Wagner: Das Rheingold [DVD Video]
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DVD details
Brand: UniConductor: Herbert von Karajan
Performer: Jeannine Altmeyer; Brigitte Fassbaender; Peter Schre
DVD: Region Code 0
Audio: German (Original Language), DTS 5.1; English (Subtitled)
Format: Classical, Color, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 164 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-04-08
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Deutsche Grammophon
DVD Reviews of Wagner: Das Rheingold [DVD Video]
DVD Review: 3 1/2 stars -- A mixed bag of gold
Summary: 4 Stars
Since Das Rheingold is based on Norse mythology, it's full of magic and monsters and many things that are terribly difficult to stage well. Other DVD versions are well sung, well acted, but the really exciting thing about this film is... just THAT -- it's not staged*; it's a film done to a previously recorded sound track. I was hoping and expecting to FINALLY see some of the staging problems solved with cinematic special effects. How great!!! -- finally we get to see Rhinemaidens really swimming in the depths of the Rhine, giants who tower above the other characters, Alberich disappear and change into a giant serpent (or dragon?), the gods walk across the rainbow to Valhalla, etc. etc. A few of those effects were done well, others not very well, and curiously some not even tried!
[* some scenes were filmed on what looks like a theater stage]
Scene 1 (in the Rhine): starts by hovering above a real river bounded by cliffs -- beautiful and very promising. Then we're transported to the bottom and see the Rhinemaidens obviously suspended on wires, looking like they're filmed through a glass of water. It's been done much better in live performance. They do start to get it right when the Rhinegold lights up with the rising sun; the illusion becomes very strong at that point. (BTW, how nice to see the Rhinegold look magical, not just a lump of fake rock with gold paint.)
In scene 2 (a hilltop with Valhalla in the background): Valhalla looked OK -- more like Superman's ice-palace than a stone fortress. But the foreground was ugly (Valhalla must have had an awful view.) Most of the characters acted well enough -- the lip-synching was good. Freia (Jeanine Altmeyer) was stunning both physically and vocally. However, Fricka (although beautifully sung by Brigitte Fassbaender) looked ridiculous -- eyes vacantly staring and expressionless most of the time. She's supposed to be one of the more tempestuous characters. Wotan (Thomas Stewart) and Loge (Peter Schreier) were both superb; unique interpretations very much worth hearing.
As for the giants -- high marks for wild hair and make-up. At first the issue of their height was handled by always shooting them separately from the other characters, until they grab ahold of Freia (who was their promised payment for building Valhalla.) At that point, it's obvious that they're about 6'6" and not 20 feet tall. How did they ever manage to build that ice-palace??
Scene 3: Alberich, the villain who steals the gold (the Wagner counterpart to Tolkien's Lord Sauron, though he resembles Gollum more) has forged the ring and forced his brother Mime (possibly the worst make-up job in the history of opera) to make him the Tarn-helm. With it he can disappear (and he does -- Bravo to that) but the serpent he turns into is a one-eyed escapee from a low-budget horror movie. It makes you wonder why some of the effects were SO awful.
As stated in previous reviews, in Scene 4, the rainbow bridge to Valhalla is barely visible. And so on ....
I've gone into so much detail about these effects because 1. That was my main reason for watching this particular DVD, having seen many others (Rheingold is a favorite of mine) and 2. Other reviewers have already discussed just about everything else. I would only like to add that the Berlin Philharmonic under Maestro von Karajan sounds unbelievably beautiful, and that I thought all of the singers were very-good to wonderful, with the exception of the 2nd Rhine maiden (Edda Moser) whose too-fast vibrato was annoying.
So there you have it. The film dates back to the early 70's (not THAT old); I expected more. The best parts: the Berlin Phil, the fine singing, especially of Stewart (Wotan), Schreier (Loge) and Altmeyer (Friea) -- contrary to some other reviewers I felt those 3 in particular stood out -- and some of the visuals.
DVD Review: Clear, interesting, excellently sung
Summary: 5 Stars
This DVD presents the first segment of Wagner's Ring Cycle in an interesting, comprehensible way. Though it's a "reconstructed" performance rather than a filmed evening at the opera, Wagner's storyline comes over with greater clarity than in any other video version, even the Met edition. The special effects aren't Star Wars calibre, but they get their various points across and are often more graphic than a stage production can manage. In addition Karajan doesn't overwhelm Wagner's libretto with ultramodern gimmicks and stylizations; such things may work for European audiences who can see this opera several times a season across Germany and Austria, but for the rest of us who aren't so privileged - no thanks. Here, at least, Wagner still runs the show.
In addition we get excellent singing from the fine Wagnerians of the 70s-80s - Thomas Stewart's perceptive and richly sung Wotan, Peter Schreier's witty Loge, Zoltan Kelemen's anguished Alberich, and Brigitte Fassbander's golden-toned Fricka. As for the orchestral work, Karajan and the Berliners play this music as ravishingly as I've ever heard it. The stereo sound is splendid, too.
