Music Director Fabio Luisi leads the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, vocalists, and chorus in Wagner’s “Götterdämmerung.” Photo by Sylvia Elfazon/Dallas Symphony Orchestra.
In Wednesday’s (6/10) Associated Press, Ronald Blum writes, “Fabio Luisi wanted his Ring Cycle to be heard and not seen. Wagner’s four-opera epic ‘Der Ring des Nibelungen,’ approaching the 150th anniversary of its premiere in 1876, has been reinterpreted and deconstructed by directors finding various meanings in the conflicts among gods, humans, giants and dwarfs. While most new recordings are on video, Luisi led his Dallas Symphony Orchestra in concert performances that were released on 13 compact discs by Delos on May 22 and are available on streaming services. ‘Wagner conceived this as a total immersion in visual and acoustic, but I could focus really only on the music … I think the music tells everything,’ he said. Luisi became DSO music director in 2020 and broached the idea … two years later with Morton H. Meyerson, a longtime board member…. After securing a waiver from the orchestra allowing for the needed rehearsals and performance length, recordings were made during four concerts from May 1-5 and six more from Oct. 5-20…. Luisi first conducted the Ring when he was music director of Dresden’s Semperoper from 2007-10. Luisi … tries to keep an arc from the first notes of ‘Das Rheingold’ to the final strains of ‘Götterdämmerung.’ ”