qute inventive to have a silent acting in the ouverture, mosttime it is done with a closed curtain, giving a bit of the feeling: "OK when do we start?" But of course the Roaring Twenties enscenerion is top notch too.
Sceptical I was at first but having seen it to the end of this part, it has become my favorite Ring. Why? I don't know. But I was gripped. Perhaps it is as Flemming said below "the whole production is filled with intelligent and funny details". Loge I find especially interesting.
Started with Siegfried, against my will, and could NOT stop. Ive never had concept production increase my understanding of the opera before. The close up, attention to detail, great singing and acting- Im finally understanding relationships and motivations, and the long boring sections are now fascinating. Its turning out to be my most important virus discovery
Whoops, you're right! I just double-checked -- the DVDs I have are in DVD-9 with a 720x480p resolution. I'm not aware of a BluRay version, let alone a HD recording online, unfortunately.
If the actors for Froh and Donner had swapped their physical appearances, they’d match their roles better. Froh should be the beardless blonde pretty boy, and Donner should be the burly bearded macho man.
A truly magnificent production of Wagners Ring, this Copenhagen Cycle! I have the DVD box and it really captures you from beginning to end. The singing isn't first rate, but it's not bad.
I'd like to add something more to what I've replied to Dandolo. The public going to the opera or the theater goes there to forget his everyday life. All day long whether at his job or looking at the television or reading papers he's confronted with violence, sex and his personal life which is hectic and sometime terrible if not tragic, diseases, loss of dear and beloved ones. I've lost my grand parents during WWII murdered by the Nazis in Budapest. I can't blame two or three generations later the Germans for what their grand parents or great grand parents have done or pretended not to have seen. I have German friends and they are to be respected. We owe their country an incredible legacy of music probably never attained by any other nations.Just imagine in 70 years we will celebrate Le Nozze di Figaro 400th anniversary! We have to respect this achievement. What the public searches in art, music and theater is to calm down, dream for a few hours. He's fed up with this attitude which is particularly linked to the way of thinking of leftist artists who consider that to amuse oneself or dream is not fashionable and even a sin. With those guys you have to act like the Christ and spend your time accusing yourselves of all the sins of the world and bear the cross! But sorry we, the public, are happy to dream and somehow go back to our childhood times. May be this is stupid, well I for one I'm proud to be still with some kind of sensitivity and romantic attitudes. And I'm sure I'm not the only one here. I don't mind laughing at Oscar Wilde's comedies or Noel Coward's ones, I enjoy watching the Nutcracker and it reminds me of my childhood when I believed to the existence of Santa Claus. When I see Walkure's last scene with Wotan's and Brunhilde's farewell scene I can even cry and I'm not ashamed of it. But when the idiot who staged it show's me Brunhilde's naked and with a probability to see a woman with her breasts down to her knees, sorry but all the magic is lost! Not every singer is like Sophia Loren or Nicole Kidman! Just imagine Jessy Norman in that attire! The same goes for men. And an ugly set is distracting. you see only this and you do not focus on the action. A great French actor and Stage director, Louis Jouvet, used to tell his students: any movement on the stage, any set, any gesture which doesn't enhance the text, is distracting and ruins a play and its performance. This is exactly what the Actor's Studio advocates too. We should always be reminded of that and the stage directors in particular.
Some participant her ridicules my notion that buddhism has influenced the drama "Parsifal." But the joke is on him! The biographist Henrik Nebelong and the auther Nila Parly both introduces the setup "Die Sieger" as a buddhist drama. As with "Jesus of Nazareth" it didn't make it. But the idea is partly taken up i Parsifal by the Kundry figure. She is a wandering soul going through many incarnations until she reaches redemption by the saviour figure Parsifal. He is clearly a (allthough only partly) a representation of Christ. Anybody who finds buddhism completly out there and in no way present in any work of Wagner must read som more, and not be satisfied with their homework so far.
1:06:57 Vielleicht sollten sich die Gött*Innen eine Pulle Smirnov aus der ersten Szene (Rheintöchter schäkern, Alberich kippt sich zu mit dem Wodka) genehmigen, dann ginge es ihnen besser.
