Bayreuth Festival (2) – Das Rheingold, 27 July 2026

Festspielhaus

Wotan – Michael Volle
Donner – Alexander Grassauer
Froh – Siyabonga Maqungo
Loge – Klaus Florian Vogt
Fricka – Anna Kissjudit
Freia – Evelyn Novak
Erda – Christa Mayer
Alberich – Jochen Schmeckenbecher
Mime – Gerhard Siegel
Fasolt – Mika Kares
Fafner – Peter Rose
Woglinde – Katharina Konradi
Wellgunde – Natalia Skrycka
Flosshilde – Marie Henriette Reinhold

Curator – Marcus Lobbes
Artistic and technical conception – Marcus Lobbes, Nils Corte
Dramaturgy – Andri Hardmeier
Digital- and AI-storytelling – Roman Senkl
Creative code, visual art – Nils Corte, Phil Hagen Jungschlaeger
Set design – Wolf Gutjahr

Costumes – Pia Maria Mackert  

Bayreuth Festival Orchestra

Christian Thielemann (conductor)

Images (c): Bayreuther Festspiele / Enrico Nawrath

The Bayreuth Festival has had a chequered history over its (almost) 150 years to date. It nonetheless remains, or has until now remained, in many ways an object lesson to the rest of the operatic world in how to take art seriously, how to create conditions in which it might be produced and experienced, and much else—not least with respect to the Festspielhaus amphitheatre and covered pit. That the rest of the world has failed almost entirely to heed its example may sadden us, but reflects on that world and us, not on Bayreuth, nor indeed on Wagner. As Pierre Boulez observed, whilst at work here half a century ago on the now legendary ‘Centenary Ring’ with Patrice Chéreau, perhaps with a little exaggeration, if understandably so, Wagner’s ‘diatribes’, written in turn:

… more than a century ago, are still completely relevant, for nothing has changed—the laziness of the repertory theatre, its failings, its precarious functioning, the blind choice of works, the fortuitous casting of singers and players, the lack of rehearsal, the sauve-qui-peut routine. Architecturally speaking, the Bayreuth model has remained a dead letter and we still have Italian-style theatres. … Both visually and acoustically, we continue to witness this permanent defeat of what is truly theatrical, Bayreuth having effected not the slightest improvement.

To strike a slightly less pessimistic note than Boulez, I think Bayreuth has played a notable role in effecting certain theatrical improvements, if more related to staging than stages. That 1976-80 production and numerous others – Ring stagings from Harry Kupfer and Frank Castorf, Tristan from Heiner Müller, Parsifal from Stefan Herheim, Hans Neuenfels’s Lohengrin, Tobias Kratzer’s Tannhäuser, and so on – set standards for and posed challenges to the rest of the world, just as Wagner did, and occasionally, sometimes more than that, they have been taken up, run with, even surpassed. Bayreuth as ‘workshop’ (Werkstatt), the greatest legacy of Wieland and Wolfgang Wagner, created the conditions for such innovation, building on the vision and achievements of Richard himself, as well as (whisper it) the best of the Winifred era, brought such artists of vision, Boulez included, to the Green Hill, showing not only the necessary courage to fail but the equally necessary courage to rethink, to revise, to rejuvenate: Wagner’s own celebrated ‘Kinder, macht Neues!’ following that very first festival in 1876.

If,  gentle reader, you sensed a less-than-gentle ‘but’ approaching, I fear you would be anything other than mistaken. Perhaps nothing, especially in the theatre of Tannhäuser and Parsifal, is truly irredeemable; perhaps something can be salvaged from this. Imagining how lies quite beyond my little mind, though perhaps some machine will tell us. For what the Festival, incomprehensibly, has come up with to celebrate the 150^th anniversary of the first Ring must be the greatest travesty ever to have been visited on it anywhere at any time, an experience so unbearable five (out of five) people I spoke to afterwards described it independently as the worst thing they had ever seen, one (Stefan Mauß, whom I have permission to quote) adding the unforgettable and entirely accurate phrase ‘visual waterboarding’, and a rebuke not only to Wagner, not only to Bayreuth, but to any conception of art that tiny, human mind of mine will ever be able to entertain. Enter the ‘AI’-Ring, mysteriously and with insufferable pretention subtitled ‘‘Ring 10010110 – vom Mythos zum Code’, seemingly undirected, and yet ‘curated’ by one Marcus Lobbes.

What we saw can be dealt with briefly. (If only one might say the same of experiencing it.) Following a mercifully image-free Prelude, beautifully and imaginatively led by Christian Thielemann, near-peerlessly performed by the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra, any sense of drama, opera, or basic humanity deserts us for a parade of banal screensaver images shown upon a curtain in front of the singers, thus largely obscured and left to fend for themselves, wearing identical, indistinguishable, weirdly yet unrevealingly hideous costumes. (Final applause, for those who could bring themselves to engage, proved something of a game in trying to identify who was presenting him-/herself at any point At least it offered the first and only prospect of entertainment in the entire sorry evening.) Sometimes there was a clear reference to the Ring at Bayreuth, the first image being the celebrated representation of the Rhinemaidens in 1876, amidst genuine theatrical wizardry that enabled them to appear as if  swimming in the Rhine. (Yes, as Anna Russell told us, in the Rhine: now on the curtain.) I almost wept upon a brief appearance, in bizarrely low resolution such as would be refused by the least assiduous reviews editor, of Castorf’s Golden Motel, not out of the nostalgia I feel for that production, but because it was vaguely discernible. We did, to be fair, see a few large rings, on apparently female fingers, when the ring should first have been seen on stage with Alberich. Otherwise, endlessly, pointlessly transforming shapes came and went, sometimes returning, few with any relation to what we heard, culminating in an anonymous man and woman who turned into street (or perhaps theatre?) lights, quickly to turn back again. Some more recognisable, if irrelevant images were suggestive of  Ludwig II put in a very brief guest appearance during the descent to Nibelheim, as did very occasional glimpses of other Rheingold productions, but that was it.

