Wagner

ouff… I made it … a 9 hours series (and I never watch series!) very pompously made about a very pompous Richard Wagner played by an equally pompous Richard Burton.

Produced truly on an epic scale! Wagner composed some beautiful melodies but the majority of his music is just so loud, overbearing and far too aggressive to my taste … he must have been the Motörhead of his generation. Sitting through a full length Wagner Opera is torture to me, so the snippets of his music and arias here and there accompanying the movie/story were just enough. My love for Richard Burton and the historical curiosity kept me going, but to be honest, I only recommend this to hard-core Wagnerians or those who appreciate a good historical period drama.

Sets and costumes are beautifully authentic and gorgeously visualised, although with some abrupt editing. It is historically and biographically lovingly accurate and one does learn a lot about the historical events, the composer's private and professional life and how these influenced his creations. Many other well known actors such as Vanessa Redgrave and Sir Laurence Olivier play key roles. Despite the movies' length, we only enter Wagner's life when he is already in his early 30s. Chronologically starting around the 1848 German Revolution, through his exile in Switzerland, his relationship with his young and romantic but very influential groupie, King Ludwig II of Bavaria, who became one of his main patrons, to his travels to Paris and Venice as well as his last triumph in Bayreuth and death. Wagners' radical and revolutionary political ideas, his anti-Semitisim and German nationalism are set in context with his musical dream of grandeur. His ultimate fall out with Nietzsche is interesting to read up on in more detail.

I was never bored nor impatient and actually enjoyed it. Of course, as a balletomane, my favourite passage was the depiction of the quarrels between Wagner and Marius Petipa at the Opera de Paris, concerning that 'every Opera in Paris MUST have a Ballet and that it HAS to be in the 2nd act for the important gentlemen patrons of the town to enjoy' … therefore Wagner calls the 'ballet-master' the 'whore-master' and decided provocatively to put the ballet into the 1st act ... made me giggle.

With a stupendous cast headed by Richard Burton, this film takes on the life of Wagner and seems to raise the same complaints his audience had regarding his operas: long bacchanals of passion and excess. Art imitates life? You bet! Burton's monologues are brilliant as usual (I'm a long-time Burton fan) full of emotion and brilliantly performed. As to why everyone including royalty continued to support and love his music, chosing to ignore for the most part his despicible life in which he treated everyone shabbily including his wife, lovers, patrons, etc. . . .is it any different today? Don't we love our music/film icons ignoring their dark side? This film also made me want to rush to history books to read more about the era, especially about the young king of Bavaria. Take two nights to watch the video.

I just finished watching the Kultur 4 DVD set of this epic bio-pic, taken at a leisurely pace over five daily installments.

Tony Palmer directs a dream cast, headed by an inimitable Richard Burton as Richard Wagner.

Vittorio Storaro's sensitive cinematography on stunning European locations put this viewer immediately in that era. Too bad this transfer didn't get a digital remastering.

Sets & costumes are convincingly authentic.

Graham Bunn's exemplary editing spins an involving web of interest and keeps pace, seldom failing.

All in all, a compelling work of an expansive, complex musical genius.

I quickly bought the 300 minute version listed here when it first came available. Although I love Wagner and his music I almost couldn't get through the tapes. Terrible stuff. How could they do this? Then I found the answer.

The original mini-series was 9 hours long. They cut FOUR HOURS out of the story. I've seen the whole series and now I can say -- GREAT STUFF. Well, if your a Wagner fan to begin with, that is. It really is MUCH better than the edited version.

I hope I never get an enemy so evil I want to give them my 300 minute Wagner tape set. I hope I find a real friend who will buy me the 9 hour version as a gift!

This movie was almost perfect! It was both informative and accurate, and very, very beautiful, suggestive, and romantic. It was a really, really good tribute to Wagner, who was - in my opinion - the greatest composer of all time. He has given so much joy to so many! :-) Richard Burton was also perfect in the role, except for the fact that he looked a bit too old and weary in the scenes where Wagner should still be a man in younger middle-age. But it was worth it to have Burton in the role, I think, because he had that strange quality which drew women even when he looked really worn and haggard towards the end of his life. The same quality that Wagner himself must have had, considered all the young mistresses he had even up to his death.

The only flaw - which is the reason I do not give the movie 10 stars - is that one got to see too little of the operas in their finished state. I wish they would have included at least a few minutes of master-pieces such as the love duet between Siegfried and Brünnhilde in the last act of Siegfried, or Siegmund's song to spring in the first act of Walküre, or "Feuerzauber" in the third act of the same.

Because as it was, I believe that even if Wagner's music was in the background for most of the score, people who did not know Wagner's great operas before they watched this title, did not get to realize his greatness from it...