New to Wagner - Just purchased this big box set.

[king ubu]

So would they prefer decaf Wagner? 

[jochanaan]

...Completely agree with the almost super-human orchestral demands. Wagner saves some of the most difficult music for the END of each opera where the orchestra is pretty well burnt out. For example the rather exposed piccolo part in the Magic Fire Music at the end of Die Walkuere.

Piccolo must be really difficult to play because I learned to play the magic fire fairly easily on piano and I am so bad at playing instruments I can't even be described as a beginner.

As orchestral instruments go, piccolo is not particularly difficult, and piccolo players are used to being "exposed," since they are always heard if they play at all. That part is not technically difficult, but it does require precision.  The violin parts there are much more demanding.  And as you say, the orchestra has already been playing for four-plus hours...!  Although not continuously.  While Wagner wrote more on average for the orchestra than most other opera composers, there are in fact many rests for every section of the orchestra.

[Karl Henning]

As orchestral instruments go, piccolo is not particularly difficult, and piccolo players are used to being "exposed," since they are always heard if they play at all.

This composer accepts the challenge! 

[MishaK]

As many times as the Metropolitan Opera has presented this work I don't ever recall it being performed on 4 consecutive nights. It is probably for practical reasons as well - the demand on the audience to sit through 4 consecutive evenings is a bit much.

Not to mention the challenge for busy New Yorkers to find four consecutive nights on which they are free to go to the opera.

[71 dB]

Getting properly into Wagner has always been difficult for me. I just don't know how to do it. I have only two of his operas: Der Fliegende Holländer (Pinchas Steinberg, Naxos) and Tristan Und Isolde (Antonio Pappano, EMI). Everything Wagner did was so BIG. Almost everything is 4 hours long (Ring seems like impossible!). It is like the music is physically too large to fit into my life. I happened to listen to Der Fliegende Holländer recently and I enjoyed it. I got interested of getting into Wagner better, but how? I'd like to have Blu-ray's of his operas, but they aren't cheap. I feel like I'd need to put all my money, time and energy on Wagner, but that's a massive sacrifice. I don't know which operas I even like the most. Parsival? Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg? Something else?

I have this problems with operas in general: They are long works and you can't purchase them in small junks, act by act. It's the whole thing or some excepts only.

[Elgarian Redux]

Getting properly into Wagner has always been difficult for me. I just don't know how to do it. I have only two of his operas: Der Fliegende Holländer (Pinchas Steinberg, Naxos) and Tristan Und Isolde (Antonio Pappano, EMI). Everything Wagner did was so BIG. Almost everything is 4 hours long (Ring seems like impossible!). It is like the music is physically too large to fit into my life. I happened to listen to Der Fliegende Holländer recently and I enjoyed it. I got interested of getting into Wagner better, but how? I'd like to have Blu-ray's of his operas, but they aren't cheap. I feel like I'd need to put all my money, time and energy on Wagner, but that's a massive sacrifice. I don't know which operas I even like the most. Parsival? Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg? Something else?

I have this problems with operas in general: They are long works and you can't purchase them in small junks, act by act. It's the whole thing or some excepts only.

We did it (my wife and I) through a record of excerpts from Gotterdammerung. We played it and listened to it. Then again a few days later; then again a few days after that. By this time some of the music was starting to stick, and indeed some was starting to overwhelm us. On that basis we took a great leap of faith and bought Karl Bohm's complete Ring (at a time when we had very little money to spare). We never looked back after that. For several years the Ring became the most important music in our lives, and made a permanent impact.

You can easily buy a CD of excerpts from the Solti Ring. Eg here: Excerpts CD on eBay

It won't cost much to try it. See if anything happens for you. If nothing happens, not much is lost.

[Spotted Horses]

Getting properly into Wagner has always been difficult for me. I just don't know how to do it. I have only two of his operas: Der Fliegende Holländer (Pinchas Steinberg, Naxos) and Tristan Und Isolde (Antonio Pappano, EMI). Everything Wagner did was so BIG. Almost everything is 4 hours long (Ring seems like impossible!). It is like the music is physically too large to fit into my life. I happened to listen to Der Fliegende Holländer recently and I enjoyed it. I got interested of getting into Wagner better, but how? I'd like to have Blu-ray's of his operas, but they aren't cheap. I feel like I'd need to put all my money, time and energy on Wagner, but that's a massive sacrifice. I don't know which operas I even like the most. Parsival? Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg? Something else?

I have this problems with operas in general: They are long works and you can't purchase them in small junks, act by act. It's the whole thing or some excepts only.

I found Wagner a lot easier to comprehend when I watched video with subtitles. They are not symphonies, you can't get it without following the action (IMO) and reading along with booklets doesn't work for me. BR is nice, but ordinary DVDs will do for me, and the expense is not so enormous.

[hopefullytrusting]

For me, I still don't really enjoy Wagner, as his philosophy was integral to his craft, and he is repulsive even when measured by others who are repulsive, but I did really enjoy - in that the music made more sense - with the Opera North production on YouTube, which is consecutive and continuous:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWhRThHJGoE

But, this is only of the conductor, but I am only listening, as I find opera, in general, to be a silly spectacle.

