DVD : Wagner: Der Ring des Nibelungen -- Metropolitan/Levine (NTSC)

Rating: - I am not sure how good this is
This is the Ring how Wagner imagined it would/should be. Every stage shot and directorial decision follows what 'The Master' had in mind and wrote down. The director is Otto Schenk and 2009 marks the last time this landmark Ring Cycle will be shown at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Hopefully, it will be filmed in glorious HD!

Nonetheless, having this on 'ordinary' DVD still preserves what is a most enjoyable and watchable version. There are recordings of this out there that are simply unwatchable (Naxos/Lothar Zagrosek) and others that will challenge your mind (DG/Boulez) and are highly recommendable, but for wanting to know what Wagner had in his mind, this is the one.

Having said that, some of it looks very silly. The transformation of Alberich in to a snake and a frog in Das Rheingold is handled very poorly whereas the procession of the Gods in to Valhalla at the end of the Preliminary evening is thrilling, partly because of Levine's determined tempi choices. Some say he is ponderous. I think he is fine.

The singing is superb on every level. James Morrison has made Wotan/Wanderer at the Met his own over the past two decades (much like John Tomlinson has at the Royal Opera House in London) and the performance he gives in these is captivating. The rest of the cast also live up to his high standards.

As an introduction to the cycle, this set is to be recommended. Sometimes it does get silly (maybe some of Wagner's requests are still beyond modern theatre productions in terms of technicality) I would also highly recommend the Boulez one from Bayreuth on DG, which presents an alternative view, and one that is also highly watchable.

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Rating: - Traditional MET production with a great Wotan
James Levine takes a relatively expansive view of the score, and this combined with the MET acoustics and superb sound recording reveals wonderful orchestral detail.

The main reason for buying this set must be the outstanding Wotan of James Morris, a commanding figure portraying every aspect of the role.

Hildegard Behrens is a mixed blessing as Brunnhilde, she simply cannot cope with the role as a Valkyrie, but is pretty good when the role changes to daughter in Walkure Act 3 and throughout Siegfried and Gotterdammerung.

However all is definitely not perfect when we examine the individual music dramas separately:

RHEINGOLD - The stage set and costumes are like animated illustrations from a Victorian book of mythology, which I found overdone and distracting. Siegfried Jerusalem is an excellent Loge and fine performances all round.

WALKURE - Quite a restrained stage set, but performances are far from right. Jessye Norman is totally unsuited to the role of Sieglinde, her regal stage presence and powerful vocal delivery has no relationship with Hundings downtrodden wife and until the last ten minutes there is no interaction with Gary Lakes her Siegmund.

SIEGFRIED - The very Victorian stage sets work well here, and Jerusalem excels as a lyrical Siegfried but nevertheless with a heldentenor quality. All other roles first class, probably the triumph of the set.

GOTTERDAMMERUNG - Benefits from restrained stage sets. Matti Salminen is a very fine Hagen, he acts every second. A totally involving production.

CONCLUSION - This fine set (with shortcomings) is as close to the productions Wagner himself knew, and deserves a place in every Ring lovers collection, ideally contrasted with the outstanding modern Haenchen Ring from the Netherlands, with its revolutionary staging placing the orchestra in the middle of the set.

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Rating: - A Triumph of Directorial Ingenuity
Could it be possible to transform one of the most exciting stories in opera into 15 hours of purgatorial tedium? If you really want to find out, have a look at Levine's inconceivably stodgy production from 2002. As other reviewers have noted, the staging is entirely traditional: where there should be a rock, there's a rock. The problem is that the singers seem to be carved from rock too - they stand almost motionless throughout. When they do act, their petrification seems preferable - they are ludicrously inept.

On DVD Barenboim, or Boulez, is preferable by far.

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Rating: - Dull isn't the word
I don't know what is, but it's impressive quite how dull these performances manage to be.

Musically, Levine takes very slow tempi. This isn't inherently a bad thing: Knappertsbusch's Wagner was hardly quick, but he found something magical in the score. As a rule, if you go to extremes of tempo, be they fast or slow, it is necessary to find something very special there. Levine, to these ears, doesn't. Singing is a mixed bag. Siegfried Jerusalem is fine as his namesake. So too is James Morris as Wotan, but Hildegard Behrens lacks power as Brunnhilde. True, this is hard to find in a modern singer, and yet she stands no comparison to Christine Brewer's concert performance in Gotterdammerung at the 2007 BBC Proms.

Of course, no Ring is going to have perfect singing, and even the orchestral issues (which will doubtless be a matter of taste) would be less critical if they were offset by an engaging production. They are not. The production makes Levine's reading look positively dynamic: conservative, huge open spaces with nothing at all going on. With the exception of Morris and Jerusalem (who also doubles up as a fine Loge), almost nobody can act. Which wouldn't matter if their voices were outstanding, but they are often nothing to write home about. Take the scene in act I of Walkure with Siegmund, Sieglinde and Hunding. There is a huge open stage and they just sit in a circle 'talking' for about 20 minutes. Or the Norns, who spend the whole of the prologue to Gotterdammerung in a tiny pit in the centre of the stage. Behrens' acting is the worst - as she awakes and hails the sun it is almost comical.

As one of the other reviewers suggested, part of the problem may be money, too much of it. Having to struggle to make ends meet a little can force more creative solutions. One often watches cheaper Rings and wishes they had more money, but that alone is clearly not an answer as the dragon in Siegfried illustrates. It's clearly cost them a fortune, yet it still manages to look like some blob out of bad 50s sci-fi B movie.

Even at the £50 or so the set costs me it seems poor value and what I've watched so far of the Boulez/Chereau production is far superior. Of course, my ideal DVD Ring would be the visually stunning Scottish Opera Ring of 2003. It didn't work all the time (the Siegfried dragon definitely did need more money). But there was a genius to so much of Albery's staging, from the biker chick valkeries to Rhein maidens in a sleazy bar in Gotterdammerung, of a kind that is wholly absent from this set.

One best avoided.

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Rating: - Stretching credibility too far
It seems churlish to disagree with all the praise heaped on this production here but, having bought it at full price when it first came out, I have only watched it once because I found it boring at best and unbelievable at worst. (I have seen the 'Ring' in its entirety three times since then, in three different productions so it's not Wagner's fault). The acting is leaden and operatic in the worst sense of the word, the costumes are all enormous and make the, already large, cast look as though they all came from Riesenheim. Levine's conducting lacks drive and subtlety. Are we really expected to believe that Gary Lakes and Jessye Norman are twins and children of James Morris? It seems to to me typical of Met. productions - they suffer from having too much money and not enough imagination spent on them. The video production is no more than adequate- the producer/director should learn from Glyndebourne's team.