Wagner;Richard Siegfried [Import]

I have to advise you that I am not an opera groupie. I don't claim to be a great music analyst or one who can compare the great tenors of history. But that may be an advantage when viewing the "modern" productions that some can only criticize. I can spend less time formulating rude comparisons while watching these production, and more time awed by the moving performances and surprised by the fantastic transformed into reality. This opera moved me to tears and made me think. I found it easy to see this Siegfried, fighting the Nazi dragon at the gates of their manmade Hell, existing in our real world. Siegfried fighting a magical dragon breathing fire in a mythological forest is more visually pleasing because of all the glistening or blazing scenery, but I cannot easily transfer that "evil" to a deeper understanding of mankind's response to the horrors the 21st Century has offered. Opera, like great art, can exist in greatness only because it can provide value from many perspectives. For an artistic work to triumph through expanses of time, it must be able to breath. If we, the audience, won't allow it to fill it's lungs with the fresh air of our ever changing reality, we condemn it to the dank air of musty caves and it will die. This work will open your mind. Allow Wagner to flex and stretch with the reality of our current world and you will be struck how well this production, with it's amazing performances, can so accurately reflect the struggles that face this and every age.

i'm surprised by the poor reviews of this production. supposedly sophisticated opera-philes complaining that fafner doesn't look like puff the magic dragon and siegfried doesn't look more like eric the red or robin hood! sheesh! they sound like a bunch of five yr old kids. look, guys: ours is the post-modernist age. myth and mythology are dead. we have science to tell us what mythology couldn't. so get over it already!

and i suspect wagner himself would agree. by the time he wrote siegried, he'd come around to share schopenhauer's view that the music was the most important element of opera, more important than the words, and, yes, even more important than the sets and costumes. the music-making here is very good. and most importantly, the drama is compelling. i was enthralled from the very beginning, which is more than i could say for solti's ring.

this is a refreshing and highly recommended production of siegfried.

This is not really a one star DVD, it is really zero stars. The costumes and stage design are the most ridiculous I've ever seen. Be warned!