Customer Reviews

Wagner - Gotterdammerung / Bonnema, DeVol, Iturralde, Kapellmann, Bracht, Westbroek, Zagrosek, Stuttgart Opera

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Having seen this production in Stuttgart, I have been waiting for this DVD for years! Not only was this "Production of the Year" for 2000 (Operwelt Magazine), it also features Opernwelt's "Singer of the Year", Luana DeVol, who nails the role of Brunhilde vocally and with her grand stage presence (can you say Immolation Scene!!!). I am generally not a fan of modern productions and I understand those who are shocked by something "different", but somehow Konwitschny takes a lot of interesting ideas and blends them into an extremely entertaining interpretation that moves along quite well. Bits of humour are refreshing but absolutely never take away from the seriousness of the great work and, in fact, make for a very refreshing appreciation of Wagner. I have seen a few of Konwitschny's productions through the years and this is his best work yet.

As mentioned, I have been waiting a long time to see this production again and I am happy to say it made me smile as I did a few years ago in Stuttgart when I was blown away by it's freshness and and strong performances by all.

This "Gotterdammerung" may not work for you if you're looking for total Wagnerian seriousness, but for those who don't mind some humor this proves to be a surprisingly wonderful experience. Each of the four parts of this Ring was entrusted by Stuttgart to a different director. That accounts for the great unevenness in quality between this part and the rest of the cycle. Potentially the greatest weakness of this production is Albert Bonnema, who sings Siegfriend so comically as to be jarring initially. By the end, however, the palpable intensity of his feeling for the character washes through the house in waves of emotion. He doesn't have a particularly great voice, but he invests every line with significance. Luana DeVol, while not a traditional Brunnhilde, gives a delightfully droll interpretation. We have a phenomenal Hagen in Roland Bracht. When he rips open his shirt and bellows for his men, you know something big is about to happen. The Norns (played as bag ladies) are very good, and there is a fantastic chorus. Yet the star might be the orchestra under Lothar Zagrosek. Finally, the mise en scene and directing is first rate. If only Stuttgart had entrusted the rest of this Ring cycle to Mr. Konwitschny! He is truly a talented stage director. For a light-hearted "Gotterdammerung" that still manages to be emotionally gripping, you can hardly do better than this one.

Despite my strong aversion to Regietheater's controversial concepts, I find Konwitschny's sensible direction of 'Gotterdammerung' (my favourite 'Ring' opera) quite absorbing as a modern-dress staging. The primitive innocence of Siegfried (finely sung and acted by Bonnema) is underlined through his idyllic Tarzan costume: later, the scheming Gibichungs dress him up in a 'civilized' suit. DeVol's chubby Brunnhilde, contrary to what detractors think, suggests an equally naive character, a fairy-tale bride who is content as a housewife in her simple dwelling with a dining-table, chairs, food, drink and flowers (the curtain in the background projects a sylvan landscape), and who (in due course) is victimized by a corrupt world that humiliates her (in Act 2 she enters with hands tied with the long rope dragged by Gunther): though 60 at the time, DeVol possesses a surprisingly indefatigable voice whose tiny vibrato is acceptable to my ears (I'm a fan of Jones and Marton, if you know what I mean!). Special praise goes to Iturralde: the most distinguished male soloist here, he sings a melliflous (bel-canto-ish!) Gunther. The best female member of the cast is Westbroek, a swooningly beautiful Gutrune, both vocally and physically. Despite his brief appearance, Kapellmann's menacing Alberich is no less outstanding (he's a magnificent 'Rheingold' Alberich on the Dohnanyi Decca recording); to some extent, this is also true of the Hagen of Bracht: visually, their duet is the most spine-chilling scene in this production (the nibelung, who dies in his son's arms, is a hunchback with abnormally long fingers and big feet, wearing black shoes and a large white robe - Hagen covers his dead father with the white sheet worn on the latter's shoulder - his 'reduced' stature evoking a deformed dwarf). Vaughn, a black mezzo (chubbier than DeVol), performs a moving angst-ridden Waltraute. The Norns (bag ladies) and Rhinemaidens (glamorous models? pop/movie stars?) are very good trios (Collins, who doubles as the First Norn and Flosshilde, is slightly wobbly in the former role). Zagrosek draws gorgeous sounds from his orchestra: you might (as I did) come across new things that you've never heard before while listening to other recordings of this opera. The Gibichung chorus performs excitingly, especially in Hagen's aria, another memorable highlight. That Konwitschny dispenses with the epic nature of 'Gotterdammerung' is an advantage, since the action takes place on an intimate stage with a small rotating set, bringing the events so close to the audience that they become a part of the performance: the cameras register their reaction, as when most of them discover that the Norns (bag ladies whom they might have met in the streets before their arrival at the theatre) are already on the stage (nearly 5 minutes before the start of the music), and also when the house lights are suddenly switched on soon after Hagen's attempt to wrench the ring from Siegfried's finger, then Brunnhilde (having sent all characters, including Siegfried, off-stage with forget-and-forgive gestures) addresses her peroration to the audience directly, not unlike an Elizabethan 'epilogue' character speaking to a public-theatre audience, complementing the Norns, who are no more than 'prologue' roles; during the concluding moments, the cameras again focus on the audience, some listening with closed eyes while the final stage directions (rather than acted out) are being projected on a black screen. I wish the whole cycle were directed by Konwitschny: the previous instalments of this multi-directed 'Ring' are below standard, compared to this one, which I recommend not only to hardcore Wagnerians who would like to try something different but also to newcomers looking for a light-hearted (though not entirely farcical) staging. An audio version of the performance exists on Naxos, but (the overall vocal quality not being satisfactory for some, if not many, listeners) it may not be as enjoyable as when experienced in sound and vision simultaneously.

