[ Post a Response | The MusicWeb Message Board ]
CELEBRATING 20,000 Classical CD reviews on-line; 21,000 visitors each day.
Return to MusicWeb International
Posted by Bill Kenny Link: Review
on August 7, 2008, 9:44 am
Message modified by board administrator August 7, 2008, 10:13 am
Having just read Göran Forsling’s typically excellent review of The Copenhagen Ring – in which he kindly mentions my own report on Copenhagen’s Die Walküre on Boxing Day 2004 – I should like to endorse his comments wholeheartedly and would also like to express my continuing pleasure and satisfaction after seeing the whole production on DVD.
This is an extraordinary achievement by Kasper Bech Holten to my mind. After seeing Die Walküre live, I wrote : ‘The more I think about it, the more intelligent this production seems ’ and now after watching the complete cycle, I am relieved to discover that I was right. It’s sadly a rare experience these days to find a careful reading of Wagner’s text matched by a Director’s idea of it and it’s even rarer to find such close attention to personenregie in even the best modern productions. Here, and without exception, the entire cast of this Ring portrays real people with real emotions engaging attention so convincingly that even the (often interminable) first Act of Götterdämmerung – in which as Göran says, the Norns appear as members of the audience - seems to fly by. I found myself needing to know ‘what happens next’ at every turn and for that reason alone even the staunchest anti-Wagnerite watching this cycle could find that The Ring has something going for it after all.
Perhaps the last couple of things to add to this shameless rave, is that the stereo sound from these discs is spectacularly good, catching the marvellous acoustic of the new Copenhagen opera house remarkably accurately, despite a couple of short lasting lapses in orchestral balance here and there. And then there’s the set’s modest price: it’s currently available for under £50 in the UK.
Message Thread:
« Back to thread
Thank you for using the MusicWeb Message Board.
Len Mullenger - Founder of MusicWeb