DVD Review: Fire, Flood, and Formaldehyde

The La Scala Ring ends with Götterdämmerung.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

A wall of corpses: Lance Ryan (left) and Iréne Theorin in Götterdämmerung.
Photo © 2014 Teatro Alla Scala/ArtHaus Musik. 

Richard Wagner originally planned the Ring Cycle to be one opera, Siegfrieds Tod, which would tell the epic story of Siegfried and his adventures among the Gibichungs, a grasping, Rhine-dwelling royal family who figure prominently in the German national epic the Nibelunglied. However, he wrote the music for the retitled Götterdämmerung last in the Ring, meaning that the epic, sweeping music propels a libretto that could be suitable for French grand opera. This stylistic dichotomy is never easy for any conductor to resolve, but on this 2014 Blu-Ray filmed at La Scala, conductor Daniel Barenboim does a pretty impressive job.

Opera Review: The Relief Princess

Iréne Theorin saves WNO Tristan und Isolde.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Iréne Theorin is Isolde in Washington National Opera's Tristan und Isolde.
Photo by Scott Suchman © 2013 Washington National Opera/The Kennedy Center.

For her first production as artistic director of the Washington National Opera, Francesca Zambello chose  Wagner's Tristan und Isolde. One of Wagner's most abstract and ambitious works, this tale of doomed romance  realized at the Kennedy Center in a handsome production imported from Opera Australia. This reviewer attended the Sept. 24 performance, the last of this run to feature the "first" cast.