@@finylvinyl66 2:21:00 Agreed. Pointless, meaningless, out of character, and illogical, as Wotan will invoke Loge at the end of Walküre. This staging is rife with stupid ideas like this.
@@AtiqZabinski Hi, I think you mean two hours and twenty one minutes but you've given 2 minutes and 21 seconds as the time marker. Needs to be written as 2:21:00
I liked both, actually. I had the chance to go to Bayreuth and see Castorf's production......it was one of the greatest operativo experiences of my life.
This is offcourse ambiguous. You would expect the ring to be forged from metallic gold. But the text itself leeds to another interpretation. The treasure is actually adressed by "he," and not "it." This suggests that the treasure is not metallic gold but the maidens lover. This is psycologically reliable, as in the days before Alberich, "kapital" did not exist. Gold was not money, only pretty shiny "rocks." No, what really had value was love. Love is the real treasure. Alberich killed love and made "kapital" out of the gold. But offcourse, the flesh can't be forged into a metallic ring. This we must accept, as we otherwise wouldn't get the symbolism right.
Can't those bloody stage directors respect the fact that this is a legend, not to be in anyway related to ours period or even Wagner's period. It is based on the EDDA legends from Iceland; full stop! At this point the only production who did respect to the letter this, was the NYC production of the Met staged magnificently by Robert Lepage who intelligently used the technology of our time to overcome all the difficulties and problems Wagner had to face at his time. We are fed up with the so called intellectual visions of the Oliver Py's, Peter Sellars and other fools who pretend to know better than the composer himself and who probably did not even read the life of the composer and the material he used to create such a immense work.
In principle, You are right! And a version paying attention to theese old texts would be wonderful too. But the nordic mythology is in many ways based on the greek mythology. The dispute of Wotan and Fricka is right out of a scene with Zeus and Hera as well. After all, theese sagas and myths aren't real. They represent ideas that creates a foundation of the general european mind, so to speak. And therefore grasping this "mind" to serve it as an eatable meal of our time is not without relevans at all. As well as stories about moral and etical questions even today find relevanse even though they in many ways are based on christianity, whish is 2000 years old. (Christian thinking appears in motorcars and not on a donkeys back.) But in one thng I aggree: The modern approach to the operas should not be based on the simple fact that we don't have money enough to do it right. And such discount performance should not be presentet as a brand new interpretation of art.
***** The comparison with Romeo and Juliet is not valid for the simple reason that it is a love story stricto sensu. the Ring is a philosophical analysis on good and evil and their consequences on the world's existence. That's why it has been so easily deviated by the Nazis to sustain their ideology of the pure race and all its consequences. When recently for Wagner's bicentennial I think in Bayreuth (but I'm not sure) the setting was a Texaco gas station, it was ruining the full concept of the libretto. Adapting Romeo and Juliet to modern times did not matter, also because the music had nothing to do with any other works, it is a play by itself and Bernstein and his librettist were not adapting a musical (if it had existed in 16th century ), they created a play which was coherent with itself. You can't do that with operas, the play, the plot, the time, the action already exist and to transfer it to modern times brings multiple contradictions in the way the whole production will be viewed. Don Giovanni in Sellars production is a gay guy who shoots hilmself with different drugs. Cosi was set up in a kitchen! It doesn't match the dialogs, there are references to precise places, etc...
flemming dalsgaard You're completely wrong, The Eddas legends have nothing in common with any previous ones. They are the original foundation of the medieval world of Nordic countries, of their philosophy where courage and strength are the prime values. Sigurd is the full image of these values. They were probably written around 1220.They were first considered as a manual of Scandinavian poetry and of the Icelandic culture by itself. It would be a total misconception of the Nordic civilization and its culture to try to relate it to any Latin or Greek culture and history. It's not because you find similitude in ways of thinking or telling a story or legend that one has been inspired by the older. The Eddas are at the base of the rediscovery in the 18th century of the German mythology, hence the interest taken by the 19th century . Without the Eddas one cant understand the Icelandic culture as there are no works remaining prior to that period to explain the evolution of its civilization. Your error is the perfect example of what happens when a stage director tries too quickly to find similitude between his own culture and that of regions which have nothing to do with ours. Even today in a world of easy communications, there are essential differences in cultures which make so difficult for them to get together, to react in the same way in the presence of certain events. Look at the USA and Europe. Although the USA is by its ancestors directly linked to Europe the simple fact that the climate, the geographical features, are so different from Europe's, has imprinted on the customs, way of reacting to events especially natural events like storms etc, and make the US citizen a civilization of its own completely apart from its prime origins. The American guy has a capacity of immediate reaction to a sudden event, climatic or even in his job that the European has not. Why? Because when you have to face a situation like crossing the Colorado at Grand Canyon you did not have time to gather a meeting and spend hours discussing the pros and cons. You had to do it or die. On one side you had the desert on the other you could find water and cultivate which meant life. The same if a flash-flood occurs, it will be a question of minutes. Today the change in the climate seems to bring to Europeans some of the characteristics of these US problems and we have a lot of difficulty to react because they are strange to us and we have not the necessary character and logic which is essential to face them. The comparison may seem far fetched by is quite real. .
