Wagner One Ring to rule them all...

[Sergeant Rock]

Turning the tables on me now, I see. I want them all! I want them all!

  ...sorry

I've just picked up the Karajan Rheingold DVD. I was anticipating the visuals to be a mixed bag, and a brief half-hour flirtation with it confirmed that; but it was cheap enough to be worth a try, and I hoped it might give me a taste of the Karajan approach to things - though this isn't the same cast as the earlier audio recording, I think?

Almost completely different casts. Edda Moser is the Wellgunde on both. Ridderbusch is Fasolt on one, Fafner on the other. That's it. The DVD cast looks like a good one, though.

Sarge

[Elgarian]

As far as the visuals, it is a bit dated by 70's movie technique, the opening scene with the Rheinmaidens swinging around on cables is perhaps the most cringe inducing.

Yes - I feel distinctly more comfortable (that is, no longer worrying about whether to laugh or cry) once we get out of the river, and in fact I was quite impressed with the stage set for Scene 2, and thought the giants were pretty good. Freia gives a good impression of a cardboard cutout of a frightened goddess, but is very golden and beautiful, so I don't mind too much.

As you say, the music is excellent and I'm happy to close my eyes wherever necessary!

[Scarpia]

Yes - I feel distinctly more comfortable (that is, no longer worrying about whether to laugh or cry) once we get out of the river, and in fact I was quite impressed with the stage set for Scene 2, and thought the giants were pretty good. Freia gives a good impression of a cardboard cutout of a frightened goddess, but is very golden and beautiful, so I don't mind too much.

As you say, the music is excellent and I'm happy to close my eyes wherever necessary!

There was one scene that I thought worked out quite well, although the production quality was not the highest.  The one during the interlude with the tuned anvils, where we plunge down under the earth to the forge where the Nibelungen are slaving away on the rheingold, and then out again.  Well conceived, I thought, although they clearly did not have the resources to make the special effects convincing.

[DarkAngel]

Getting close to making a purchase, these sound samples at JPC sound very very good........

http://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/Richard-Wagner-Der-Ring-des-Nibelungen/hnum/6471079

[DarkAngel]

Any comments on the lastest 2005 Gebhardt remaster of 1953 Furtwangler Ring......

Everyone says sound much more detailed than older EMI release, cast is fabulous. JPC has sound samples of this also and mono sound does have some grain and ambient noise but voices are pretty detailed for radio broadcast

Very cheap......

[Sergeant Rock]

Any comments on the lastest 2005 Gebhardt remaster of 1953 Furtwangler Ring......

I own it. There is a bottom layer of grain but it's not objectionable (to my ears). Compared to LPs I heard years ago, Gephardt has accomplished a miracle. This Ring sounds very good indeed (considering its age and provenance). If you can accept a less than great band (brass especially weak, seemingly unable to follow Furt's beat at times, intonation problems), it's certainly worth having (for the cast, for the conducting...he really is a force of nature). It's especially attractive at JPC's price.

Sarge

[knight66]

As far as I know neither of Goodall's much praised principle Ring singers, Remedios and Hunter, nor his Isolde Linda Esther Gray, seem to have achieved a great deal under other batons.

I have a live recording of Mahler 8 under Boulez from 1975. Remedios manages the first movement OK, but the second movement is a shocker, possibly the worst singing I have heard coming out of a professional singer.

The Ring comes variously from 73 to 77. So he was clearly not a 'spent' singer by 75. But once the partnership split up and Hunter went to Australia, there seems not to have been a continuation of the glory days.

Goodall went in for extraordinary runs of rehearsals and really worked in detail with the singers, but he surely was not Svengali. Gray was supposed to sing Turandot, after the Isolde, but she withdrew from the first of a run of performances and I never heard of her again.

I wonder why the others seemed to sink without trace?

Mike

[DarkAngel]

I own it. There is a bottom layer of grain but it's not objectionable (to my ears). Compared to LPs I heard years ago, Gephardt has accomplished a miracle. This Ring sounds very good indeed (considering its age and provenance). If you can accept a less than great band (brass especially weak, seemingly unable to follow Furt's beat at times, intonation problems), it's certainly worth having (for the cast, for the conducting...he really is a force of nature). It's especially attractive at JPC's price.

Amazon USA has it for close to $50, but have to deal with limited mono sound quality plus as you say orchestra is definitely not top tier......you do get some great singers plus Furtwangler

Have you checked those Keilberth sound samples at JPC, 1955 Decca live stereo sounds very good on Testament release (especailly compared to Furtwangler for instance)

[Sergeant Rock]

Have you checked those Keilberth sound samples at JPC?

Not recently. And please, don't tempt me 

Sarge

[BMW]

Any comments on the lastest 2005 Gebhardt remaster of 1953 Furtwangler Ring......

Everyone says sound much more detailed than older EMI release, cast is fabulous. JPC has sound samples of this also and mono sound does have some grain and ambient noise but voices are pretty detailed for radio broadcast

Very cheap......

Gebhardt did a fine job with the La Scala Ring (my favorite of the two but not better when it comes to recording quality) -- I would hope this mastering standard was at least met with the 1953 version.

[Elgarian]

I just wrote a long review of this, then did that thing where you click on the previewed text by accident (instead of the text entering panel), and behold - all is lost. Bah! And bah again. I haven't the heart to write it all out again.

The short version: mixed bag. Perfectly acceptable most of the time, but ruined by absurdly inadequate 'special effects'. I'm glad to have seen this once; but I wouldn't like to say how many more viewings it will get. Possibly none. I'm glad it didn't cost much.

[DarkAngel]

I just wrote a long review of this, then did that thing where you click on the previewed text by accident (instead of the text entering panel), and behold - all is lost. Bah! And bah again. I haven't the heart to write it all out again.

