Loriot narrates Richard Wagner's RING DES NIBELUNGEN

The great Loriot (1923 - 2011) was not only known for his brilliant wordplay and masterful humorous timing. He also repeatedly gave expression to his great love of classical music and opera in his own unique way. Whether in his appearance as a very special conductor at the 100th birthday of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, his narrative version of "Carnival of the Animals" or his productions of the operas "Martha" and "Der Freischütz", Loriot perfectly understood how to combine humour and ambition into something very special.

Loriot was always particularly fascinated by Richard Wagner's monumental work "Der Ring des Nibelungen". Consisting of four parts (Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Siegfried, Götterdämmerung), the opera cycle has a running time of nearly 16 hours in its complete version, usually performed over four days. As early as the beginning of the 1980s, Loriot came up with the idea of compressing this extensive work and bringing the plot closer to the audience by means of accompanying texts. Thus was born "Wagners Ring an einem Abend", which premiered in Mannheim in the 1992/93 season and was later released in a Deutsche Grammophon CD edition.

This CD recording, which includes excerpts from a recording with the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Herbert von Karajan and the accompanying texts written and performed by Loriot, has now been released in a revised new edition.

"Loriot Narrates Richard Wagner's Ring of the Nibelung" makes clear in just under two and a half hours, as it were, the genius of Loriot and the greatness of Richard Wagner's major work. The accompanying texts are stunningly funny in a very intelligent and understated way, while capturing the complexity of the work very well. In turn, the excerpts chosen from each part of the opera illustrate the versatility of the cycle, which Wagner composed with interruptions between 1848 and 1874. Even if the texts by Loriot only make up a small part of the running time, they nevertheless ensure that the entertainment value of this recording is raised enormously and that the opera is also accessible to those listeners who love Loriot but have not yet ventured to hear the "Ring des Nibelungen" or who rarely or never deal with operas in general. And that makes this double CD for all opera lovers and lovers of subtle humor: absolutely recommendable!

2 CDs, approx. 148 minutes

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp