The Copenhagen Ring: The Complete DVD Set
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Gitta-Maria Sjoberg, Irenie Theorin, Johan Reuter, Stephen Milling, Stig AndersenComposer: Kasper Bech Holten
DVD: Region Code 0
Audio: German (Original Language), DTS 5.1; Chinese (Subtitled); English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); German (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled)
Format: AC-3, Box set, Classical, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Surround Sound, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 920 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-08-12
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Decca
Movie Reviews of The Copenhagen Ring: The Complete DVD Set
Movie Review: ... and the occasional "spasm of cramp"
Summary: 4 Stars
As a Dane myself one could say that I am almost contractually obligated to love this Ring, but though I can't for a moment deny that this production has been a cultural exertion of a magnitude so far unheard of in this small country - and one crowned with considerable success - I still have serious reservations about a great many things when it comes to its conceptual scope.
Wagner's "Der Ring des Nibelungen" is without a doubt the most spectacular and demanding, longest and most complex work ever written for the stage, and when it was first performed in Bayreuth in 1876, the composer was indeed the first to remark that he doubted anybody would ever be able to stage it in a fashion that would render it justice the way it was originally conceived. Well, since that time a good many have tried, and some rather more successfully than others. The first production I saw was the so called "Centenary Ring" staged in Bayreuth in 1976 by the French film director Patrice Ch?reau, and as such that version, with its tense drama and naturalistic depiction of violence, will always be something of a reference to me. Unfamiliar as I was with the traditional ways of staging this work, I found the use of costumes and set pieces from the age of industrialisation during the last half of the nineteenth century quite fitting (after all, that is when the operas are composed), and the rantings and howls of "sacrilege" trumpeted by the traditional Wagner fans left me utterly unmoved. As such I should feel great sympathy for Kasper Bech Holten, the producer of this Copenhagen version, who in conversation with our Queen (second disc of "Die Walk?re") claims intending his staging for those whose minds are "not tied by traditional views of the operas". I frankly wonder if such an audience can be found at all these days, but mostly the remark to me certainly raises the greater question: won't these poor, innocent opera-goers be terminally confused when almost nothing in the sets or the action corresponds with what is sung anymore?
It was, I think, agreed early on that the lack of dwarfs and (especially) giants who could sing the various parts left producers certain liberties of interpretation, and with the Boulez/Ch?reau Ring (Bayreuth 1976-1981) the much loved (but often ridiculed) tradition of using viking-inspired horns and hairdos was laid to rest once and for all. This production, however, retained the props (ring, weaponry, etc.) mentioned constantly in the text - and to great and dramatic effect. The action still took place in some mythical age and thus made the use of medieval pictures and phrases somewhat plausible, but when you set the action specifically in the twentieth century (in the Copenhagen case from the 1920s to the 1990s) you unavoidably run into all kinds of trouble coming up with explanations for all those annoying anachronistic tools, such as helmets, spears and swords, that you can't just drop because they don't fit the new general concept. Holten is not the first to wrestle with these problems, but I am sorry to say that he has had no more luck than most other present-day directors coming up with consistent solutions. A man brandishing a sword in the middle of a cluster of uniformed sociopaths armed with automatic rifles is inherently silly (and to boot wide open to the old joke about bringing a knife to a gunfight!), and I seriously doubt there is much anybody can do about that. On top of this I always cringe when I hear the word "hammer" and see a pump-gun, or the word "armour" and see wings with black feathers on them. Also many of Holten's personal touches and original ideas - a white dove being let loose before going into a coma, or sleeping people (being continually refered to as "sleeping") walking about the stage wide awake - fall on barren ground in my mind. They provoke a kind of embarrassed titter and represent what I tend to call "artistic cramp", i.e. an irrepressable urge to do something in a new way, though it is in fact utterly unnecessary and in all likelihood less satisfactory than the way things have so far been done. I know I am fighting windmills here, but looking ahead I all but expect to see the first act of "Siegfried" set in a nunnery next, and unstopable evolution or not - that is leaving artistic license open to justified ridicule. When taking in the production for the first time I was sorely tempted to use the old phrase often quoted in the entertainment industry: there was much good and much new in the play, only the good wasn't new and the new wasn't good - but in all fairness that is not altogether true. Some things do work, and some actually work very well; only a pity so much else goes down in flames most horribly - given the end of "G?tterd?mmerung", no pun intended.
Now you could say: this does not sound like a review that ends in four stars, and normally you'd be absolutely spot on, but this "Ring" has one colossal upside to it. It is on the whole - and I write this with utter conviction - dramatically as well as vocally one of the best "Ring"-versions in existence on DVD and CD alike. There literally (and VERY unusually for a big Wagner-production) isn't a bad performance within eye- or earshot! Some like Sten Byriel (Alberich) and Christian Christiansen (Fafner) are merely doing OK, but some like Ir?ne Theorin (Br?nhilde), Randi Stene (Fricka), Stephen Milling (Fasolt/Hunding) and Guido Paevatalu (Gunther) have not been seen or heard better for decades. And shining incandescently over them all is the magnificent true-barytone Wotan of James Johnson, defying belief in combining the gut-wrenching dramatic intensity of Sir Donald McIntyre with the vocal splendour and faultless German diction of Sir John Tomlinson. His performance in the third act of "Die Walk?re" in particular is second to none, and leaves him on a par with masters like Hotter and Adam. Only the Hagen of Peter Klaveness presents a voice slightly too weak for the job, but he makes up for his vocal deficiencies by his first rate acting. The orchestra, very professionally led by Michael Sch?nwandt, lacks a bit of the edge a Levine might have produced, but it in no way detracts from the overall emotional punch, which is considerable.
Wagner used to say that he prefered actors who couldn't sing to singers who couldn't act, and I sometimes wonder if he ever met anybody who in his expert opinion mastered both. He would have truely loved this cast!
Summary of The Copenhagen Ring: The Complete DVD Set
First release of the acclaimed recent Ring Cycle production at the Royal Danish Opera. Striking, memorable and controversial staging by Kasper Bech Holten. The action, experienced as an extended flashback, presents Wagner s epic as a family saga from a feminist perspective. The production is visually stunning, disturbing and at times explicit. Subtitles: English, French, German, Spanish, ChineseArt House & International DVD Video
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