The Catalan theatre company La Fura dels Baus, under the baton of Zubin Mehta, brought forth a new production of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen in 2007 in Valencia. The brochure for the DVD release calls this “A Ring for the 21st Century” and tells us that stage director Carlus Padrissa has employed “…imagery for a young, 21st century audience familiar with the visual language of the Star Wars and Harry Potter films.”
Uh-oh. Read more »
On the heels of this, may I direct everyone’s attention to a funny and fascinating article about Stefan Herheim’s production of Lohengrin from last spring at Berliner Staatsoper? Now we know what to do with those old costumes and sets that gather dust! [via the wellsungs] Read more »
Poet of the podium Carlos Kleiber leads the final minutes of Tristan und Isolde from the mystic abyss of Bayreuth, circa 1975. Read more »
They want it. The career. They want it really bad. So we learn from Susan Froemke’s Metropolitan Opera-commissioned documentary about the participants in the final round of the 2007 MetNational Council Auditions, which is out on DVD this month. Our own doyenne reviewed the film when it was screened as an HD theatrical event, and by now many of us know the winners and their work. Since you are all wondering whether to rush out with $20 in your hands, perhaps a few remarks on the DVD release are in order. Read more »
“What the...?” was my first thought when I opened the small manila package last week, unmarked save the NY return address. Inside I found a Wagner compilation CD set from an unknown label- not the obscure Spanish opera I had ordered online the week before. Although I saw no accompanying invoice, I assumed an Amazon partner had screwed up and sent me the wrong CD. Four precious days later my boyfriend calmly suggested that this Wagner CD set could be “from that blog site thing” that I mentioned, a possible way to feed my CD collecting addiction while making an extra buck. Read more »
There are several reasons to purchase the new DVD of Die Meistersinger from Vienna (EuroArts EUA 2072488), but the main one is Christian Thielemann. This production will most likely come to be known as “Thielemann’s Meistersinger," because his sense of the overall architecture of the work is, pardon the pun, masterful. Read more »
The BBC 3 broadcast of Tristan und Isolde that so captivated the cher public yesterday afternoon is available in streaming form for the next week.
Cher Public