At one level this is critic proof: it's just a romp, a student review, pitching composers as rock stars for a teenage audience. Just another Russell excess. No need to be serious.
Then again it fritters its opportunities and wastes the audience's time. It indulges two rock singers with their vocal turns when it could have used the more powerful music of Wagner and Liszt.
The superficial comparison with 1970s' rocks stars is trivial when Wagner did flee revolution and did push the boundaries of music in a substantial way. The intention of his Ring cycle was more profound than any rock band and yet he is presented in an anachronistic manner as a raving cabaret joke. Neither composer has any serious musical force to them at all: they just gallivant through a series of tedious gambits.
The script is rubbish: it's simply telling what is happening and why in a setup with another silly staging. The acting is incompetent and a vanity project which exploits the gullibility of its market to see their pop stars.
Russell sabotaged his career with such nonsense and then he would return and make something that was actually worth the time.
On the other hand Liszotmania could be lost or ignored forever and no one would have missed a thing.
Then again it fritters its opportunities and wastes the audience's time. It indulges two rock singers with their vocal turns when it could have used the more powerful music of Wagner and Liszt.
The superficial comparison with 1970s' rocks stars is trivial when Wagner did flee revolution and did push the boundaries of music in a substantial way. The intention of his Ring cycle was more profound than any rock band and yet he is presented in an anachronistic manner as a raving cabaret joke. Neither composer has any serious musical force to them at all: they just gallivant through a series of tedious gambits.
The script is rubbish: it's simply telling what is happening and why in a setup with another silly staging. The acting is incompetent and a vanity project which exploits the gullibility of its market to see their pop stars.
Russell sabotaged his career with such nonsense and then he would return and make something that was actually worth the time.
On the other hand Liszotmania could be lost or ignored forever and no one would have missed a thing.