Wagner is one of my passions--and this week is my only chance to go to a Wagner opera this season: tomorrow night's performance of Die Meistersinger at the Met. So this week, it will be all-Wagner, all the time here at Superconductor. Cosima would have been so happy!
The week kicked off right with the review of Lohengrin and I am going to spend some time catching up on a DVD performance of Der Ring des Nibelungen that I haven't had a chance to watch yet: the OpusArte DVD set from Barcelona. This production is done by Harry Kupfer (same artist who was responsible for the Bayreuth "Laser" Ring of 1988--which is now available on DVD.
I've had the Kupfer/Barenboim '88 Ring on VHS for ten years....OK fine, I'm a Wagner geek--traded my old EMI CD copies of the English-language ENO/Goodall Rhinegold, Valkyrie and Twilight of the Gods for 'em in Boston in '96! So for the sake of variety, I've decided to write up the second Kupfer Ring, filmed in Barcelona with Bertrand de Billy on the podium and some of the same cast. If I have the energy, you might also see a piece about the new Parsifal conducted by Christian Thielemann, and another Ring Cycle from the Netherlands in which the orchestra is moved from the traditional "infinite abyss" to being directly in the middle of the action....
Reviews to follow.
Photo: Falk Struckmann layeth the smack down in Das Rheingold
Photo © 2005 Antonio Bofill/Opus Arte.