If you want to see the performances, they are split up as normal on this playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQg96imuuOC8owUuCZiSA-Ql9SdpQn6hv

[Karl Henning]

I found Wagner a lot easier to comprehend when I watched video with subtitles. They are not symphonies, you can't get it without following the action (IMO) and reading along with booklets doesn't work for me. BR is nice, but ordinary DVDs will do for me, and the expense is not so enormous.

That's an excellent suggestion. 

[(poco) Sforzando]

Getting properly into Wagner has always been difficult for me. I just don't know how to do it. I have only two of his operas: Der Fliegende Holländer (Pinchas Steinberg, Naxos) and Tristan Und Isolde (Antonio Pappano, EMI). Everything Wagner did was so BIG. Almost everything is 4 hours long (Ring seems like impossible!). It is like the music is physically too large to fit into my life. I happened to listen to Der Fliegende Holländer recently and I enjoyed it. I got interested of getting into Wagner better, but how? I'd like to have Blu-ray's of his operas, but they aren't cheap. I feel like I'd need to put all my money, time and energy on Wagner, but that's a massive sacrifice. I don't know which operas I even like the most. Parsival? Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg? Something else?

I have this problems with operas in general: They are long works and you can't purchase them in small junks, act by act. It's the whole thing or some excepts only.

No reason why you can't listen to Wagner one act at a time. That's the beauty of recording technology. It's not as if you have to park yourself at the opera house for half a day experiencing the entire work. And there are quite good DVDs, BluRays, and YouTubes of many operas some of which you can have for a song. (Or an aria.) I see for example just now on eBay a copy of the Metropolitan Opera's quite good DVD Meistersinger from 2001 which cost me only $6 USD plus $5 shipping. So I bought myself a second copy to give away to someone who might like it. Someone here, perhaps?

Of course, part of the problem with opera DVDs/BluRays, even more than with audio CDs, is that so much opera production these days is eccentric stuff designed to highlight some director's "vision" rather than illuminate the characters and story. You can find the 2022 Bayreuth Ring cycle directed by Valentin Schwarz on Stage-Plus.com (for a fee), for example, but I wouldn't recommend it to any Wagner newbie as it doesn't make sense even to someone like me who has known the cycle intimately for 50 years. But if you tread carefully, there are lots of good DVDs/BRs of opera to be had for relatively little money.

[JBS]

Getting properly into Wagner has always been difficult for me. I just don't know how to do it. I have only two of his operas: Der Fliegende Holländer (Pinchas Steinberg, Naxos) and Tristan Und Isolde (Antonio Pappano, EMI). Everything Wagner did was so BIG. Almost everything is 4 hours long (Ring seems like impossible!). It is like the music is physically too large to fit into my life. I happened to listen to Der Fliegende Holländer recently and I enjoyed it. I got interested of getting into Wagner better, but how? I'd like to have Blu-ray's of his operas, but they aren't cheap. I feel like I'd need to put all my money, time and energy on Wagner, but that's a massive sacrifice. I don't know which operas I even like the most. Parsival? Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg? Something else?

I have this problems with operas in general: They are long works and you can't purchase them in small junks, act by act. It's the whole thing or some excepts only.

One act at a time seems to work for many people.

You might want to try Rheingold to get a good taste of the Ring. It's four continous scenes with no break, but it fits comfortably on 2 CDs (about 2 1/2 hours), comparable to a lot of operas by Verdi and others.

[Elgarian Redux]

You might want to try Rheingold to get a good taste of the Ring. It's four continous scenes with no break, but it fits comfortably on 2 CDs (about 2 1/2 hours), comparable to a lot of operas by Verdi and others.

That might well work. Remembering back to our beginnings in 1973: when our Bohm complete Ring arrived, we just started with Rheingold, and were very quickly absorbed into the watery world of the first Act, even though the Gotterdammerung excerpts were the only Wagner we were familiar with. I must admit that by then we were straining at the leash to 'get in', but the point is that we found no difficulty in doing so, via Rheingold.

I should add, for clarification, that the Ring is the only Wagner I've ever become truly besotted with. To this day, when I think of Wagner, it's the Ring I have in mind.

[Roasted Swan]

Getting properly into Wagner has always been difficult for me. I just don't know how to do it. I have only two of his operas: Der Fliegende Holländer (Pinchas Steinberg, Naxos) and Tristan Und Isolde (Antonio Pappano, EMI). Everything Wagner did was so BIG. Almost everything is 4 hours long (Ring seems like impossible!). It is like the music is physically too large to fit into my life. I happened to listen to Der Fliegende Holländer recently and I enjoyed it. I got interested of getting into Wagner better, but how? I'd like to have Blu-ray's of his operas, but they aren't cheap. I feel like I'd need to put all my money, time and energy on Wagner, but that's a massive sacrifice. I don't know which operas I even like the most. Parsival? Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg? Something else?

I have this problems with operas in general: They are long works and you can't purchase them in small junks, act by act. It's the whole thing or some excepts only.

I have much the same problem especially with Wagner.  I'm rarely convinced that his operas need to be 4 hours long!  Too often I find myself thinking that his characters like the sound of their own voices droaning on and on at GREAT LENGTH about something that could be surmarised in probably a quarter of the time!  But then there will be the most amazing passage of music (Rossini's "beautiful moments but awful [or interminable] quarters of an hour" is hard to disagree with).  I'm not sure Wagner did himself any favours by writing the libretti too - it means a lack of creative disagreement/debate (the whole words or music thing) in the early phase of writing that I'm not sure benefits the final result.