The Ring on video…
Metropolitan Opera: The Otto Schenk Production
[cvg-video videoId='103' width='400' height='400' mode='playlist' /]
“Leb wohl” from the final scene, Act 3 of Die Walküre
with bass James Morris as Wotan and
soprano Hildegard Behrens as Brünnhilde
A video playlist of scenes from the Metropolitan Opera’s OTTO SCHENK RING CYCLE
Music Direction: JAMES LEVINE / Stage Direction: OTTO SCHENK /
Set Design: GÜNTHER SCHNEIDER-SIEMSSEN
[cvg-gallery galleryId='15' mode='playlist' /]
If you are a dyed-in-the-wool traditionalist Wagnerite, chances are you will forever mourn the loss of this spectacular production to the MET’s new Lepage creation. It is perhaps the only staging that gets as close to Wagner’s intent as any modern production will ever get. [Wagner, who wrote both the music and the libretto of all his 13 operas, also wrote staging instructions to the minutest detail.]
But you are likely also thankful that every moving moment was captured on tape (and later remastered into DVD), making it possible for you to re-live the profoundly magical experience over and over again for the rest of your life. This production premiered in 1986 to great-but as expected-not unanimous, critical acclaim, was telecast on US public television (PBS) in 1990, and ran for more than two decades until the Spring of 2009. Critics and the opera-going public however agree that nothing is as poignantly moving as the legendary Hildegard Behrens’ Brünnhilde and the incomparable James Morris’ Wotan in the last scene of this production’s Die Walküre (partly excerpted in the above video clip).
READ MORE about this PRODUCTION and the CAST as presented in 1997.
CAST:
HILDEGARD BEHRENS - Brünnhilde, SIEGFRIED JERUSALEM - Siegfried, GARY LAKES - Siegmund, JESSYE NORMAN - Sieglinde, CHRISTA LUDWIG - Fricka, HEINZ ZEDNIK - Loge, EKKEHARD WLASCHIHA: Alberich, GRAHAM CLARK - Mime.
Other artists who sung in this production include: JANE EAGLEN, GWYNETH JONES, WALTRAUD MEIER, LEONIE RYSANEK, DEBORAH VOIGT, THEO ADAM, PLACIDO DOMINGO, MATTI SALMINEN, FRANZ MAZURA, JOHN MACURDY and AAGE HAUGLAND.
Maestro JAMES LEVINE conducted all the RING CYCLE performances. He has led more than 60 performances of Die Walküre at the Met since 1984.
