WAGNER & HEAVY METAL
  • Home
    • Donner und Wetter!
    • From Metal to Wagner
    • From Rush to Lohengrin
    • Franz Liszt - The First Rock Star
    • The Wagner - Strauss connection
    • The day of Wagner & Heavy Metal
    • Classical picks
  • Latest
    • Ein Holländer in Bayreuth 2014
    • Ein Holländer in Bayreuth 2017 - Meistersinger
    • Ein Holländer in Bayreuth 2017 - Der Ring
    • Ein Holländer in Bayreuth - Parsifal 2018
  • One Ring to rule them all
    • Wagner & Tolkien: Ring to Ring
    • Die Nibelungen (Fritz Lang 1924)
  • Metal Section
  • Nederlands
    • De kluis (recensies)
    • Trip naar Bayreuth (2014)
    • De tovenaar van Bayreuth (2014)
    • Bayreuther Meistersinger (2017)
    • Bayreuther Ring (2017)
    • Parsifal in Bayreuth (2018)
  • Contact

One More ...

11/13/2018

1 Comment

 
Picture
Beyond the rationale that 20+ complete cycles (on CD, DVD and harddisk) is already more than one person possibly will and can listen to in his or her lifetime, it calls me: DER RING. The prospect of going through the whole endeavour of Wagner's Nibelungen saga with another cast, another orchestra and another conductor is hard, if not impossible, to resist for the Wagnerite that resides in me for almost two decades now. A cycle, moreover, with a conductor that has proved himself in Wagner. Who showed with beautiful and enthralling renditions of Lohengrin and Parsifal that he knows how to find the key to the Erlösungsbedürftige operas of the self-proclaimed composer of the music of the future. New, in tremendous sound, critically acclaimed, every bit a Ring of our times. The fear of missing something defeats the notion to restrain oneself, by far, and I listen to the woodbird in my head telling me to pick it up. So I add another cycle of DER RING, the one from Hong Kong with Jaap van Zweden, to my collection. Because the one Ring that rules them all is made out of many. 

Van Zweden’s reading is one of someone who knows that drama has to evolve, to develop. He knows that drama, and intrinsic to that: beauty, can't be summoned by cheap tricks. Van Zweden doesn’t ride the fast lane but in a good Ring it isn't of any importance how long it takes to make it to the end of Götterdämmerung. In a good performance that end will always come too soon. And a good performance this is.

Van Zweden's tempi may be wide (they prevent Act 3 from Siegfried from fitting on one CD, thus cutting the road to Brünnhilde's "Heil Dir, Sonne!" in half) but he certainly doesn't choke on slowliness.  In his approach Van Zweden leaves the orchestra room to breathe. Breathing, and the writer in me who wants to put into words what music does to him, means to him, repeats himself when he states that breathing is the most important thing - whether it concerns a Bruckner symphony or a Slayer song - in music. Wagner's orchestral demands for a magical world of sound are met by the Hong Kong Philharmonic with remarkable cunning and comprehension.  In what is their first series of Wagner operas, they rise, under the baton of Van Zweden, to the occassion. Together with the singers they fully emerge in a musical world in which large gestures don't forget to connect with the most intimate of feelings. Feelings that lie at the core of every story. Feelings, all too human, that live in the heart of even the mightiest of Gods.

In The Hong Kong Ring the vocal performances do not always reach the level of their sublime orchestral counterparts but in Matthias Goerne it has a Wotan of great beauty. The transformation from the Chief God as a relatively flat character in Das Rheingold to a God of flesh & blood in Die Walküre finds in Goerne’s interpretation a terrific depiction. In Wotan’s Farewell, Lieder Singer Goerne brings out Schubert in Wagner, extremely moving, with a serious attack of goose bumps as a result.

Wagner: Der Ring des Nibelungen
Matthias Goerne (Wotan), Petra Lang (Brünnhilde - Die Walküre), Heidi Melton (Sieglinde/Brünnhilde - Siegfried), Gun-Brit Barkmin (Brünnhilde - Götterdämmerung), Daniel Brenna (Siegfried - Götterdämmerung), Simon O’Neill (Siegfried - Siegfried); Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, Jaap van Zweden


See also: One Ring to rule them all >>

- Wouter de Moor
1 Comment
Luis Diego Ramirez Guerrero
2/24/2019 01:13:15 am

May not be the greatest of the Ring´s renditions but, the intent is there.
Have it, heard, appreciated it.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    RSS Feed

