All in all, this version as a whole has a hallucinatory quality that's in places quite appealing. I found it preferable to Jingo's Barcelona version (Opus Arte OA 0910-13 D), and it thus comes in third in my evaluation of the DVD versions currently available.
An ideal stage version of these operas would, for me, use advanced modern technology to re-create the syrupy dream world of such 1890s painters as Franz Moser, Max Brucker and William Kempin (paradoxically illustrated in the sumptuous Chinese-language book that accompanies this boxed set). It would more recall the imaginative worlds of contemporary Japanese ghost movies than the kitchen sinks and cooking aprons so popular with these Stuttgart directors.
The problem with eccentric productions such as these is that you can't help feeling many of the directors involved dislike opera as an art form and are trying, none too secretly, to discredit and subvert it. You wouldn't think, coming in all innocence to these DVDs, that they are versions of the greatest musico-dramatic works ever written (or that the major contenders for the title are also by Richard Wagner).
Moments of old-fashioned theatricality do emerge in Gotterdammerung — Hagen's men carrying burning torches, a photographed mountain lake, plus a purling stream — but the singers remain incongruously modern-day. Vocally, too, this is the most ill-sorted of the four. Delayed and muted applause greets the ending in which Wagner's written stage directions, describing fire and flood, scroll up the screen, while the camera pans across an audience staring disconcertedly at an empty stage, possibly recalling just how much they paid to watch this non-experience.
Jingo is nevertheless to be praised for making alternative Ring cycles available to Taiwanese viewers so they can judge for themselves. (They also released the stark Barcelona version, reviewed in Taipei Times May 4, 2006, while the more traditional Levine and Boulez versions come from Deutsche Grammophon and Philips respectively).
Another plus for this set, in addition to its instrumental excellence, is that the English subtitles are astutely judged and are all in all the best I've seen anywhere. Chinese subtitles are also available.
Whether this Ring will convert you to the modernist style will depend on your tastes. My suggestion is that you invest in Siegfried to test the waters and, if you enjoy that, take your chance with the other three works.
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