The short version: mixed bag. Perfectly acceptable most of the time, but ruined by absurdly inadequate 'special effects'. I'm glad to have seen this once; but I wouldn't like to say how many more viewings it will get. Possibly none. I'm glad it didn't cost much.

I suspect one possible problem was HVK got too involved in the actual movie direction in addition to the music........

I did make a Blu Ray purchase myself and am awaiting delivery:



First two operas of 2008 Valencia Ring with Zubin Mehta, blu-ray format allows each opera to fit on 1 disc, if this provides the visual blockbuster I hope the other two operas will soon follow.....

In the near future I will compare these to Levine and Boulez DVD sets.......

Valencia Opera House
Please check these pix of amazing new design by architect Santiago Calatrava!

http://archiatlas.org/palau-de-les-arts-santiago-calatrava

[False_Dmitry]

As far as I know neither of Goodall's much praised principle Ring singers, Remedios and Hunter, nor his Isolde Linda Esther Gray, seem to have achieved a great deal under other batons.

I have a live recording of Mahler 8 under Boulez from 1975. Remedios manages the first movement OK, but the second movement is a shocker, possibly the worst singing I have heard coming out of a professional singer.

The Ring comes variously from 73 to 77. So he was clearly not a 'spent' singer by 75. But once the partnership split up and Hunter went to Australia, there seems not to have been a continuation of the glory days.

Goodall went in for extraordinary runs of rehearsals and really worked in detail with the singers, but he surely was not Svengali. Gray was supposed to sing Turandot, after the Isolde, but she withdrew from the first of a run of performances and I never heard of her again.

I wonder why the others seemed to sink without trace?

Mike

Alberto* Remedios was far from a spent force after the ENO Ring cycles.  He went on to sing an impressive TRISTAN at ENO.  However, he suffered a physical injury (I forget exactly what - twisted ankle or similar?) and couldn't continue with the run.  Kenneth Woollam - a magnificent ENO in-house heldentenor, whose greatest fame was as Pierre in WAR & PEACE - took over, and got rave reviews that he well deserved.   They were two entirely different performances - Remedios the "big voice" performer, and Woollam the tortured, guilt-ridden knight.  An unexpected "bonus" from this event was that Woollam was released from his commitments on WAR & PEACE (then in re-rehearsal for the infamously disastrous tour of the USA),  and Stuart Kale - who had understudied it for years, and never had a performance - took over Pierre, and made a triumph of it.

Alberto later sang the title role in Stravinsky's OEDIPUS REX in a Camden Festival production conducted by Anthony Shelley,  performed in the Elgin Marbles hall at the British Museum,  and with Maurice Denham as the Narrator, standing on top of the Altar of Zeus (with the BM's very special permission).  I can confirm these performances since I was in the chorus for them 

Alberto freely admitted he couldn't read music, nor did he ever learn.  This contributed in no small part to the mammoth note-bashing sessions involved in his Ring preparations.

The story of Lynda Esther Gray is altogether more sad, and is not for public telling.   But there were several more ENO singers during that period whose careers were prematurely extinguished in similar fashion.  Let us not name them though, please?  ENO has been a poor parent to too many of its offspring


*He was not the only tenor Remedios.  His brother, Ramon Remedios, had a somewhat shorter career, mainly for Welsh National Opera and Opera North.

[knight66]

That was all very interesting, thanks. Oedipus is a favourite piece of mine and I have enjoyed singing in it. I do envy you the chance to sing it in that hall in the BM. I often haunt it in late night openings during the winter, when the lighting partly emulates moonlight. Very beautiful.

Oddly enough, from that Boulez Mahler performance, which I was singing in, I got the impression from watching him that Remedios literally lost where he was in the score.

Mike

[False_Dmitry]

Oddly enough, from that Boulez Mahler performance, which I was singing in, I got the impression from watching him that Remedios literally lost where he was in the score.

I'm surprised he even knew where he was before he got lost

[Elgarian]

Good idea to join the new thread onto the old one, but ... I started the new one because I searched for 'Wagner Ring' and found nothing suitable. And now, if I do the same search, it still doesn't find this thread. I'm not great at this searching business, but maybe others are as ungreat at it as me - so ... would it be possible for a kind Moderator to modify the title of this thread to include the word 'Wagner' so that it shows up on a simple search of thread titles, please?

[BMW]

Good idea to join the new thread onto the old one, but ... I started the new one because I searched for 'Wagner Ring' and found nothing suitable. And now, if I do the same search, it still doesn't find this thread. I'm not great at this searching business, but maybe others are as ungreat at it as me - so ... would it be possible for a kind Moderator to modify the title of this thread to include the word 'Wagner' so that it shows up on a simple search of thread titles, please?

I am not sure about before, but now a search of 'Wagner Ring' brings up this thread -- maybe it was your post that solved the problem!   

[Scarpia]

I just wrote a long review of this, then did that thing where you click on the previewed text by accident (instead of the text entering panel), and behold - all is lost. Bah! And bah again. I haven't the heart to write it all out again.

The short version: mixed bag. Perfectly acceptable most of the time, but ruined by absurdly inadequate 'special effects'. I'm glad to have seen this once; but I wouldn't like to say how many more viewings it will get. Possibly none. I'm glad it didn't cost much.

I have to admit that the special effects in the film seem more appropriate to a Ray Harryhausen monster movie than to Wagner's epic Ring.    But with a little suspension of disbelief I found it as compelling a telling of the Rheingold story as I have seen, and musically I think it may be my absolute favorite.

[Elgarian]

I am not sure about before, but now a search of 'Wagner Ring' brings up this thread -- maybe it was your post that solved the problem!   

So it does! How strange!

[Brahmsian]

So it does! How strange!

The Ring's magical powers are already working wonders!