Wagner's Dream Reviews

It's a bit startling that director Susan Fröemke would choose to make a documentary about the set.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4

The first hour here is the most fascinating, as Froemke details the nuts and bolts of getting this massive undertaking off the ground. Once we get past the opening night of the first opera in the cycle, things start to get repetitive.

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10

The title of Susan Froemke's documentary is both an expression of aspiration and a statement of achievement.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4

A rousing portrait of creative renewal.

Full Review

The finished "Ring" cycle, a combination of "myth, science and legend" made to order as Wagner imagined it, was unique to every viewer's eye. The making of it will be spellbinding to everyone.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

An engrossing look behind the curtain of the Metropolitan Opera ... it will wear down any resistance to the composer

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

[A] 16-hour, four-opera masterwork about the creation and destruction of the world, a work that Wagner considered unstageable in his time.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

The result is an engrossing chronicle of creative people under pressure, a movie about the madness of opera for which no knowledge of opera is required for full enjoyment.

Full Review | Original Score: A-

Tension flows organically from every phase of this dangerous endeavor, making for a highly entertaining outing for operaphiles and operaphobes alike.

Full Review

Rising well above the typical making-of feature, the doc will fascinate buffs when shown alongside the operas themselves and should stand on its own... as a from-the-inside look at one institution's attempt to remain vital as its popularity fades.

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What Froemke's film does - or at least did for this Wagner novice - is prompt the urgent itch to see Lepage's take on the Ring, see another, and gain the confidence to judge first-hand.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5

A two-hour documentary that has as many hair-raising, stomach-churning moments as a ride on Wonderland's new Leviathan.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4

Richard Wagner would be overjoyed to see a production of his Ring cycle staged in a manner that was impossible in the 19th Century.

Full Review | Original Score: B+

Marvelously candid documentary depicting the creation of a massive, seemingly foolhardy pipe dream of a production. One of a handful of truly fine movies about opera.

Full Review

You don't need to be a fan of Wagner, or even opera, to find this a fascinating glimpse of a dauntingly complex human endeavor.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

| Original Score: B+