By the way, all of us have made sport of those heavy Brunhilde singers...

I just wanted to say that Gunther's vassals are wearing Schmoo hats.

They look so cute...

Dave (imported) wrote: Sat Sep 15, 2012 7:37 pm By the way, all of us have made sport of those heavy Brunhilde singers...

I just wanted to say that Gunther's vassals are wearing Schmoo hats.

They look so cute...

What's a schmoo hat?

anything woolen, forest green and with a pointy top that looks dumb

Thanks Dave, yet another item for my things to get people for xmas.

River

I must admit that "Twilight of the Gods" did try even my endurance.

It is best seen in two parts (why you ask)

Because Act 1 is two hours and although it has magnificent music and a great story, it is two hours long.

Acts Two and Three together are two and a half hours (2.5 hr) and aren't as trying to my patience.

Renee Fleming, the host of the show, asked the conductor what was hard and he pointed to just what I did above.

Most symphony concerts are two hours with intermission. The first act is two hours of solid music and that's a lot of work.

All of the singers said the same thing -- they have special preparations for that much music. both of the singers plying Brunhilde and Siegfried have an hour of music in the first act and then must return in the third act for gut busting arias and duets.

This is worth it. That's how spectacular it is from beginning to end. (all 20 hours in four nights)

It was certainly a great production.

Did you notice Dave, that the Rhine maidens would climb upward on a rock then slide down a rivulet?

Great coordination between the players and the "stage". That stage was fantastic to see in operation.

The guys who played Sigfried and Wotan did spectacular jobs of music + acting.

I would have liked Sigfried's funeral to be a little more dramatic. I think it's "Excaliber" one of the Arthur movies

where his pyre floats away in flames.

We have just wiled away 17 hours of our lives in artistic indulgence !!

It was not on PBS out here.

That's ok.

Fire and the RING are always problematic.

They chose to focus the final portion of the story on Brunhilde and not on Siegfried.

There was one production of Gotterdammerung where Valhala falls apart and Brunhilde missed a cue and got smacked by 50 pounds of fake foamy stage set.

Another time one theater used real fire (natural gas jets) for the end of Valkyrie and at the premier, they scorched Brunhilde because the real fire turned the metal plates of her rock very hot.

But back to this production.

Yes, I would have like some better action at the end of Gotterdammerung but I can never HEAR how to do it.

There was a record once about all of the musical themes in the four operas and how they appear and change from beginning to end of each opera. The musical finale sets the pace for the action and it is wickedly fast. There are only so many bars of music to play and so much action to squeeze into the seen. That includes a flying horse, Valhalla burning in the sky, and the Rhine overflowing its banks to drown Hagen. All of that action has a distinct musical cue. You realize that when the dead Siegfried gives up the ring to Brunhilde, there is a musical cue that accompanies the action.

BTW - Wagner gave those themes and melodies a name -- Leitmotif -- and the way he used them changed music after that.

Something there reminded me.

I understand that Hitler was a big admirer of Wagner, or at least pretended to be.

Could there be a more apt musical comment on the rise and fall of the 3rd Reich?

I think the version with real fire around the rock was on TV once.

Wagner did write very nationalistic music. Most composers did write the music of their country... that isn't a criticism. Wagner wasn't a crazed lunatic like Hitler. I can give lots of examples of nationalistic music.

However, Hitler had special lyrics written and special productions staged that really glorified national socialism. He poisoned everything he touched. It was so bad that the Israeli Symphony Orchestra never played Wagner until (If I remember) the later half of the 1980's or 1990.

Even in the USA, Jews would not attend Wagner concerts. I know that because I saw that happen. I started regular attendance at the symphony back about 1974.

Die Meistersinger was turned into a monstrous atrocity of goose-stepping praise. Of the RING, VALKYRIE and SIEGFRIED were the most warped to his tastes because he could get his perfect Aryan blondes and pure race beliefs into them.

I mean, I've made fun of these operas and ANNA RUSSELL (look her up, please. You'll laugh hysterically) skewers the entire Cycle delightfully and even certain Gilbert and Sullivan operettas are delightful send-ups of operatic foolishness

But Hitler ruined music for at least a generation of listeners.