2016 Bayreuth Ring on Sky Arts

[slarty]

Live? Surely not.

The Gotterdammerung on the sunday afternoon is live.

[Flosshilde]

Presumably the others are recorded - not even Bayreuth perfoms them all in one day!

[Stanley Stewart]

Felt a bit envious when I first read this thread as I do not subscribe to Sky TV but, having seen the subsequent comments, I'm happy to give it a miss as I now feel that my state is the more gracious. Content to have vivid memories of the ENO Ring cycle in the 70s- used to be discounted at £15 in the gods for the whole cycle - and was again stirred to view my off-air video/DVD transfer of a fine documentary, The Quest for Reggie Goodall, (1985-62mins), as the best substitute; he concentrated on the score and its meaning in several rehearsal extracts, including his engagement at WNO.
Ended the viewing so refreshed I decided to pursue a long postponed decision to transfer to DVD, Anna Russell, The First 'Farewell Concert'(1984) which, of course, includes the Ring Cycle analysis with a succession of hilarious bon mots, Ms Russell outrageous, wearing a voluminous pink chiffon dress with such stylish panache. I have a feeling that the concert used to be available on You Tube some years ago which encouraged me to scavenge for the 85mins video.
She analyses each opera in the cycle with growing disbelief and had me choking over my Jordan's muesli as she parodied the character of Freia with a few twee expressions before describing her as the Elizabeth Varley of the Valhalla branch! Worth seeking if you don't know the programme.

[jonfan]

Having read the reviews thank goodness for Opera North and Richard Farnes!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Having read the reviews thank goodness for Opera North and Richard Farnes!

- and, if I may be so bold -

[duncan]

I saw the production last year.

It was musically very good, you could see why the BPO were keen on Petrenko. This year it's Janowski, his Dresden ring recording is pretty good I think (best modern budget recording?), the recent Berlin one less so but that's due to the singers not the conductor. Stefan Vinke was a very decent Siegfried, the best I've heard on stage. He's coming to the ROH Ring in this role in 2018 apparently, should be a considerable improvement on the previous two here. Catherine Foster's Brunhilde I'd heard before in Weimar, perhaps not as comfortable in Bayreuth as in the smaller house but, again, a great improvement over Covent Garden's last Brunhilde. Sarah Connelly is a tremendous Frika. The sets and design are superb. The singers and orchestra got very enthusiastic responses when they took their calls. There is some irritating real-time videoing of the action via a wandering camera crew and onstage screen.

The production stated out promisingly. Rheingold is set in a 1970s US motel, all Pulp Fiction style petty gangsters. The duck features in the swimming pool that stands in for the river Rhine. Die Walkure is set in pre-revolutionary Caspian oil-fields, hence the samovar. Wotan is an old-school warlord, Brunhilde a modernising businesswoman. This kind-of made sense. The link is oil as a source of power, which could potentially have been interesting, but this theme was mostly abandoned in the last two works. The Siegfried received by far the loudest and most vehement booing I've ever heard in an opera house, it was quite an experience, though the audience were very enthusiastic about the singers and orchestra. [SPOILER ALERT] The AK47 is used by our hero to dispatch the dragon!

Being subject to a Marxist theatre director's consciously incoherent and provocative staging, deliberately undermining the great set-pieces (there was a sense of Casdorf sticking two fingers up to the audience about much of the production, the two crocodiles have now been joined by a couple of babies) is all part of the modern Bayreuth experience!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Janowski[']s Dresden ring recording is pretty good I think (best modern budget recording?), the recent Berlin one less so but that's due to the singers not the conductor.

Agree strongly on all three points.

[Richard Tarleton]

rifle

I think the rifle is an AK47, but am nervous about googling it Sorry just seen duncan's helpful post!

[ARBurton]

Having read the reviews thank goodness for Opera North and Richard Farnes!

...who are of course on Radio Three next week!

[Conchis]

I saw the production last year.

