Wagner vs. Verdi - A Documentary in 6 Parts Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		4.0

Wagner vs. Verdi - A Documentary in 6 Parts Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman December 5, 2014

Veritable forests have been decimated providing enough paper for musicologists to discuss the musical feud between Richard Wagner and Johannes Brahms, a debate between “pure” and “program” music that helped define the two opposing branches of 19th century classical music. It’s perhaps surprising, then, that relatively little attention has been paid to a perhaps more salient match up, that between Wagner and Verdi, the two titans of 19th century opera who had vastly different approaches but who each made the art form over in their own decidedly variant images.

This fascinating six part documentary looks into the disconnect between two artists who both approached the same art form and came to radically different conclusions about how best to create within the genre. Interestingly, both Verdi and Wagner were born in the same year, but their lives took radically different courses, as is outlined in the piece. Filled with insightful commentary from noted conductors and even some family members, Wagner vs. Verdi details an epochal musical dialectic that really has no losers, since music lovers benefit from the totally disparate approaches the different composers pursued.

Wagner vs. Verdi - A Documentary in 6 Parts Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Wagner vs. Verdi is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of ArtHaus Musik with an AVC encoded 1080i transfer in 1.78:1. The bulk of this six part documentary looks very sharp and appealing, with good location footage courtesy of visits to various iconic sites that play into the composers' lives and careers, as well as a glut of talking head sequences. There are snippets from operas (not so coincidentally some of them, like Wagner: Rienzi, available from ArtHaus Musik), which also look fine. Some archival material looks to have been sourced from standard definition video and has a somewhat artificial, digitally sharpened, appearance some of the time. There are some minor image instability issues occasionally as well, with some noticeable motion judder in pans.

Wagner vs. Verdi - A Documentary in 6 Parts Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Wagner vs. Verdi is much more of a talking head outing than a music performance catalog, and therefore the LPCM 2.0 mixes (in German and English) satisfy the needs of the documentary for the most part. The English language version simply offers an English speaking narrator talking over the proceedings, which can get a bit aurally confusing at times. There are optional English subtitles for those wanting to listen to the German language version. Fidelity is fine on both tracks, and there are no problems to report.

Wagner vs. Verdi - A Documentary in 6 Parts Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

There are no on disc supplements other than trailers for other ArtHaus Musik releases. The insert booklet does contain an interesting essay.

Wagner vs. Verdi - A Documentary in 6 Parts Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

A first rate set of documentaries that peer into both the private and professional lives of the two biggest opera composers of their era, Wagner vs. Verdi is fascinating and even provocative at times. This would make a perfect stocking stuffer for any armchair musicologist out there, and comes Recommended.