jvdesuit1 The nordic myths about Wotan and Fricka are influenced by greek mythology. And Wagner himself was influenced by greek mythology and litterature as well. And to my knowing Sigurd is not out of islandic eddas but by teutonic legends. Anyway the culture of Island was created by the people who sailed to this island in the Atlantic sea. What ever is fact about theese old tales, Wagner did not just write somestories. He was far too involved in psychology and filosofy not to expect people to interprete his texts. There is very much to be interpreted in his text and poetry, and if his telling of stories just is performed like ordinary music with text, You would realy let him down. I do dislike performances where modernism and simple plywood and cardboard dekorations are chosen just because there is no money to do it right. But the Copenhagen Ring is not one of them.
I know Erda as performed in the Heanchen "Ring"and admired her for the sheep deep power and knowledge she radiated. this Erda is like a courtisane and a lover ( well, she was the mother of the Walkures).
Magnificently hideous. "Intelligent and funny details", sing the paean of praise other commenters. Funny, yes, hilarious actually. Intelligent? Not so sure.
Why so? I love how lavish it is without being dull. There's a ton of little details that add to characterisation and feeling (though Walküre is a bit more minimalistic).
Enrico Dandolo Okay, the singers are singing the score, but what they're doing bears no resemblance to the story. In Walküre, Sieglinde pulling Nothung from the ash tree did me in. What was the point of that? It made no sense. I'd rather listen to an array of Rings I have on CD all with much better orchestras and singers.
Michifer Nice try,Michifer, but Sieglinde really is a damsel in distress, hopelessly chained to Hunding forever. Wotan promised "Siegmund" a sword when he needed it, not Sieglinde. Besides, you'd think Sieglinde would have tried to pull the sword from the ash tree since it's been there since her wedding. The production's a mess and I still loathe it.
Oh Thank you so much ! This is an extraordinary production.
Loge is great! Probably the most interesting and original renditions of that character I've seen so far.
qute inventive to have a silent acting in the ouverture, mosttime it is done with a closed curtain, giving a bit of the feeling: "OK when do we start?" But of course the Roaring Twenties enscenerion is top notch too.
Alberich von Frankenstein meets the seediest looking bunch of "gods" I ever saw! Wagerian fantasy as imagined by James Whale. Wonderful.
I love this portrayal of Loge! But Fafner in a wheelchair, and standing in the last scene to kill Fasolt, reminds me a bit of "Dr. Strangelove."
Oh absolutely, I'd assume it's an intentional reference.
not the only reference to "Dr Strangelove"; the way Loge takes pictures looks very simulair to the way the Russiun diplomate took pictures.
Sceptical I was at first but having seen it to the end of this part, it has become my favorite Ring. Why? I don't know. But I was gripped. Perhaps it is as Flemming said below "the whole production is filled with intelligent and funny details". Loge I find especially interesting.
Started with Siegfried, against my will, and could NOT stop. Ive never had concept production increase my understanding of the opera before. The close up, attention to detail, great singing and acting- Im finally understanding relationships and motivations, and the long boring sections are now fascinating. Its turning out to be my most important virus discovery
Thanks! Here it says 480p. There are some versions in 1080p, but without English subtitles.
