I knew we were into, as my friend Broadway orchestrator Larry Moore calls it, a "Eurotrash reimagining" of this vaunted work when it started not with Wagner's famous Eb ostinato, but instead with a spoken introduction (in verse, culled from Wagner's own Prologue to Siegfried's Death) by three young Aryan lasses wearing hand sockpuppets. Though these puppets looked like dragons, all three girls were saying "Quack, quack, quack." I thought for a moment Shari Lewis had dropped acid and directed this fascinating, little known bit of Wagneriana, at long last found and restored to its rightful place before the piece really begins. Once the opera actually began, I literally could not believe what I was seeing. Alberich and Wotan, wearing more or less modern dress, stared at each other as the famous four minute musical prelude gathered its fury. And then the Rhinemaidens actually appeared above the dwarf and the gods, standing on a sort of cardboard cutout that, while visually interesting, made loud "thunk" noises every time the women's undulating arms mistakenly hit it. Now that's hard water.

But wait, it gets better. Alberich, who appears to be standing at full height, despite his dwarf status, is then suddenly a precursor to Tim Conway's Dorf character. I kid you not. He dons little red boots, attaching them to his knees, and then hobbles around for most of the first scene with his little fake legs flailing in front of him. I half expected him to take Wotan's spear and turn it into a golf club. It is one of the most patently hilarious things I've ever seen, all the more incredible when you consider what a tragic character Alberich is supposed to be.

But the hilarity doesn't end there. When we get around to meeting Fasolt and Fafner, the putative giants, it's yet another one of a growing number of "WTF" moments that become ever more outrageous. I'm not quite sure what the visual intent for these characters was supposed to be; suffice it to say they're evidently on stilts (it's hard to tell exactly), wearing big fat suits which make them look like rejects from the old "Culhane" sketches on Hee Haw, and are both adorned with large foam rubber hands and ears, with both of them wearing quasi-Kabuki makeup. Poor Richard is probably turning over in his grave.

The sad thing about this is this is one of the more magnificently sung and played Rheingolds I've heard, especially in the sumptuous orchestral work of Staatskapelle Weimar under the splendid direction of Carl St. Clair. This is some of Wagner's most deeply burnished music, and it is played here with élan and often magnificence. And the singers are uniformly excellent as well, from Mario Hoff's towering Wotan to Christine Hansmann's incredibly languid yet forceful Fricka. But how are they to overcome the rampant stupidity of Michael Schulz's stage direction?

I am all for "re-visioning" any kind of classic theater, including classic opera, to give it a new and sometimes unexpected vantage point. But when something like this mess dribbles across the stage, it simply points to an excess of directorial hubris. When Valhalla becomes nothing more than a wooden frame in which the Gods form a sad final tableaux, you know there is definitely something wrong with this picture.

The Blu-ray

Video:
If you've always wanted to see Dorf in high definition, this is your chance. Das Rheingold sports a very clear and crisp AVC 1.78:1 image that has excellent detail, superb color and well modulated contrast. The only problem is you actually have to watch this damn thing in order to see all of that.

Sound:
This is glorious music performed gloriously in two sterling mixes, a PCM Stereo and DTS-HD MA 5.1. Surround channels are utilized quite effectively at times, notably when, for example, the Rhinemaidens are singing offstage. The orchestra and singers all sound magnificent, fidelity is top notch, and the dynamic range is quite impressive. Subtitles are available in English, German, French and Italian.

Extras:
Unusual for an ArtHaus Musik release, this BD only offers trailers.

Final Thoughts:
This is one of the strangest productions of Das Rheingold I have ever endured. When you're considering Wagner a newfound laff riot, you know something's not quite right in the world. I guess if you were to put this on and just listen from another room, it would certainly merit a rental. Otherwise, Skip It.

____________________________________________
"G-d made stars galore" & "Hey, what kind of a crappy fortune is this?" ZMK, modern prophet