Richard Wagner - Götterdämmerung - Treleaven, Gasteen, Tomlinson - Pappano 2005BBC
Cast: Hagen - John Tomlinson, Brünnhilde - Lisa Gasteen, Siegfried - John Treleaven, Alberich - Peter Sidhom, Gunther - Peter Coleman-Wright, Gutrune - Emily Magee, Rhinemaidens - Sarah Fox, Heather Shipp and Sarah Castle, Waltraute - Mihoko Fujimura
Norns - Catherine Wyn-Rogers, Yvonne Howard and Marina Poplavskaya
Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
Antonio Pappano
Stefanos Lazaridis's sets for Warner's production are sometimes cumbersome but nearly always evoke a powerful setting for the meticulously detailed direction. The Hall of the Gibichungs is a large room of mirrors, creating a suitably self-reflective background for the most revelatory opera out of the four – it's the one where everything becomes clear, especially to Brünnhilde. The Rhinemaidens splash in and out of the river, and the final tableau shows Brünnhilde setting fire to various props before jumping, perhaps inexplicably, from the back of the stage. More fruitfully, in the final minute of the opera a huge ring descends upon the stage, confronting us with the most powerful force in the story. --musicomh
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