rings blu ray

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In Criterion’s first volume of the anthology By Brakhage, we brought twenty-six astonishing works by the avant-garde film pioneer Stan Brakhage to home video for the first time. Now, in this second installment, we are proud to present thirty more of Brakhage’s innovative creations, from 1950s films to his final work, from 2003. Highlights of this collection include the antiwar film 23rd Psalm Branch; hand-painted films from the Persian Series; The Wonder Ring, made for a commission by Joseph Cornell; the autobiographical Scenes from Under Childhood, Section One; his only found-footage film, Murder Psalm; and much more. (Films date from 1954-2003)

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This Die Walkure from the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence features the second installment of what is both Simon Rattle’s and the festival’s first Ring Cycle. Filmed last year in the recently built Grand Theatre de Provence and staged by Stephane Braunschweig, the opera is performed in modern dress in a modern setting (although the Valkyries do wear helmets). Wotan is played by the great Jamaican bass-baritone Willard White. Fricka is sung by Lilli Paasikivi with Robert Gambill as Siegmund and Eva-Maria Westbroek as Sieglinde. Rattle’s Ring Cycle in Aix continues with Siegfried in late 2008 and Gotterdammerung in 2009.
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Richard Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelung reflects the composer’s
autobiography as much as the political turmoil of his times. As
work progressed, another figure grew to be as important as the hero
Siegfried, the god Wotan, the mouthpiece for Wagner s ideas. ‘He’s
exactly like us: he is the sum of today s intellectual consciousness,
whereas Siegfried is what we hope the human being of the future will be, but who cannot be fashioned by us, and who
must make himself by means of our destruction!’ Our own doom as the basis of a happier future?
Second ‘day’ and third part of Richard Wagner’s ‘Ring’, the musical saga that its author spent more than a quarter of
a century composing. It follows the rise of a young hero, Siegfried, the illegitimate son of the twins whose story we were told
in Die Walküre. On the one hand, there is learning about life, glorying in nature and in the emotions, as opposed to those of
calculation and greed on the other. This episode shows how Wagner was intent on changing society, on showing that a different
kind of man can exist, that the mercenary petit bourgeois world can be replaced by greater humanity and freedom.
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In the words of the prestigious German weekly ‘Die Zeit,’ the stage production of Wagner’s ‘Rheingold’ and ‘Walküre’ by La Fura dels Baus ‘quite possibly shows us the path that musical theater will be taking in the future.’ There’s no doubt about it: the Catalan city of Valencia is setting new accents in 21st-century opera not only with its spectacular new theater designed by Santiago Calatrava, but also with its visually transfixing production of Wagner’s ‘Ring’ staged by Carlos Padrissa and his theater group La Fura dels Baus. The Barcelona-based Fura blends music, dance, acrobatics and technology into unforgettable stage events of sometimes raw but always captivating power. The Fura made its breakthrough in the classical establishment with its production of Berlioz’s ‘La damnation de Faust’ at the 1999 Salzburg Festival. The Fura’s fertile visual fantasy and endless combinations of savvy video technology, lighting and props (often formed of human beings) are predestined for Wagner’s visionary expressive world. Wagner’s dream of a Gesamtkunstwerk becomes reality as this shape-shifting sequence of tableaux unfolds before our eyes: 3D computer projections that evoke computer games, organic structures built of athletic performers that recall the ‘Cirque du soleil,’ and much more. In this production, ‘the visual codes of the digital era become elemental and dazzlingly employed means of narration’ (Opernwelt). Musically, the first two parts of Wagner’s tetralogy ‘Das Rheingold’ and ‘Die Walküre’ are on a par with productions from historically more prestigious opera houses. Part Three, ‘Siegfried,’ is scheduled for June 2008, and Part Four, ‘Götterdämmerung,’ for June 2009. Legendary conductor Zubin Mehta leads world-class Wagner singers such as Peter Seiffert, Petra-Maria Schnitzer and Matti Salminen, and promising young talents that include Jennifer Wilson (Brünnhilde), John Daszak (Loge) and Juha Uusitalo (Wotan), whom the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung hailed as a new ‘Number One among the opera gods.’ Equally outstanding is the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana, an ensemble of top musicians hand-picked by Music Director Lorin Maazel.
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Best review for Wagner: Die Walkure [Blu-ray]