Richard Wagner's Siegfried

[angryjalapeno]

The tempo is a bit slow. And I'm not liking Brunnhilde's big vibrato and muffled sound.

[topperheartramada]

I like the music but I can never figure out what the hell they are actually saying or what they are doing.

[angryjalapeno]

@topperheartramada, read the lyrics or watch a dvd with subtitles.

[topperheartramada]

@angryjalapeno yeah, but what if there aren't any? or if you're at the opera and they give you this short description of what is happening and you desperately try to identify the characters and try and see some connection with wthat's happening on the stage and what the story is supposed to be. i find myself too puzzled to even concentrate on the music.

[angryjalapeno]

@topperheartramada, in some opera houses, there are supertitles above the stage or even little screens on the back of seats that display the librettos. But yeah, without subtitles/supertitles, it can be difficult to follow Wagner since there is more verbage than stage action.

[amaxamon]

Hideous. Awful. Garbage. Stage design to no purpose. Utter dreck. Give me horned helms and spears any day over this tripe.

[BlueCougar]

@amaxamon Yes, this production is for an audience with imagination and a mind of their own. How disgusting indeed. And they probably are all Democrat voters, too.

[amaxamon]

@BlueCougar Well aren't you superior? Looks like pretentious, vacuous shit to me. But hey, there's no accounting for "taste," is there?

[tt0308]

Conservative opera "fans" do not care about this form of art....they are looking for a kind of music theater museum. Yes ... We are actually living in the 21st century and there is fantastic stage technology available out there. I want to see those thing used by gifted people who preserved their artistic skill to approach thing different from everyone else - because that is what art is about.

[bayreuth79]

I hate these modern productions of the "Ring". Whoever designs the sets, costumes, etc., has absolutely no aesthetic sense. It is rather like going to Tate Modern: ugliness masquerading as art! I am quite sure Wagner himself would be appalled by what many opera houses are doing to his operas- not least Bayreuth, which had Wagner appear on stage dancing in his underpants!

[rumpwrestler]

@bayreuth79 Where have you been all these decades? have you never read Wagner's Music Theater of the Future? obviously not.

[bayreuth79]

@rumpwrestler In fact, I have read Wagner's books and I cannot for the life of me work out what possible bearing that book could have on my comment? Perhaps you are unaware of Brian Magee's and Roger Scruton's books on Wagner? These support what I said about modern productions of Wagner's music-dramas. They trivialise and relativise what is supposed to be profound and universal: that is why Wagner turned to myth, after all. Cheap social comment is all you get these days. Desacralisation of g8art

[bayreuth79]

To quote Roger Scruton: "Modern productions attempt to domesticate Wagner, to bring his dramas down from the exalted sphere in which the music places them, to the world of human trivia...". This is from one of the leading Wagner commentators and a composer of distinction himself.- Please, if you must patronise someone, I wouldn't patronise someone who is almost certainly infibitely your superior.

[rumpwrestler]

@bayreuth79  Roger Scrotum?

[MarcusHolly]

@bayreuth79 Whose Roger Scrotum? clearly a fraud like yourself..... Party on....

[MarcusHolly]

@bayreuth79 If this is the case with you, and you hate modern productions, why is your name bayreuth? That is where some of the most outrageous productions happen! You must be somewhat clueless.

[Sammyjackson1488]

Why is it, we must ask, do slimey commies who hate Wagner and Western Civilization, go about producing and directing Wagner's operas?

[beatnikish]

I saw this production and can say, without a doubt, that the audience ADORED it. The applause were thunderous like I've never heard before. Frighteningly beautiful.

[rumpwrestler]

@beatnikish I can well imagine that it was accepted by Wagner fans and new devotees....finally that dreadful, musty RING at the MET is now thrown in the garbage.

[salmaboon]

b-b-b-but the sets and costumes aren't exactly as wagner intended them!! why can't it be more like every other production of the ring? i am literally terrified of anything new or different

[MarcusHolly]

@salmaboon THAT is a great comment. "I am literally terrified of anything new or different". Like most of the jerks here making stupid comments.

[rumpwrestler]

Wagnerites: the most tedious and conservative of all opera goers. Been to Bayreuth from the 1950s and have taught all of Wagner in universities....and I DO NOT NEED TO SEE stupid Met production and fake trees on the stage. And what a laugh to see some fat helden tenor pretending to make a sword with all that stupid smoke and flames. Hooray for these new productions, some great, some godawful....and at least refreshing and away from this Wagnerian shit we usually have to see.

[rvforge]

Wagner Must be rolling in his 'Grabe'! Not, that he Doesn't deserve it!

[operamartin]

Such productions destroy all my dreams. Sad. Go ahead and write a new piece and don't destroy this masterpiece

[KnusperhexeRosmer]

You are right. At Germany, there is not one opera house left, that dares to fight against these crap-productions. Audiences hate it, but press and politics say, this is art. New kind of tyranny. I always do travel around in search of authentic productions.

[Sieglinde84]

I hop it will be out on dvd. I always wanted to see a "space" Ring.

[rumpwrestler]

@Sieglinde84 Check out the new dvd RING from Valencia Spain. There are some amazing visuals there, all quite fabulous.

[bnevens]

I attended the dress rehearsal and can't wait to see a performance this weekend. After having attended a Seattle Opera Ring Cycle in August, I can all the more appreciate Achim Fryer's creative genius. the LAO Orchestra under the baton of Maestro James Conlon is magical. BTW, that's not to say that I didn't love the Seattle production, only that Achim Fyer has taken it to a new dimension.

[PaulBartonPiano]

What an incredible stage production, and wonderful music.