Bayreuth Festival

“ As for the long awaited debuts of Meier and Jerusalem, the audience was ecstatic, so much so that Jerusalem excitedly hugged and kissed his partner several times during the curtain calls” (Herald Tribune)

“An abstract, simple set, against which the characters play out their fates…starkly and strikingly executed” (The New York Times)

“…excellent performances… Deborah Polaski's powerful but feminine and vulnerable Brünnhilde, Eric Halfvarson's horribly charismatic Hagen, and Falk Struckmann's unusually sturdy Gunther… Levine… carries the performance, as slow as his 1990 Met recordings but much more fluent, and with even finer orchestral playing.” BBC Music Magazine, November 2007 ****

“Hermann Prey´s interpretation of Beckmesser as a cultivated intellectual is a triumph of dramatic and vocal artistry: a stunning performance . . . Brilliant . . . Bernd Weikl as Sachs – an almost unique combination of musical refinement and expressive power.” (Abendzeitung, Munich)

“Nothing ever seen before on television has given a better insight into Wagner’s genius.” (The New York Times)

“The central part of the Ring tetralogy is precisely this: a hero has been created who would actually have had all the attributes of freedom, but nobody remembered to tell him…so Siegfried remains unaware and incomplete… Mime has to be both funny and tragic – a clown like Chaplin and pathetic like a downtrodden people” (Patrice Chéreau)

“The videotaped Bayreuth Ring succeeds triumphantly” (Time).