Siegfried, by Richard Wagner, recorded live on 1 October 2002 and 5 January 2003
Staatsoper Stuttgart, Staatsorchester Stuttgart, cond. Lothar Zagrosek
Stage direction and dramaturgy: Jossie Wieler and Sergio Morabito
Siegfried: Jon Fredric West; Mime: Heinz Göhrig; Der Wanderer: Wolfgang Schöne; Alberich: Björn Waag; Fafner: Attila Jun; Erda: Helene Ranada; Brünnhilde: Lisa Gasteen; Der Waldvogel: Gabriela Herrera
Audio: DD.5.1, DTS 5.1 PCM Stereo
Video: 16:9
Length: 251 mins.
Studio: EuroArts TDK SWR
Rating: **

If not for the lush music-making, I would promptly dispatch this DVD to the garbage heap. Although the juxtaposition of Wagner’s grand music with wretched urban settings is interesting, this production ultimately fails to coalesce.

Act 1 takes place in a spacious, decrepit kitchen, with Heinz Göhrig (Mime) peeling and julienning potatoes. Jon Fredric West, whose singing doesn’t quite reach the heights of the Met production last spring, bounds in wearing sneakers and a T-shirt with the words “Sieg Fried” emblazoned on his chest. Later in the act, Mime, frightened by the Wanderer (Wolfgang Schöne in a black leather jacket, sunglasses, and a cap), finds relief by masturbating onstage. In Act 2, Attila Jun as Fafner sits on a chair in a military exclusion zone. Gabriela Herrera as the Woodbird, a blind blond boy who has lost his way, keeps popping up unexpectedly. And in Act 3, Brünnhilde’s “rock” consists of a sterile bedroom straight out of Stanley Kubrick’s film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Siegfried wakes Brünnhilde up with a lewd gesture, and his wooings are done in a T-shirt soaked in dragon’s blood. The two principals stand on opposite sides of the rococo room, avoiding each other—an inauspicious beginning for a romance. The opera ends with Siegfried and Brünnhilde fighting over—of all things—a bed sheet.

The singing, conducting, sound quality, and camera angles are uniformly excellent.

– Dalia Geffen