It was musically very good, you could see why the BPO were keen on Petrenko. This year it's Janowski, his Dresden ring recording is pretty good I think (best modern budget recording?), the recent Berlin one less so but that's due to the singers not the conductor. Stefan Vinke was a very decent Siegfried, the best I've heard on stage. He's coming to the ROH Ring in this role in 2018 apparently, should be a considerable improvement on the previous two here. Catherine Foster's Brunhilde I'd heard before in Weimar, perhaps not as comfortable in Bayreuth as in the smaller house but, again, a great improvement over Covent Garden's last Brunhilde. Sarah Connelly is a tremendous Frika. The sets and design are superb. The singers and orchestra got very enthusiastic responses when they took their calls. There is some irritating real-time videoing of the action via a wandering camera crew and onstage screen.

The production stated out promisingly. Rheingold is set in a 1970s US motel, all Pulp Fiction style petty gangsters. The duck features in the swimming pool that stands in for the river Rhine. Die Walkure is set in pre-revolutionary Caspian oil-fields, hence the samovar. Wotan is an old-school warlord, Brunhilde a modernising businesswoman. This kind-of made sense. The link is oil as a source of power, which could potentially have been interesting, but this theme was mostly abandoned in the last two works. The Siegfried received by far the loudest and most vehement booing I've ever heard in an opera house, it was quite an experience, though the audience were very enthusiastic about the singers and orchestra. [SPOILER ALERT] The AK47 is used by our hero to dispatch the dragon!

Being subject to a Marxist theatre director's consciously incoherent and provocative staging, deliberately undermining the great set-pieces (there was a sense of Casdorf sticking two fingers up to the audience about much of the production, the two crocodiles have now been joined by a couple of babies) is all part of the modern Bayreuth experience!

Stefan Vinke was the ROH's last Siegfried in 2012, where he did very decent job, or so I thought, at least.

In the thread I started on the Chereau/Boulez Ring, there was a comment to the effect that Ring productions tend to expend their inventiveness on the first two operas, then run out of steam for the final two. This sounds like another case of that.

I still think Opera North's currently touring 'concert Ring' is the best production I'm likely to see/hear in my lifetime, even though it's 'only' semi-staged.

[VodkaDilc]

I've just set this to record over the coming weekend. It would be very difficult to watch live, with the operas running more or less one after the other. My heart sunk when I saw that each opera was to be introduced by Stephen Fry, but I suppose that's an improvement on most of the people who introduce televised Proms. How much better it would have been to have used a real expert, like Barry Millington.

No more moans though. I'm just very grateful that we can see another complete Ring on television - after quite a few years, I think.

[Richard Tarleton]

I've just set this to record over the coming weekend. It would be very difficult to watch live, with the operas running more or less one after the other. My heart sunk when I saw that each opera was to be introduced by Stephen Fry, but I suppose that's an improvement on most of the people who introduce televised Proms. How much better it would have been to have used a real expert, like Barry Millington.

No more moans though. I'm just very grateful that we can see another complete Ring on television - after quite a few years, I think.

- sat box set to record here. At least the beauty of recording it is that you can fast forward through the lucubrations of Mr Fry. If my onscreen TV planner is right the first three are being broadcast twice? A bit confusing, I hope I've set it properly. You normally get "Record Once/Record Series" option, but not in this case, you have to programme each one. There's always the red button.....

They've banned cushions at Bayreuth - I gather on security rather than acoustic grounds?

[gurnemanz]

They've banned cushions at Bayreuth

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!

[ARBurton]

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!

38 mins of introductory blather from Stephen Fry then straight into Rheingold with no credits etc or anything! Terrible presentation so far! But nevertheless welcome lest I be thuoght of looking a gift Ross in der Auge.

[Stanfordian]

I'm not against modern productions of original operas at all but I'm finding this Rheingold staging by Frank Castorf hard to live with. Most importsant of all the staging was often out of harmony with the text. Stephen Fry's introduction was alright for 10 minutes or so but wrattled on in a very long-winded way and I found his guests mainly uninteresting