liceu (Opus
Arte DVD). Most of the versions have significant strong points. The
1985 Bayreuth has very good singing and acting in a satisfying modern
production. For me, though, the sound and video quality have always
been disappointing. The 1989 production has very good audio and video
quality and a good, satisfying performance in a fairly interesting
production. However, this Japanese set is extremely expensive and hard
to buy. The 1990 Met performance is, amazingly, the only traditional
staging available. It is definitely a very good performance, but I find
the less traditional performances more stimulating. The audio and video
quality are only good. The 2002 Stuttgart performance is well sung and
the orchestra plays well. The sound is very good, video is OK. This
version has been roundly criticized, but mostly for its stage design.
It is pretty strange in parts (the Dragon in Siegfried, for example),
but I enjoyed many parts of it. The 2004 Barcelona performance has been
acclaimed by many reviewers, largely based on the stage design by Harry
Kupfer. The singing and orchestral playing are OK, the conductor's
tempo is generally slow. The sound recording is good, but the video
(particularly for a brand new release) is quite disappointingly grainy
to me. Now we come to the 1993 Bayreuth/Barenboim production. Always important
for Wagner, the orchestral playing is excellent, Barenboim's conducting
is outstanding, and the recorded sound is excellent. The singing and
acting are uniformly very good. The stage design, again by Harry Kupfer
is modern (supposedly set in the 30's--Siegmund's costume is rather
Indiana Jones-like). The deep Bayreuth stage is effectively used.
Through all four operas I find the staging interesting and enjoyable to
look at, not so spare as to be boring but not so dominant as to be
awkward or overwhelming to the action. This performance has finally been released on DVD by Warner Classics in both the US and Europe in NTSC. I've learned from Warner that the original recording was in analog High Definition and their first step in preparing the curent DVD was to transfer the video recording to a digital 1080 line tape. There was also ambient sound recording in the original so the DTS sountrack is real 5.1. The 16:9 anamorphic picture is a big improvement over the laser disc, much more detail; the sound is very good. An exciting reintroduction of a great performance. (The other 3 Ring operas will be releases in the next 15 months, according to Warner. Das Rheingold is being released in the US on February 28.)
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
First-rate production, 15 Oct 2006
The twin stars of this show are Daniel Barenboim, for his intelligent, fresh-sounding conducting of the Bayreuth orchestra, and John Tomlinson for his portrayal of Wotan.
Tomlinson crackles with energy every second that he's on stage. In fact, I can't figure out how he can cope with the athletic physicality he gives Wotan, and at the same time sing the role with such sonority and depth. This is a Wotan who, when things are going well, seems really to enjoy being a god - leaping around the stage, mock-fighting with his favourite daughter, Brunnhilde, and so on. But when things go badly for him - browbeaten by Fricka and defied by Brunnhilde - all of that energy turns him into a wound-up spring, his tension expressing itself in his voice and somehow even in his stillness at these moments.
The rest of the cast, too, are excellent. Anne Evans gives Brunnhilde a great deal of maturity and gravitas, and Linda Finnie is a Fricka you wouldn't want to argue with. Siegmund and Sieglinde are passionate rather than dreamily romantic, and Hunding is nicely snarly, without ever quite turning into a pantomime villain.
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