Whoops, you're right! I just double-checked -- the DVDs I have are in DVD-9 with a 720x480p resolution. I'm not aware of a BluRay version, let alone a HD recording online, unfortunately.
truth?
I like seeing the naked guy swim.
after - I will go back to a chunk of Gold in a river, thank you.
naked mmmmm
If the actors for Froh and Donner had swapped their physical appearances, they’d match their roles better.
Froh should be the beardless blonde pretty boy, and Donner should be the burly bearded macho man.
A truly magnificent production of Wagners Ring, this Copenhagen Cycle! I have the DVD box and it really captures you from beginning to end. The singing isn't first rate, but it's not bad.
Just what we need, another 17 hours of Wagner singing that is not first rate as you described it.
I'd like to add something more to what I've replied to Dandolo. The public going to the opera or the theater goes there to forget his everyday life. All day long whether at his job or looking at the television or reading papers he's confronted with violence, sex and his personal life which is hectic and sometime terrible if not tragic, diseases, loss of dear and beloved ones. I've lost my grand parents during WWII murdered by the Nazis in Budapest. I can't blame two or three generations later the Germans for what their grand parents or great grand parents have done or pretended not to have seen. I have German friends and they are to be respected. We owe their country an incredible legacy of music probably never attained by any other nations.Just imagine in 70 years we will celebrate Le Nozze di Figaro 400th anniversary! We have to respect this achievement.
What the public searches in art, music and theater is to calm down, dream for a few hours. He's fed up with this attitude which is particularly linked to the way of thinking of leftist artists who consider that to amuse oneself or dream is not fashionable and even a sin. With those guys you have to act like the Christ and spend your time accusing yourselves of all the sins of the world and bear the cross!
But sorry we, the public, are happy to dream and somehow go back to our childhood times. May be this is stupid, well I for one I'm proud to be still with some kind of sensitivity and romantic attitudes. And I'm sure I'm not the only one here. I don't mind laughing at Oscar Wilde's comedies or Noel Coward's ones, I enjoy watching the Nutcracker and it reminds me of my childhood when I believed to the existence of Santa Claus. When I see Walkure's last scene with Wotan's and Brunhilde's farewell scene I can even cry and I'm not ashamed of it. But when the idiot who staged it show's me Brunhilde's naked and with a probability to see a woman with her breasts down to her knees, sorry but all the magic is lost! Not every singer is like Sophia Loren or Nicole Kidman! Just imagine Jessy Norman in that attire! The same goes for men. And an ugly set is distracting. you see only this and you do not focus on the action. A great French actor and Stage director, Louis Jouvet, used to tell his students: any movement on the stage, any set, any gesture which doesn't enhance the text, is distracting and ruins a play and its performance. This is exactly what the Actor's Studio advocates too. We should always be reminded of that and the stage directors in particular.
"Kinder, macht neu!"
Some participant her ridicules my notion that buddhism has influenced the drama "Parsifal." But the joke is on him! The biographist Henrik Nebelong and the auther Nila Parly both introduces the setup "Die Sieger" as a buddhist drama. As with "Jesus of Nazareth" it didn't make it. But the idea is partly taken up i Parsifal by the Kundry figure. She is a wandering soul going through many incarnations until she reaches redemption by the saviour figure Parsifal. He is clearly a (allthough only partly) a representation of Christ. Anybody who finds buddhism completly out there and in no way present in any work of Wagner must read som more, and not be satisfied with their homework so far.
1:06:57 Vielleicht sollten sich die Gött*Innen eine Pulle Smirnov aus der ersten Szene (Rheintöchter schäkern, Alberich kippt sich zu mit dem Wodka) genehmigen, dann ginge es ihnen besser.
Is there a version in full HD with English subtitles?
The upload is in the same video quality as the DVDs (720p). You can enable English subtitles by clicking on the CC button in the youtube player :)
Certainly extraordinary!
Did Wotan just kill Loge ??
Yes, and I have a real problem with that.
@@finylvinyl66 2:21:00 Agreed. Pointless, meaningless, out of character, and illogical, as Wotan will invoke Loge at the end of Walküre. This staging is rife with stupid ideas like this.
@@AtiqZabinski Hi, I think you mean two hours and twenty one minutes but you've given 2 minutes and 21 seconds as the time marker. Needs to be written as 2:21:00
This production is actually traditionalist compared to the whacko nonsense Castorff did.
