Care to take the plunge?

[Damfino]

My wife and I are both opera fans. We were ticket season holders here in Houston for several years; and saw/heard some great operas and performers. The one Wagner we saw live at HGO was The Flying Dutchman. I was not crazy about Julie Taymor's production, but the opera moved well enough.

The rest of Wagner I have watched has been on home video. I enjoyed the Boulez/Cherau Ring from Bayreuth in the early 80s, and later saw the Levine/Schenk Met version. While I enjoyed both of those productions, I have to say Götterdämerung was a bit of a slog in both productions. It has some of the great bits in the entire cycle; but is surely an endurance test for the initiated. If I were seeing a first Wagner opera, I think I'd prefer Dutchman, Tannhauser or Rheingold.

I do not know what the new Met production looks like; but I do not care for the current trend in opera production in which operas are set in every possible period other than the one for which it was written.

Dave

[wagnerlover]

The new production of the Ring at the MET is actually very traditional.  There is none of that Regietheater desecration of the work.  It's set at the appropriate "mythological" period and is costumed accordingly.  The only wild card is the scenery, which often threatens to upstage all the musical proceedings.  That scenery also makes me worry about a serious accident occurring onstage.

Again I second Constantin's sentiments, but I'd add that Mahler lovers owe it to themselves to hear Wagner's music LIVE. 
There's nothing like it, unless it be Mahler's music live.

Daniel

[Clov]

Been to a performance of La Triviata once, had to leave at intermission for an astronomy veiwing of Mars. More in tune with the music of opera than the actual drama itself. The scene where Isolde is trying to summon a storm right after the opening prelude is almost impossibly powerfull, especially in the Furtwangler Flagstad version.

[Constantin]

The "Live from the Met" Gotterdammerung this weekend was wonderful at the theater where I watched it.  I've heard from others across the world that in some theaters the sound was less than had been hoped for.

In Act 1, Scene 3, where the Valkyrie, Waltraute, visits her sister, Brunnhilde, for some reason I noticed better than ever before the smooth way in which Wagner weaves his leitmotivs into the conversation between the Valkyrie sisters.   It adds so much to their conversation, when we hear the music add its voice to the action.  For example, a character may say what they think is going to transpire, but through the insertion of Alberich, the Nibelung's curse motif, the music tells us of another factor which the speakers may not be considering.

It reminds me of how, in M6, Mahler states ("Alma theme") the vibrant love of life, only to have the music intrude with the crushing hammer blows of fate, announcing that death will still come, no matter how dearly we love and cling to life.  Perhaps not quite the same thing as in Gotterdammerung, but it does show how much the music has to say--beyond mere words.