Wagner Opera

Daniel Barenboim is making his Metropolitan Opera debut today with Tristan und Isolde. Barenboim's responsibilities in Chicago, Bayreuth, and Berlin has made a Metropolitan debut impossible until now. The cast includes Katarina Dalayman as Isolde, Michelle DeYoung as Brangäne, Peter Seiffert as Tristan, Gerd Grochowski as Kurwenal a René Pape as the cuckolded King Marke.

A panel of leading international critics has ranked Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra no 1, defeating orchestras like Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic, London Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Bavarian Radio Symphony. It is the magazine Gramophone who has asked eleven critics to rank the best orchestras in the world. The panel included three British critics from the Gramophone, two Americans, two Asians and one each from Le Monde (France), Die Welt (Germany), De Telegraaf (the Nether-lands) and Die Presse (Austria). These are the best orchestras, according to Gramophone 's critics: 1 Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra 2 Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra 3 Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra 4 London Symphony Orchestra 5 Chicago Symphony Orchestra 6 Bavarian Radio Symphony 7 Cleveland Orchestra 8 Los Angeles Philharmonic 9 Budapest Festival Orchestra 10 Dresden Staatskapelle 11 Boston Symphony Orchestra 12 New York Philharmonic 13 San Francisco Symphony 14 Mariinsky Theatre

The Complete Stockholm Ring is to be broadcast on Swedish TV this autumn SVT2 Saturday 18 October kl 19.45: Das Rheingold SVT2 Saturday 8 November kl 19.40: Die Walküre SVT2 Saturday 29 November kl 19.35: Siegfried SVT2 Saturday 20 December kl 19:00: Götterdämmerung http://www.operan.se

Decca will be releasing a Giant Box set with all Wagner operas recorded at the Bayreuth Festival at an unbelievable bargain price on 17 June (33 CDs - $62.99). The box include all the operas that are being played at the Bayreuth Festival, that is: Das Rheingold Die Walküre Siegfried Götterdämmerung Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg Tristan und Isolde Parsifal Der fliegende Holländer Tannhäuser Lohengrin Most of these recording will be second or fifth choice for Wagnerians collecting recordings. I get a kinda "let's take what we have"-feeling watching the production list. What do you think? The Giant Wagner Box with all Operas for $62.99 TRACKLISTING CDs 1& 2 Der fliegende Holländer Anja Silja / Fritz Uhl / Josef Greindl / Franz Crass Wolfgang Sawallisch CDs 3-5 Tannhäuser Silja / Wolfgang Windgassen / Eberhard Wächter / Josef Greindl Wolfgang Sawallisch CDs 6-8 Lohengrin Anja Silja / Astrid Varnay / Jess Thomas / Ramon Vinay Wolfgang Sawallisch CDs 9-11 Tristan und Isol

Waltraud Meier stars as Kundry in a new and provocative production of Parsifal at the Bastille Opera in Paris . Jorg von Uthmann has a review for Bloomberg News of the production which is directed by Krzysztof Warlikowski . Uthmann comments that Warlikowski does his best to play down the religious side of the opera. The slow tempi that has been a trademark for this "holy" opera, is rejected by conductor Hartmut Haenchen . I guess his fast reading (3 hours and 55 minutes, according to Uthmann) is part of the de-sanctifying project of this production. Much of Act I is performed as an oratorio with the singers sitting in front of a screen on which, from time to time, primitive drawings appear. If you know the story, you recognize the Cross, the lance and the chalice. If not, you are as lost as a blameless fool. Before the prelude of the third act, there were angry protests among the audience when the final scene of Roberto Rossellini's 1948 movie Germany Year Zero , showin