DVD Review: Intriguing Representational RHEINGOLD
Summary: 5 Stars
Karajan is still a polarizing figure. This item, one of the earliest tries at filming a Wagner opera, has earned wildly mixed notices: "They don't get any better than this," exults one reviewer. "Best left at the bottom of the Rhine," sneers another. The truth, as usual, lies somewhere in between.
The positives first. Orchestrally and vocally this is an unsurpassed RHEINGOLD. Karajan's 1968 DG recording is often acclaimed for its color and fantasy, but it features three pieces of much-criticized casting: Fischer-Dieskau's underpowered Wotan, Manglesdorff's squally Freia, and Stolze's rasping character tenor as Loge. This DVD replaces them with Stewart, Altmeyer, and Schreier, all distinct improvements. The enclosed booklet claims that the film's soundtrack was recorded in Salzburg's Grosses Festspielhaus during the 1973 Easter Festival. But it wasn't taped during a performance or even a dress run: there are no audience noises, no stage thumpings, and the singers don't budge from their microphones. Just like the earlier DG set, this is clearly a studio effort -- and since its producer and head engineer are the same individuals who generated Karajan's EMI opera recordings, one wonders if the UK firm considered releasing it audio-only.
In any case Stewart is in bronzen voice here, a little tight at the bottom but with top notes that soar over the orchestra with an exciting spin and gleam -- he makes the best recorded case for a dramatic baritone rather than a high bass in this role, and he etches the text with imagination: his Wotan is imperious, temperamental, smugly amused, and in the end deeply shaken by Fasolt's murder. With her full lyric soprano, Altmeyer is the most sumptuous of Freias, and Schreier's supple Mozart tenor provides a fresher, more mellifluous Loge than it would for Janowski in Dresden. Otherwise Salzburg's Fassbaender, Roar, and Finnila (Fricka, Donner, and Erda) are just as adept as the earlier Veasey, Kerns, and Dominguez -- Karajan being Karajan, he normally could get the best available. The Berlin PO, needless to say, is stupendous in both 1968 and 1973; as for the recorded sound, the anvil rapping in Nibelheim is cleaner in the former, the giants' entrance music better balanced in the latter. 1973 trumps 1968 by dint of improved casting: there has never been a more gorgeously sung or grippingly paced RHEINGOLD, and on that basis alone this DVD is worth your attention.
Now the visuals. Notwithstanding contributions from members of the original design team, this isn't a document of Karajan's Salzburg production. It was shot in a Munich film studio 5½ years later -- simply a lip-synched, ad hoc staging of a preexisting recording. Yet, despite the all-purpose critical sneering that Karajan's name sometimes evokes, this video RHEINGOLD is no worse -- and sometimes far better -- than the several Italian operas (LUCIA, PAGLIACCI, TOSCA, etc.) that had previously been put on film in the same way.
Sets here are similar in style but vastly different in layout from the Easter Festival designs. Scene 1 is a representational look at the Rhine's underwater depths: aquamarine color scheme, blurry views (vasoline over the lens?) and waves undulating past. Flown from invisible wires, topless rhinemaidens wear diaphanous houri pants; Alberich is a wide-eyed yokel who takes a nasty fall down the rhinegold's pyramidal throne. Sure, it's clunky at times, yet the action is clearer and better attuned to the lines than in any other video of the piece. Scene 3, Nibelheim, smacks of the crystal cavern in JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH (1959). In Scenes 2 & 4, the realm of the gods is a lava field; back-projected on a cycloramic sky, Valhalla seems hewn out of the mountainside itself.
As for the overall cinematic effect, don't think Hollywood. Think documentary, think educational TV, think earlier BBC with THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY (1981) or Tom Baker's HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES (1982). This RHEINGOLD is often fun, but it never approaches big-budget filmmaking. (Nor, in fairness, do 90% of today's opera videos.) Onscreen, Stewart's Wotan looks regal and Zeus-like but frequently has to stand around with little to do -- Karajan's directorial habit is to plant the gods in statuesque tableaux as if they were at an ambassadorial reception. Only Schreier's Loge gets to gad about and lounge on the lava rocks.
But the blocking and camerawork (5-man team) improve as the show goes along. Intense close-ups track Alberich's shift from dimwit to despot: blessed with both a fine voice and a fascinating character face, Kelemen is riveting in his Scene 3 menaces and Scene 4 malediction. True, some of the special effects are cheesy: a drab, sagging rainbow, dry ice for the gods growing old, Erda's disembodied face bleeding through a still photo, even more dry ice for Donner's storm. But there are a fair number of shrewd, evocative touches: sinister highlights repeatedly glinting on the ring; the tarnhelm's various vanishing acts, going more smoothly than on any stage; a vivid descent to Nibelheim through unfurling geologic strata, with glimpses of Nibelungs at work and looking like genuine dwarves; a dragon that's an authentic hoot (as it should be -- after all, Wotan laughs at it); and finally Fasolt's murder: a brutal collage of slashing blows and gasping faces that's legitimately shocking. Despite his jack-of-all-trades imperfections, Karajan is the only recent director to honestly grapple with the effects described in RHEINGOLD's lines and stage directions.