    KÖNIGSKINDER: A TRIUMPH IN TRISTESSE
    An EVENING WITH DER FREISCHUTZ
    DAS RHEINGOLD ON PERIOD INSTRUMENTS
    UPLOAD (LIVING IN A DATA STREAM)
    DER SILBERSEE
    A (POST) COVID PARSIFAL
    THE WRITE OF SPRING
    A DescenT Into The Nibelheim Of The Mind
    Eddie van Halen
    Wagner at the movies
    With Mahler and Stravinsky into the new year
    The return of Die Walküre
    Pagliacci / Cavalleria Rusticana
    (No) Bayreuth (Summer blog)
    Tannhäuser: what's on a man's mind
    About extreme music
    Die Tote Stadt
    Helmut Lachenmann in the Mozart sandwich
    Oedipe: is man stronger than fate?
    One More ... (Ring cycle)
    Marnie: opera & pictures
    The Halloween Top 10
    Jenufa: ice-cold reality & warm-blooded music
    ​My Parsifal Conductor: a Wagnerian Comedy
    Lohengrin: in the Empire of the Swan
    Die Zauberflöte in a roller coaster
    Ein Holländer in Bayreuth: Parsifal
    Heavy Summer (the road to Parsifal)
    Lohengrin in screenshots
    Lessons in Love and Violence
    Berlin/Blog: Faust & the claws of time
    The Gambler: Russian roulette with Prokofiev
    BACH/BLOG: BachFest Leipzig
    Der Fliegende Holländer, Wagner & Dracula
    The Christina cycle of Klas Torstensson
    La Clemenza di Tito: Mozart über alles
    Bruckner and the organ
    Gurre-Lieder: the second coming
    Parsifal in Flanders: Reign in Blood
    Tristan & Isolde and the impossible embrace
    Danielle Gatti & Bruckner's 9th
    On the birthday of Ludwig (Beethoven's  mighty 9)
    The dinner party from hell
    Zemlinsky & Puccini: A Florentine diptych
    La clemenza di Tito (Veni, Vidi, vici)
    Eliogabalo (here comes the Sun King)
    La Forza del Destino
    Das Wunder Der Heliane
    'Ein Wunder' to look forward to
    Ein Holländer in Bayreuth
    Franz Liszt in Bayreuth
    Salome & The Walking Dead
    Lohengrin in Holland
    Wagner Weekend
    The Summer Of 2016
    Parsifal in Screenshots (Bayreuth 2016)
    Being Tchaikovsky
    Gustavo & Gustav: Dudamel & Mahler
    Haitink & Bruckner: a never-ending story
    Henry Rollins (spoken word)
    David Bowie
    For Lemmy and Boulez
    Boulez ist ToT
    Lemmy -  Rock In Peace
    The Battle: who's the better Lohengrin?
    Stockhausen and Heavy Metal
    Franz Liszt in the funny papers
    Tristan und Isolde
    Der Rosenkavalier
    Solti's Ring and Bayreuth in 1976
    Easter Chant (Via Crucis)
    Boulez turns 90
    Holy Tinnitus
    Franz Liszt in the Phot-O-Matic
    The Holy Grail
    Franz Liszt - Rock Star avant la lettre
    The best theater experience in my life
    Boulez in Holland

    TIMELINE

    October 2022
    June 2022
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    March 2021
    October 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    November 2019
    September 2019
    July 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    March 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    June 2017
    April 2017
    December 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    November 2014
    January 2011

Wagner-HeavyMetal.com
  • Home
    • Donner und Wetter!
    • From Metal to Wagner
    • From Rush to Lohengrin
    • Franz Liszt - The First Rock Star
    • The Wagner - Strauss connection
    • The day of Wagner & Heavy Metal
    • Classical picks
  • Latest
    • Ein Holländer in Bayreuth 2014
    • Ein Holländer in Bayreuth 2017 - Meistersinger
    • Ein Holländer in Bayreuth 2017 - Der Ring
    • Ein Holländer in Bayreuth - Parsifal 2018
  • One Ring to rule them all
    • Wagner & Tolkien: Ring to Ring
    • Die Nibelungen (Fritz Lang 1924)
  • Metal Section
  • Nederlands
    • De kluis (recensies)
    • Trip naar Bayreuth (2014)
    • De tovenaar van Bayreuth (2014)
    • Bayreuther Meistersinger (2017)
    • Bayreuther Ring (2017)
    • Parsifal in Bayreuth (2018)
  • Contact