I liked both, actually. I had the chance to go to Bayreuth and see Castorf's production......it was one of the greatest operativo experiences of my life.
I don't understand. Did the dwarf turn the heart of the swimming guy into a bracelet?
This is offcourse ambiguous. You would expect the ring to be forged from metallic gold. But the text itself leeds to another interpretation. The treasure is actually adressed by "he," and not "it." This suggests that the treasure is not metallic gold but the maidens lover. This is psycologically reliable, as in the days before Alberich, "kapital" did not exist. Gold was not money, only pretty shiny "rocks." No, what really had value was love. Love is the real treasure. Alberich killed love and made "kapital" out of the gold. But offcourse, the flesh can't be forged into a metallic ring. This we must accept, as we otherwise wouldn't get the symbolism right.
flemming dalsgaard Ha Ha!! That was great. Talk about thinking outside of the box. Inspired.
flemming dalsgaard
And now the whole thing makes sense.
@@flemmingdalsgaard4979DAS Rheingold isn’t „Der Rheingold“.
The opera never addressed the Gold by „he“. But by the correct and neutral pronoun „it“ :)
I assume that the naked man represents the gold. And Alberich rips his heart out. (The critic of the Philadelphia Inquirer said the same thing)
Rheingold per ser escoltat, però no vist. L'escenògraf no s'ha llegit l'argument. Millor només escoltar-lo. S'han equivocat
46:40.00 assolo di Loge 50:10.00 continuazione 2:15:37 entrata degli dei nel Walhalla.
2:13:25 onwards
Can't those bloody stage directors respect the fact that this is a legend, not to be in anyway related to ours period or even Wagner's period. It is based on the EDDA legends from Iceland; full stop! At this point the only production who did respect to the letter this, was the NYC production of the Met staged magnificently by Robert Lepage who intelligently used the technology of our time to overcome all the difficulties and problems Wagner had to face at his time. We are fed up with the so called intellectual visions of the Oliver Py's, Peter Sellars and other fools who pretend to know better than the composer himself and who probably did not even read the life of the composer and the material he used to create such a immense work.
In principle, You are right! And a version paying attention to theese old texts would be wonderful too. But the nordic mythology is in many ways based on the greek mythology. The dispute of Wotan and Fricka is right out of a scene with Zeus and Hera as well. After all, theese sagas and myths aren't real. They represent ideas that creates a foundation of the general european mind, so to speak. And therefore grasping this "mind" to serve it as an eatable meal of our time is not without relevans at all. As well as stories about moral and etical questions even today find relevanse even though they in many ways are based on christianity, whish is 2000 years old. (Christian thinking appears in motorcars and not on a donkeys back.)
But in one thng I aggree: The modern approach to the operas should not be based on the simple fact that we don't have money enough to do it right. And such discount performance should not be presentet as a brand new interpretation of art.
***** The comparison with Romeo and Juliet is not valid for the simple reason that it is a love story stricto sensu. the Ring is a philosophical analysis on good and evil and their consequences on the world's existence. That's why it has been so easily deviated by the Nazis to sustain their ideology of the pure race and all its consequences. When recently for Wagner's bicentennial I think in Bayreuth (but I'm not sure) the setting was a Texaco gas station, it was ruining the full concept of the libretto. Adapting Romeo and Juliet to modern times did not matter, also because the music had nothing to do with any other works, it is a play by itself and Bernstein and his librettist were not adapting a musical (if it had existed in 16th century ), they created a play which was coherent with itself. You can't do that with operas, the play, the plot, the time, the action already exist and to transfer it to modern times brings multiple contradictions in the way the whole production will be viewed. Don Giovanni in Sellars production is a gay guy who shoots hilmself with different drugs. Cosi was set up in a kitchen! It doesn't match the dialogs, there are references to precise places, etc...
flemming dalsgaard You're completely wrong, The Eddas legends have nothing in common with any previous ones. They are the original foundation of the medieval world of Nordic countries, of their philosophy where courage and strength are the prime values. Sigurd is the full image of these values. They were probably written around 1220.They were first considered as a manual of Scandinavian poetry and of the Icelandic culture by itself. It would be a total misconception of the Nordic civilization and its culture to try to relate it to any Latin or Greek culture and history. It's not because you find similitude in ways of thinking or telling a story or legend that one has been inspired by the older. The Eddas are at the base of the rediscovery in the 18th century of the German mythology, hence the interest taken by the 19th century . Without the Eddas one cant understand the Icelandic culture as there are no works remaining prior to that period to explain the evolution of its civilization.
