Musically, the show is familiar in part because it's been endlessly repurposed over the 20th century for cartoons, movies, commercials and television. Most famous is the "Ride of the Valkyries" theme from the second opera in the cycle, which everyone knows at least in part because of the helicopter scene in Coppola's Apocalypse, Now. Hell, this cycle of operas provides the reason behind the common imagery of the zaftig broad in the viking helmet with a spear belting out the high notes.
@#$% is gettin' real in Valkyrie town |
The production shown on PBS last week was not the one recommended to me a few months back. That was the 1992 production, also recorded at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. While the production made it to DVD and the sound quality is excellent, the video suffers from the limitations of the time and an insistence by the videographers to shoot the opera more or less from an audience member's distant vantage. I can't comment on the vocal performances knowledgeably, but the actual acting performances in this version are noticeably stronger and assisted by the camera's ability to get in much closer.