Dionysos

The spectacle is as important as the music in Wolfgang Rihm's opera, captured here during its 2010 Salzburg Festival premiere. Rihm constructed the libretto from scattered lines of Friedrich Nietzsche's Dionysos-Dithyramben poems, arranged here as a series of scenes from the philosopher's life and presented in the phantasmagorical terms he might have experienced as he slid into insanity. But Nietzsche's disorientation is also portrayed as an ascent to Dionysian ecstasy, complete with Greek gods, bevies of nymphs, and bizarre masked figures placed against settings that have a pop-art feel. Essentially an atonal score, the music is full of lush romantic overtones similar to those Berg brought to Lulu, and is deftly played by the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester of Berlin under the baton of conductor Ingo Metzmacher. The singing is also remarkable, with sopranos Mojca Erdmann and Elin Rombo vocally sailing into the stratosphere, while Johannes Martin Kränzle is powerful as N. (for Nietzsche) and Matthias Klink equally strong as the foppish guest who is skinned but emerges as the god Apollo. Presented in DTS 5.0, Dolby Digital 5.0, and PCM stereo on DVD, and DTS-HD 5.0 and PCM stereo on Blu-ray, extras include a booklet, and Bettina Ehrhardt's documentary Ich Bin Dein Labyrinth, which is almost critical viewing in order to decipher what is happening onstage, and includes interviews with Rihm, director Pierre Audi, designer Jonathan Meese, Metzmacher, and the main singers. For the musically adventurous, this is highly recommended. (F. Swietek)