"Actor: Helmut Pampuch"

• Wagner - Die Meistersinger (Stein, Horst) | DVD | (15/05/2006) from £19.95   |  Saving you £-4.96 (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Stage and directed by Richard Wagner's grandson Wolfgang at the Bayreuther Festspiele in 1984 this production of Wagner's only comedy dispenses with the common cliches to reveal the humanity of each character. Here Beckmesser is no longer a foolish caricature but a cultivated intellectual; Stolzing emerges as a thoughtful individual rather than aggressive aristocrat; and Hans Sachs sheds his solemn patriarchal veneer to become a likeable middle-aged man.

• Wagner - Das Rheingold (Boulez, Mcintyre, Schwarz) | DVD | (11/07/2005) from £15.04   |  Saving you £1.95 (11.50%)   |  RRP £16.99

  In Patrice Chereau's illuminating violent Bayreuth production of Das Rheingold Wotan wears the brocade coat of feudal times while the Rhine seems to be a reservoir with modern-day power station. Yet as Chereau says it could also be many other things ... perhaps a mythological presence the mythology of our time ... The gods' ascent to Valhalla (is) a defiant flight into the future.

• Wagner: Das Rheingold | DVD | (15/10/2001) from £3.54   |  Saving you £22.71 (996.05%)   |  RRP £24.99