Buy Thielemann's Ring for £4.49

Is this the most incredible Wagner deal ever?

Amazon UK are offering Thielemann's 2009 Bayreuth Ring cycle on MP3 for just £4.49. That's all four operas, in full, at more than 95% off the CD price.

The singing on this recording is variable, but the orchestra plays sublimely, and the recording quality is excellent for a live performance. For anyone who doesn't yet have a Ring recording, don't hesitate. 

I don't imagine this deal will hang around for ever, so don't take too long to make up your mind.

US readers please visit La Cieca for the Amazon US link to purchase. The Amazon UK link is below.

Comments

[Tinkerbelle]

Another big thank you IM, I am downloading it. We heard Linda Watson in the Paris Ring Cycle last week and thought she was rather good. Looking forward to the Longborough Ring next week.

[Cathy]

Many thanks from me too. :)

[Mark]

It has been suggested elsewhere that a reason for this (extremely) generous offer could be due to errors in the mp3 presentation. It has been reported that final two tracks of Rheingold do not flow seamlessly (not something I found by downloading the Amazon tracks into iTunes).

However, they have got themselves into a pickle in the labelling of tracks. Disc 9 (second half of Act II of Siegfried into Act III). If you go ahead with the download (and I'm convinced it's worth it), you will need to engage in some DIY patching up of track titles. This is what they 'should' be:

Track 1 should read: Siegfried: Act II Scene 2: Siegfrieds Hornruf (Siegfried's Horncall)
2: Siegfried: Act II Scene 2: Haha! Da hatte mein Lied (Siegfried, Fafner)
3: Siegfried: Act II Scene 2: Da lieg, neidischer Kerl! (Siegfried, Fafner)
4: Siegfried: Act II Scene 2: Zur Kunde taugt kein Toter (Siegfried, Waldvogel)
5: Siegfried: Act II Scene 3: Wohin schleichst du eilig und schlau (Alberich, Mime)
6: Siegfried: Act II Scene 3: Was ihr mir nutzt, weiss ich nicht (Siegfried, Waldvogel, Mime)
7: Siegfried: Act II Scene 3: Willkommen, Siegfried! (Mime, Siegfried)
8: Siegfried: Act II Scene 3: Neides Zoll zahlt Notung (Siegfried)
9: Siegfried: Act II Scene 3: Heiss ward mir von der harten Last! (Siegfried)
10: Siegfried: Act II Scene 3: Nun sing'! Ich lausche dem Gesang (Siegfried, Forest Bird)
11: Siegfried: Act III: Vorspiel
12: Siegfried: Act III Scene 1: Wache, Wala! Wala! Erwach'! (Wanderer)
13: Siegfried: Act III Scene 1: Stark ruft das Lied (Erda, Wanderer)
14: Siegfried: Act III Scene 1: Mein Schlaf ist Traumen (Erda, Wanderer)
15: Siegfried: Act III Scene 1: Wirr wird mir, seit ich erwacht (Erda, Wanderer)
16: Siegfried: Act III Scene 1: Dir Unweisen ruf' ich's ins Ohr (Wanderer, Erda)

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Intermezzo replies - if there are "errors in the mp3 presentation" they aren't obvious to my ears.

It doesn't surprise me the track listing is cocked up. That's not unusual for classical recordings, especially from Opus Arte. Thanks for providing the correct ones anyway. You will also notice the sole credited artist for Rheingold is Albert Dohmen, for Walküre, Endrik Wottrich, etc.

I suspect the more likely reason for the dramatic price cut is the recent appearance of an alternative Thielemann Ring recorded live in Vienna.

[Leopold]

Thanks... labelling or not £4.49 doesn't buy much and in this case it is worth it even if you stick to just the prologues and other instrumental sections... THANKS

[SJT]

"That's not unusual for classical recordings, especially from Opus Arte."

But where oh where have you seen them? Their website, which I should have thought might be one of the ROH's most profitable side-earners has been off-line for what now, a year? Under re-design, they say. FOR 12 WHOLE MONTHS!!!?? Is anybody actually running what looks increasingly like a rudderless ship?

[inter mezzo]

As far as I can tell, Opus Arte hasn't been profitable since the ROH bought it for £5.7m, and they have made back none of what they paid for it. Since a corporate restructure in 2010, it has been harder to tell, as Opus Arte's results are now combined with the ROH's other, more profitable, trading activities, such as catering and outside hire.

However the 2012 accounts show income from "sales and broadcast of audio-visual materials" of £2.7m, with related "audio visual recording, production and distribution costs" of £3.5m (notes 6 and 11 to accounts) - in other words a loss of £800,000. It's not clear to me whether these figures include cinema results as well as Opus Arte's.

The accounts also show they have written off the Opus Arte purchase price, £5.7m "following a review of the future trading forecast". In other words, they expect it to make losses for the foreseeable future.

Unless I'm missing something, Opus Arte is just a vanity asset, and always has been. Its main purpose seems to be bolstering the illusion that the ROH are providing at least part of their financing by their own efforts, thereby reducing their reliance on public funding.

[SJT]

Moral: always read the small print.

Very interesting indeed. I'd always thought that the acquisition of Opus Arte would turn out to be a shrewd marketing move. Evidently not, even when it's the home base for other companies, such as the Real and Glyndebourne. I do know that despite its worldwide popularity, the Met relays are a terrible drain on the house's resources. You'd think that around 250,000 people paying steep prices (by cinema standards) would guarantee a decent profit: and that residual media like DVDs and Blu-rays would put a bit of jam on it. Someone, somewhere, is raking it in.

But even with an £800,000 loss chez ROH, I still can't see that leaving Opus Arte without a functioning website for over a year makes any sense. Or is this their quiet way of (not) announcing an unlamented death in the family? Hopefully not before they release Donna del lago and Gloriana, this season's musically strongest shows...

[inter mezzo]

The Met relays are profitable in themselves (see http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2010/10/the-metropolitan-operas-movie-screenings-turns-5-despite-early-skepticism.html
for example).

The problem with them is that they "cannibalise" live audiences, according to Peter Gelb - though I don't know how he'd begin to measure the effect.

[Philip Lawton]

Isn't the real problem with making Opus Arte profitable the fact that they record and sell ROH productions?

Opera on DVD is expensive (much more so than ordinary films on DVD, I find) and so if I am choosing, I'm likely to go with a disc featuring an all-star cast - which the ROH can rarely afford to hire (compare Met recordings - where even Fourth Urchin is someone famous - with ROH casts with only one or two top names).
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Intermezzo replies - That is a part of their problem. Another is online competition. Why would you pay £15 for a DVD when you can watch the same opera on your computer, in a probably superior version, for free? Not to mention illegal downloads of Opus Arte's own work.

Either the ROH seriously underestimated web-power, or they're willing to shell out taxpayers' money for 'control' over their own recordings. Either way, they don't come out of it well.