Götterdämmerung R3

[Alison]

Did I read somewhere that radio 3 is going to give us an act of the Ring per day over the Christmas holiday ?

[Stephen Smith]

http://www.roh.org.uk/news/bbc-radio-3-to-broadcast-wagners-ring-cycle

After Das R, it will be an Act a Day

[Richard Tarleton]

I'm pleased to find someone who agrees with me that first acquaintance with the Warner Ring, in 2007ish, was overwhelming, by the way.

Indeed - I'm not sure that all the tinkering that has gone on in the revival is necessarily for the better.

Some time over the long winter evenings I'm going to watch the DVDs of the Barenboim Bayreuth Ring, to remind myself of some of the glorious voices on offer in the ROH Jones Ring of the 1990s - eg Anne Evans, Siegfried Jerusalem, John Tomlinson and Graham Clark.

[David-G]

Just returned from Gotterdammerung. The whole Ring was quite an experience. I would sum it up like this. The orchestra and conducting were wonderful. Some of the singing was truly great, some was very good, not much was below par; unfortunately this last (to me) included Susan Bullock in Walkure. (I enjoyed her much more in Siegfried and especially tonight.) Most of the production was acceptable, though I really hated the "Brunnhilde's Rock" set with its rotating wall; particularly in Siegfried, when the nonsense on stage destroyed Siegfried's advance through the fire to Brunnhilde. Warner had a lot of really good ideas, and we saw some very clever and impressive staging. But also, he seemed prone to elementary mistakes, such as the messy fuss with the statues which distracted attention from Brunnhilde in her immolation scene. While there was a lot about the production that I enjoyed, and sometimes enjoyed very much, I did not feel a sense of artistic coherence such as was palpably present in the ENO Ring of the 1970s (still the finest that I have seen).