The music business is, after all, a business:
In 1958, Decca Records announced the largest undertaking in the history of the gramophone: the first complete stereo recording of Wagner's Ring cycle. After seven years of recording, the nineteen LPs were released. Many would still say it was worth the wait: the Solti Ring remains the gold standard.
In today's world of Blackberry and Twitter, gratification must be instant. In what can only be a bald-faced marketing gimmick, Arthaus Musik rush-released the first Ring to appear on Blu-ray disc, taped at 2008 performances by the Deutsches Nationaltheater und Staatskapelle Weimar.
Press releases pronouncing it the first Ring to adhere to Wagner's original intentions amount to utter hogwash. This Ring is out there for one reason only: it has no competition in the Blu-ray market. Alas, it is an unmitigated disaster.
So Larry L. Lash in the March, 2010, issue of
Opera News at 65-6, 65. Other snippets:
The production is constructed from bits of old furniture with thrift-store costumes ... Nibelheim is two long rows of shelves covered in shower curtains ... There are some interesting ideas: in execution, none of them succeed. ... The majority of the singers are not young, physically fit or attractive. ... Do you really want the clear outline of the nipples of a singe with a gut stuffed into a tight T-shirt jumping off your TV screen. ... The singing ranges from barely adequate to abysmal...
To that last, he adds: "with four exceptions." He gives high marks Catherine Foster ("a confident and radiant Brünhilde"); Nadine Weissman ("a substantial, gorgeous, reedy contralto"); Norbert Schmitberg ("tireless and charismatic") and Erin Caves ("surprisingly lyrical Siegmund." Still, per Lash, "There is really no good reason to own this misbegotten project."
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