Wagner

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!

I saw Wagner as I am a big classical music and opera fan and I love Richard Wagner's music, especially Wotan's Farewell from Die Walkure, Overture to Tannhauser and Prelude to Act 1 and Liebestod from Tristan and Isolde.

Wagner is just magnificent, and one of my favourite series or anything to do with composers. For one thing, I found the story presented well structured and interesting, although I knew a good deal about Wagner beforehand, there was stuff here that I didn't know and found it presented in an insightful way.

Wagner is also very authentic in its look and the atmosphere it creates. Watching it I actually felt I was there, and the period recreation, costumes, settings and photography are not only gorgeous but very vivid too.

The music is outstanding, and this is really a brilliantly written programme, thoughtful, brooding and also quite moving. The acting is across the board faultless with Richard Burton embodying the title role to magnificent effect and Vanessa Redgrave very effective. There are also great performances from Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud, Gemma Craven, Ronald Pickup, Ralph Richardson, Marthe Keller and Vernon Dobtchof.

And Andrew Cruishank's narration is the ideal icing on the cake. Overall, Wagner is simply magnificent. Massive? Yes. Worth watching? Absolutely yes. 10/10 Bethany Cox

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...

What can say about this epic apart from the word, 'Magnificent'. To see such great actors in one film is really quite extraordinary. This is the only time Gielgud, Richardson and Olivier ever acted together on film. To see this is sheer heaven in its brilliance. The world is a sadder places without these geniuses. In the lead is Richard Burton who is really a magnificent Wagner. The young actor who plays Ludwig II is also wonderful. Vanessa Redgrave as Cosima is really superb as is Joan Plowright and many, many other performers such as Barbara Leigh-Hunt, Gemma Craven and the beautiful Martha Keller. Sit back and let it all wash over you. The creation of period is absolutely sensational as is the sheer beauty of Germany and Switzerland and other places. This is truly a glittering gem and should be screened more often.

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.