Meine Damen und Herren/Ladies and Gentlemen here it is:THE GUTTER-DÄMMERUNG.Folks,please brace yourselves for quite a ride!
After all the series of childish shananegans and the codswallop we witnessed in the previous three installments here comes the apocalyptic conclusion which crowns Richard Wagner's 25-years most monumental composition,whose production,I must confess is definitely the best of this whole bleak Stuttgart cycle.
In spite of the chichat and the fighting of the three Norns over the brown purse before the music of the prologue starts,the current time suit and tie attires of the characters,including Siegfried's sort of Fred Flintstone-like fur garment worn in the prologue and first act and the natural landscapes'projections shown in act III scene I,Konwitschny's conception of the piece,I must appallingly confess is the only one that makes a tiny tad of sense compared to the previous three of this anti-Ring,bearing in mind the old adagio that:"The one-eyed reigns in the land of the blind"...
We also have much better singing,particularly from the three principals:Bass Roland Bracht is a convincing Hagen(special fun
when he kills Gunther with a vicious karate chop!),dutch tenor Albert Bonnema,whom we've already heard as Giovanni De'Salviati and the Lay Brother in Schilling's MONA LISA navigates through the harsh work of his role with much more easiness than
Jon Frederick West in SIEGFRIED,not forgetting that lyrical Siegfrieds are the only ones available nowadays and finally soprano Luana De Vol,far away from being an ideal Brünnhilde does a satisfactory job,her voice of course much more suited
to the roles she performed in Franz Schreker's operas,like Eva in IRRELOHE and Lisa in the Vienna 1991 performances of his superb CHRISTOPHORUS ODER DIE VISION EINER OPER.
But in a world where Flagstads and Nilssons are icons from the past she's quite bearable,much deeper than for instance,Kupfer-Barenboim's lyrical soprano Anne Evans.

Another brushstroke of nonsense is the conception of Alberich,the agent of evil and selfishness dying is Hagen's arms at the end of scene I,act II,if we compare with Kupfer's much more logical rendition of making the character the
only survivor at the end of the cycle.Pure reality:EVIL NEVER DIES.
Now we cut down to dessert topped with confetti,and this is Konwitschny's major gaffe:a brechtian address by Brünnhilde in her final immolation,while the curtain descends and Wagner's scenic indications are projected verbatim on a screen...
Now if the director wanted us to "just listen to the score"(quote)why not stay home and listen to any of the immortal classic versions?
Overall we will witness a much more interesting production,but always bear in mind that this is just experimental,far from the composer's will,perhaps more suited for an opera house like Bayreuth's,with a narrow repertoire of 10 works alone,rather than to establishments who have millions of other possibilities.
Like its predecessors,although to a lesser degree,it falls extremely short from being likable.
I think we've reached a point where lunacy equals common sense.
Sorry fellows...Only two stars and I think I'm being quite kind and magnanimous!!!

having completed the ne plus ultra Boulez Ring and the its "making of disc", a friend and I turned to this dvd to see what was new. The music and singing might have been OK for all we could tell, but the staging mocked the opera, rather than enhanced it. Brunhilde was quite frankly fat, old, and ugly. Siegfried was middle aged and scantily dressed in a bearskin. The stage setting was a pastiche of cliches. In Wagner, the words come first, the music second, and the stagecraft last. The stage work is supposed to illuminate, not distract.

The Stuttgart -- seven DVD -- version of Richard Wagner's four opera Ring cycle, has made its somewhat disappointing 2004 premier.
An ambitious project conceived by Klaus Zehelein, the plan was to turn the Ring tetralogy over to four separate Designer/Director teams giving us four very personalized and single focused operas - the first time in the Ring's history that this has been done.
Theoretically, it was probably hoped that each team would be creative and not follow any preconceived model of what the Ring should look like, but instead, operate independently of each other and give us something that would be stylistically different while maintaining the thematic continuity and cohesiveness envisioned by the composer. The overall concept sounded promising, but a fault line ran through this cycle and ultimately consumed the idea and doomed it, giving us considerably less than what would be expected from such a grand and promising undertaking. The complete review of this seven disk set appears in the August 1st 2004 edition of OperaOnline.us

I love the singing, the conducting, and the acting = I would rate this 6 stars however, the ending (the final immolation scene) was super disappointed...after brunhilda last note, the curtain falls and that's it! the music continue for another 5 minutes or so with text scrolling explaining of what is happening...no action what so ever. The world "zuruck vom ring" is amplified and again, with the curtain closed, there was no action.