Der Ring des Nibelungen

In the cascade of releases of Richard Wagner's four-opera cycle tied to the 2013 bicentennial of the composer's birth, Daniel Barenboim now competes with himself—specifically, the superb Harry Kupfer production Barenboim conducted in 1991–92 at Bayreuth, recently reissued on DVD (VL-1/12). This new version of Wagner's magnum opus about the fall of the Germanic gods was staged by Guy Cassiers at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, beginning in 2010 with Das Rheingold and Die Walküre, continuing with Siegfried in 2012, and finishing up with Götterdämmerung in 2013. While aptly demonstrating that Barenboim remains a master of eliciting Wagnerian line and sonority even from an Italian orchestra, the mounting isn't quite up to the Bayreuth production, or the recent Netherlands Opera version conducted by Hartmut Haenchen (VL-9/13). Cassiers here opts for sets and costumes of wildly varied styles, and he loads the operas down with unnecessary baggage (dancers gyrating gratingly in Rheingold; busy rear-stage projections elsewhere). And the roles are often taken by different singers, some better than others (René Pape's Wotan in Rheingold is preferable to Vitalij Kowaljow's in Walküre or Terje Stensvold's in Siegfried; Nina Stemme's Brünnhilde in Walküre and Siegfried outclasses Iréne Theorin's in Götterdämmerung). While also a common practice in other Rings, of course, the inconsistency in staging and vocalism here is still jarring. Even so, Barenboim's second take on Wagner's tetralogy is musically powerful. Presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 and PCM stereo on DVD, and DTS-HD 5.1 and PCM stereo on Blu-ray, this is recommended for those who don't own the earlier Barenboim release. (F. Swietek)