Your error is the perfect example of what happens when a stage director tries too quickly to find similitude between his own culture and that of regions which have nothing to do with ours.
Even today in a world of easy communications, there are essential differences in cultures which make so difficult for them to get together, to react in the same way in the presence of certain events.
Look at the USA and Europe. Although the USA is by its ancestors directly linked to Europe the simple fact that the climate, the geographical features, are so different from Europe's, has imprinted on the customs, way of reacting to events especially natural events like storms etc, and make the US citizen a civilization of its own completely apart from its prime origins.
The American guy has a capacity of immediate reaction to a sudden event, climatic or even in his job that the European has not. Why? Because when you have to face a situation like crossing the Colorado at Grand Canyon you did not have time to gather a meeting and spend hours discussing the pros and cons. You had to do it or die. On one side you had the desert on the other you could find water and cultivate which meant life. The same if a flash-flood occurs, it will be a question of minutes. Today the change in the climate seems to bring to Europeans some of the characteristics of these US problems and we have a lot of difficulty to react because they are strange to us and we have not the necessary character and logic which is essential to face them. The comparison may seem far fetched by is quite real. .
jvdesuit1 The nordic myths about Wotan and Fricka are influenced by greek mythology. And Wagner himself was influenced by greek mythology and litterature as well.
And to my knowing Sigurd is not out of islandic eddas but by teutonic legends. Anyway the culture of Island was created by the people who sailed to this island in the Atlantic sea.
What ever is fact about theese old tales, Wagner did not just write somestories. He was far too involved in psychology and filosofy not to expect people to interprete his texts. There is very much to be interpreted in his text and poetry, and if his telling of stories just is performed like ordinary music with text, You would realy let him down.
I do dislike performances where modernism and simple plywood and cardboard dekorations are chosen just because there is no money to do it right. But the Copenhagen Ring is not one of them.
flemming dalsgaard I suggest that you read carefully Wagner's autobiography and you may search for hours if he was influenced by greek mythology.
Well then...
"May be unsuitable for conservative Wagnerians." hell, I don't care how the story is told, as long as its a good telling, if that makes sense.
The least imposing Erda I’ve heard.
Barely audible. Why?
I know Erda as performed in the Heanchen "Ring"and admired her for the sheep deep power and knowledge she radiated.
this Erda is like a courtisane and a lover ( well, she was the mother of the Walkures).
Magnificently hideous. "Intelligent and funny details", sing the paean of praise other commenters. Funny, yes, hilarious actually. Intelligent? Not so sure.
I'm sorry, but despite the accolades given this production.... I loathe it.
Why so? I love how lavish it is without being dull. There's a ton of little details that add to characterisation and feeling (though Walküre is a bit more minimalistic).
Enrico Dandolo Okay, the singers are singing the score, but what they're doing bears no resemblance to the story. In Walküre, Sieglinde pulling Nothung from the ash tree did me in. What was the point of that? It made no sense. I'd rather listen to an array of Rings I have on CD all with much better orchestras and singers.
JWPhoto I think it represents that Siegmund only shows her the way to free herself and she's not just a damsel to be rescued by the male hero.
Michifer Nice try,Michifer, but Sieglinde really is a damsel in distress, hopelessly chained to Hunding forever. Wotan promised "Siegmund" a sword when he needed it, not Sieglinde. Besides, you'd think Sieglinde would have tried to pull the sword from the ash tree since it's been there since her wedding. The production's a mess and I still loathe it.
Well, be happy with the old Met Ring's raggedy costumes, lack of direction, people just standing around and singing, and atrociously bad Brünnhilde...
The conductor and the director should look for another Job!!!
The director, Caspar Holten did look for another job. He was then employd by Covent Garden. A minor and insignificant opera company?