Decca: 0743264

“The first of several wonders in this new set… is the intuitive performing skill of a genuine house ensemble. …Copenhagen has achieved a class Ring with just one guest, James Johnson's Walküre/Siegfried Wotans. Moreover, if Stockholm is the Venice of the north, the Royal Danish Orchestra must be the Vienna Philharmonic of the north with its forward, rich woodwind timbres (a Nielsen sound, wholly suitable for Nibelung music) and cool-sweet string tone, the whole integrated, balanced and paced with a Kempe-like swiftness and attention to rhythmic detail by their chief Michael Schønwandt. ...the visual editing is busy, justifying allusions to the hand-held operation rediscovered by Danish art cinema directors. It gives the films a breathless close-up quality, the absolute inverse of the accustomed best-seat-in-the-stalls approach. Kasper Bech Holten's production... is... costumed and situated between (approximately) 1920 and the 1990s, and - through ever-ingenious lateral thinking - finds latter-day equivalents for Wagner's geography, properties and dramatic violence. In addition to the sheer zip of performance and filming, the sound picture is warm, resonant and true, the English subtitles... give an unsually revealing and detailed insight into Wagner's text, and, winningly, the "extra" item consists of a discussion between the stage director and his country's opera-loving head of state.” Gramophone Magazine, April 2009

“superbly acted, more than decently sung and executed with a technical bravura that puts recent London stagings to shame” Sunday Times