The Stage (Free subscription) | 29/08/2008
Festspielhaus, Bayreuth, Germany: At the end of a Ring cycle at Bayreuth, it is traditional that first the chorus and then the orchestra fill the stage and are greeted with round after round of applause. Rightly, for they and the marvellous acoustics form Wagner's greatest treasure here. Read the full review
Apple Hot News (Free subscription) | 13/06/2008
“Macs have always given me the feeling that I can figure anything out,” explains Tal Yarden. And in his latest project, the video designer has figured out how to use the Mac, FInal Cut Pro, Motion, Keynote, and other Mac software to stage an innovative production of Wagner’s Götterdämmerung that adds video via a Mac mini-controlled 66 screen array.
The Apple News (Free subscription) | 13/06/2008
“Macs have always given me the feeling that I can figure anything out,” explains Tal Yarden. And in his latest project, the video designer has figured out how to use the Mac, FInal Cut Pro, Motion, Keynote, and other Mac software to stage an innovative production of Wagner’s Götterdämmerung that adds video via a Mac mini-controlled 66 screen array.
ArtsJournal (Free subscription) | 08/05/2008
Acclaimed soprano Francis Yeend, a regular on New York stages in the 1940s, '50s, and '60s has died aged 92. "Her last performance with the Met was in 1963, as Gutrune in Wagner's Götterdämmerung... Most recently Ms. Yeend was an emeritus faculty member of West Virginia University in Morgantown."...
LA Times (Free subscription) | 18/04/2008
In pure comic-book adventure, the Seattle opener is big on heroics. KANYE WEST has always fancied himself a hero; now he has staged his "Götterdämmerung." The hip-hop star may or may not have been thinking about Richard Wagner's epic Ring cycle when he decided to turn his Glow in the Dark tour into an apocalyptic space opera. The show, which premiered Wednesday at this city's Key Arena, had more obvious...
Philadelphia Inquirer (Free subscription) | 05/04/2008
Every so often, Wagnerites have their day at the Philadelphia Orchestra. The glorious impracticalities that make Wagner an object of cultlike admiration mean that the years when Leopold Stokowski celebrated Easter with concert performances of Parsifal will never come again. But at least there are evenings such as Thursday's sy
MilkandCookies.com (Free subscription) | 22/01/2008
From John Boorman's Excalibur (1981). This final scene features Richard Wagner’s Funeral March (Götterdämmerung).
NION - Front Page (Free subscription) | 22/10/2007
Aus des Rheines Gold ist der Reif geglüht. Watching a DVD of the New York Metropolitan Opera's version of Richard Wagner's Götterdämmerung (or Twilight of the Gods [TOG]) the other day, I was struck at how prescient the otherwise reactionary composer was in anticipating the destruction of the voracious classes. (One should not find it odd that in Wagner one finds mixed the most progressive and the...
The Independent (Free subscription) | 12/10/2007
The final part of Wagner's Ring begins with the daughters of Erda, the three Norns, taking stock of unfolding events. It's their "previously in the Ring" moment. But for all their "eternal wisdom", they speculate but cannot be sure of the outcome. I now can.
The Stage (Free subscription) | 10/10/2007
Royal Opera House, London: The Royal Opera concludes Keith Warner's cycle of Wagner's epic with a mixed impression in the last of the four operas. Once again, orchestral standards are high and Antonio Pappano's conducting takes the wider view as well as focusing on detail. Read the full review
The Stage (Free subscription) | 05/09/2007
Bayreuth Festival, Bayreuth, Germany: With Gotterdammerung the mighty cycle of Wagner's Ring ends, and in this production the final opera has some of the best and the worst things of the whole. Read the full review
Progressive Bloggers (Free subscription) | 26/08/2007
I'm a big fan of Wagner's Ring Cycle, and if I had to pick one moment in the 17-hour, four-opera marathon to call my favorite, it would be the weird, creepy conversation between Alberich and his son Hagen in the final opera, Gotterdammerung.Alberich (a powerful dwarf from deep in the earth) and Wotan (the chief of the Norse gods) are in a race to obtain the Ring of the Nibelung and gain ultimate power....
