Wagner: Rienzi – review

Nylund/Aldrich/Kerl/Deutsche Oper Berlin Chorus and Orchestra/Lang-Lessing(Arthaus Musik, 2DVDs)The jury is still out on Rienzi, Wagner's monstrous 1842 study of a bourgeois revolution that goes wrong. It was popular in his lifetime, though his eventual dismissal of the score as a youthful aberration has rendered it non-canonical in some eyes. It has also proved dangerous. It was one of Hitler's favourite operas, and though some have argued that its politics are far from national socialism, its ...

Read full article Share article