Word: wotan
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...restraint made the opera's few moments of overt action all the more effective. As Hero Siegmund and Villain Hunding waged their battle at the end of Act II, a single, blinding white beam split the backdrop, silhouetting the struggle in all its throat-catching violence. When Wotan summoned the magic fire at the finale, the blackness was pierced by a single red spot, transforming Wotan's spear into a tongue of flame; in the inexplicit staging, these moments stood out in a relief that old-fashioned literalness could never achieve. The orchestra, which Von Karajan subdued...
Thus, as Wieland interpreted the Ring cycle, Valhalla would be Wall Street, the heroes Siegfried and Siegmund self-sacrificing astronauts, the temptress Gutrune a mythological call girl, the god Wotan a wheeler-dealer politician, his wife Fricka everybody's nagging mother-in-law, and the spear-carrying Valkyries teen-age Beatle fans. Richard Wagner would have adored it, insisted Wieland. After all, no one despised the old Wagnerite purists more than Grandfather, who delighted in shocking admiring visitors by greeting them at the door on all fours and yapping like a fox terrier...
...London). Following close upon last year's triumphant Gotterdammerung, London completes its new recordings of the complete Ring cycle with a wonderful Walkure. Conducting the Vienna Philharmonic, Georg Solti again heaps high all the sumptuous glories of the Wagnerian orchestra, at the same time charging every passage of Wotan's family fracas with drama. The lush and beautiful singing is alive with emotion, the stars being an international assemblage of accomplished artists: Birgit Nilsson as Briinnhilde, Regine Crespin as Sieglinde, Christa Ludwig as Fricka, and Hans Hotter as Wotan. Not quite so great but still outstanding are James...
Killer & Astronaut. In Wieland's revised version, he visualized Alberich and Wotan as archetypes of "wheeler-dealer politicians," the heroes Siegfried and Siegmund as self-sacrificing astronauts, the Rhinemaidens as the bosses' sexy secretaries, Wotan's wife Fricka as everybody's nagging mother-in-law, Fafner and Fasolt as Murder Inc.'s cold blooded killers, Briinnhilde as a man's best pal, the temptress Gutrune as a call girl...
...plot summary. The narrative is augmented by endlessly suggestive details: the costumes (varying from the pure white of the girl who offers order to the pure black of the magnificent monster-woman Saraghina, who gave the young Guido his first sexual experience), the music (an orchestra blares out Wotan's theme from the Twilight of the Gods while the camera focuses on the faces of the old men and women who crowd the health resort), the juxtaposition of lines, and, most of all, the endless convolutions of the plot. The film Guido is directing is similar in many respects...