English subtitles are from the reader-friendly modern translation by Stewart Spencer (ISBN 0500281947). Warts and all, this is an intriguing production that easily holds its own with the filmed operas of that era. What's more, it showcases the leading Wagner singers of its generation, one of the greatest orchestras in the galaxy, and a conductor who -- love him or hate him -- definitely knew how to make this music work. In short, this is much more engrossing than some would have you believe. Us American operagoers don't get many cracks at a "live" RHEINGOLD, so we don't mind a production that follows the script.
DVD Review: Classic Rheingold!
Summary: 5 Stars
Herbert von Karajan's Salzburg RING series is justly famous. The intent was to film the entire Ring, but unfortunately only DAS RHEINGOLD was committed to film. It is in all respects excellent. Peter Schreier is one of the finest Loge's around, and Thomas Stewart's Wotan is commanding and majestic. This performance holds up very well against more modern competition. Highly recommended.DVD Review: Buy Levine's Instead
Summary: 2 Stars
Levine's Rheingold Wagner - Das Rheingold / Levine, Morris, Jerusalem, Ludwig, Metropolitan Opera (Levine Ring Cycle Part 1) is better than this version in almost every way, despite the fact that it was live as opposed to this one which had every studio trick available at the time at its disposal (and many used). With Levine, the staging is better, the conducting is better, the sound quality is better...pretty much all around better. I specifically reference Levine's because it is the only other "traditional" Rheingold on DVD that I can find. I respect the Karajan Rheingold for its time, but it has quite simply been surpassed. If I could have reviewed this in 1973 I probably would have given it 4 stars, losing out really only for 2 reasons. 1: The conducting is not as interesting as I would like (lack of concept of tension and release) and little things like when Alberich is sneezing the muted instruments that are the orchestral version of onomatopoeia don't come through clearly, and 2: though this is nitpicky, when Fricka sings "Wotan, my husband, wake up!" we instantly see Wotan sitting upright, completely awake, when he should be in half sleep, making his way toward being fully awake so that when Fricka tells him to wake up a minute later it makes sense.
Truly the only thing that this production offers that Levine's doesn't is a faster tempo (though as quick as it can be I cannot call it exciting). If you are among those upset by Levine's sluggish tempos (it has taken me years to learn to appreciate them, truth be told), then this version may be for you after all, but keep in mind the other 3 operas in this production were never made. If a faster pace is really what you're after I might recommend Boulez's version instead. Wagner - Das Rheingold / McIntyre, Zednik, Jerusalem, Salminen, Becht, Schwarz, Boulez, Bayreuth Opera (Boulez Ring Cycle Part 1) Though it is a non-traditional ring it makes perfect sense (at least through Siegfried...I haven't seen it's Gotterdammerung) and at many times feels traditional. And for a great audio-only fast-paced recording of the ring (better than Karajan's and Boulez's in this reviewer's opinion) check out Bohm's. Wagner: Der Ring des Nibelungen
One more little thing about this (Karajan) production, we actually see Loge transform into flame at the end. A nice touch I have seen nowhere else.
The sound quality is okay...not great. The subtitles are relatively easy to follow but are not as clear as I would like (somewhat slavish translation from German), no worse than the others I've seen.
Also, for a great non-tradition Rheingold, check out Barenboim's. Wagner - Das Rheingold / Tomlinson, Clarke, Holle, Finnie, Johansson, von Kannen, Svenden, Barenboim, Bayreuth Opera.
Levine's, Boulez's and Barenboim's full ring cycles are available as well.
Wagner - Der Ring des Nibelungen / Levine, Metropolitan Opera (Complete Ring Cycle)
Wagner - Der Ring des Nibelungen / Pierre Boulez, Bayreuth Opera (Complete Ring Cycle, Parts 1-4)
Der Ring Des Nibelungen
Description of Wagner: Das Rheingold [DVD Video]
This 1978 studio production of Das Rheingold, the prologue to The Ring, is the only segment of the famous Salzburg Festival/Metropolitan Opera productions, first seen in the 1960s, that made it to film. For this production Georges Wakhevitch has produced stage settings and transformations that support Karajan's concept with every possible means. Karajan's staging is in the epic style of another age, emphasizing the dignity of the gods rather than their all too human failings. With the singers, foremost among them Peter Schreier, Karajan has an ensemble that fully conforms to his intentions. The production also includes Thomas Stewart as a nobly singing Wotan alongside the grandiose Brigitte Fassbaender as Fricka, a profoundly embittered figure.Germany DVDs
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