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Wagner - Gotterdammerung (DVD)

£31.80

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Label: Arthaus

Cat No: 101359

Barcode: 0807280135992

Format: DVD - NTSC

Number of Discs: 2

Genre: Opera

Release Date: 26th July 2009

Works

Wagner, Richard

Gotterdammerung

Artists

Norbert Schmittberg
Mario Hoff
Tomas Mowes
Renatus Meszar
Catherine Foster
Marietta Zumbult
Nadine Weissmann
Opera Chorus of the Deutsches Nationaltheater Weimar
Gentlemen of the Philharmonic Chorus Weimar
Staatskapelle Weimar

Conductor

Carl St Clair

Works

Wagner, Richard

Gotterdammerung

Artists

Conductor

Carl St Clair

About

A bleak wind chord of E flat minor opens Richard Wagner’s Götterdämmerung. It establishes the dominant atmosphere of the piece from its first bar: twilight, a deceptive half-light prevails. Shadowy figures stumble towards the abyss.

The last evening of the Ring is one of plotting and betrayal, of ominous oaths, a chilling lust for power, abuse and humiliation – and, also, of a superbly staged apocalypse, when the beings and things destined for destruction shine brightly for one last time.

The leitmotivs and thematic ideas from throughout the whole tetralogy recur in Götterdämmerung, intensified and woven into a musical web from which there can be no escape. Everything appears to fit together fatally with everything else. There is nothing more to be done. The net of catastrophe is knotted too fatefully for that, both musically and dramatically. When Wagner sat down to write a prose outline of what turned out as the last part of the Ring, he called it Siegfried’s Death. That was in the year of revolutions, 1848.

The new title, usually translated as Twilight of the Gods, came later (Bernard Shaw called it Night Falls on the Gods but that never caught on). All the threads of the drama run now towards the hero’s fall. The death of Siegfried precipitates the final dissolution of the gods’ world, set in train by Wotan when he impiously tore a branch from the World Ash-Tree, and to which the god was already resigned long ago, before he knew of Siegfried’s conception. The natural order has been diverted from its proper course, and the last hope of righting it rests with Siegfried – the human being of the future. He knows no constraints, no fear of violence moderates his thirst for action, he is naïve and spontaneous.

Cast:
- Siegfried: Norbert Schmittberg
- Gunther: Mario Hoff
- Alberich: Tomas Möwes
- Hagen: Renatus Mészár
- Brünnhilde: Catherine Foster
- Gutrune: Marietta Zumbült
- Waltraute: Nadine Weissmann

Live Recording from the Deutsches Nationaltheater Weimar, 2008.

Director: Michael Schulz
Set Design: Dirk Becker
Costume Design: Renée Listerdal

Sound Format: PCM Stereo, DD 5.1
Picture Format: 16:9
DVD Format: 2 x DVD 9, NTSC
Menu Language: GB
Subtitle Languages: IT, GB, DE, FR, ES, Japanese
Running Time: 277 mins
FSK: 6
Region Code: 0