The ultimately unforgivable thing was the way this abject, wasteful nonsense distracted from whatever might have remained of the drama. With that going on before our eyes, our ears (at least my ears) struggled for more than a minute or so to keep track of what was probably a very good musical performance. Not only was this entirely at odds with any idea of a Gesamtkunstwerk – in many ways, a problematical idea that will benefit from deconstruction – but with art and even humanity themselves. I managed to hear flashes of an intriguingly mobile, flowing orchestral conception shaped by Thielemann—rather along the analytical lines suggested by Wagner in an 1871 report to German Wagner societies, tracing an entire corpus of interrelated themes from the individualisation of ‘a few malleable Nature motifs’. If I sensed that most vividly in the Prelude, its low E-flat foundational in every sense and exquisitely decorated by some of the fruitiest, bubbliest woodwind I can recall hearing here, that is a comment related in no sense to the performance itself.

Vocal contributions seemed to be of a very high standard too. Not having had chance to remind myself of the cast beforehand, I had a very pleasant surprise in hearing Klaus Florian Vogt, no less, as Loge, the ringing clarity and sincerity of his tone both in consonance with the demi-god’s revelation of uncomfortable truths and in productive contrast with his wheedling strategizing. Michael Volle’s performance, lighter than one often hears from him and in keeping with the specific demands of the Rheingold Wotan, would doubtless have graced any stage, had I been able to follow it adequately; likewise Jochen Schmeckenbecher’s darker hued Alberich, Mika Kares’s evidently lovelorn Fasolt, Christa Mayer’s chalumeau-like Erda, and much else besides, Evelyn Novak's golden Freia and a fine trio of Rhinemaidens included. To claim that I properly heard any of these performance, though, would be entirely misleading, so I shall leave it there. 

According to Tina Lorenz, writing in the programme, ‘Ring 10010110 tells a radically contemporary story about how we are currently witnessing the beginnings of a transformation in the global order’. It may be a ‘contemporary’ story, but its only ‘radicalism’ lies in turning Das Rheingold and presumably the rest into an immersive Fidelio in which we as prisoners finally experience light and fresh air upon its close. The stampede for the doors was unlike any I have seen—or participated in. Some brave souls managed to agitate for opening of the theatre doors during its course and escaped, to the intense envy and admiration of the rest of us. A period of lengthy reflection, absention, and apology would be in order from all involved. Wagner deserves better, as do the musicians and audience. So too does a world, like that of the Ring, on fire thanks to wasteful, ‘technological’ domination.

Munich Opera Festival (4) - Die Walküre, 1 July 2026

Nationaltheater

Images: Monika Rittershaus

Siegmund – Joachim Bäckström
Hunding – Ain Anger
Wotan – Nicholas Brownlee
Sieglinde – Irene Roberts
Brünnhilde – Miina-Lisa Värelä
Fricka – Ekaterina Gubanova
Helmwige – Dorothea Herbert
Gerhilde – Julie Adams
Ortlinde – Elaine Gvritshvili
Waltraute – Claudia Mahnke
Siegrune – Niina Keitel
Rossweiße – Christina Rock
Grimgerde – Natalie Lewis
Schwertleite – Noa Beinart
Loge – Charith Pidikiti

Director – Tobias Kratzer
Assistant director – Matthias Piro
Designs – Rainer Sellmaier
Lighting – Michael Bauer
Video – Manuel Braun, Jonas Dahl, Janic Bebi
Dramaturgy – Bettina Bartz, Olaf Roth

Bayerische Staatsorchester
Vladimir Jurowski (conductor)

 

As a student in Berlin, Ludwig Feuerbach attended lectures from, among others, GWF Hegel and Friedrich Schleiermacher: far from an unusual combination, but prophetic for his subsequent development as the pre-eminent Young Hegelian philosopher of love-communism. Although he lectured at Erlangen, Feuerbach failed to obtain a university position, an ambition rendered impossible following revelation of his authorship of the atheistic Thoughts on Death and Immortality published anonymously in 1830, a year in which revolutions once again began to sweep Europe. His writings, including those Thoughts, The Essence of Christianity, and Principles of the Philosophy of the Future, inspired many radicals in the next wave of revolutions (1848-51), although Feuerbach remaining personally aloof from revolutionary activity. One of those, of course, was Richard Wagner, who, shortly after publication of Feuerbach’s Thoughts, had gained his first experience, direct and reported, of revolution, inspired by events in Paris, Leipzig, and even the previously quiescent Dresden. The seventeen-year old Saxon would recall in his autobiography Mein Leben ‘the world of history’ having come to life: ‘Saxony was not spared: in Dresden it even came to street-fighting’. He began to attend Leipzig University lectures on philosophy and aesthetics, and henceforth considered himself a ‘fervent partisan of the revolution’. Wagner would go on read at least all three of the Feuerbach books named above and, in contrast to one of his great intellectual mentors, stood anything but aloof from revolutionary political activity—be it in practice, during the 1849 Dresden uprising, or in the fruits of his post-revolutionary exile in Zurich. Among those were The Artwork of the Future, dedicated to Feuerbach, its very title a homage, and of course Die Walküre, perhaps his single most Feuerbachian drama—in that the positive, as well as negative, side of a religion purer than yet related to Christianity, founded on love, features most strongly in the love of Siegmund and Sieglinde, and Brünnhilde’s conversion to their creed, crucially at the ‘price’, in reality an elevation, of losing her own immortality. 

With this Walküre, newly premiered, Tobias Kratzer’s Munich Ring reaches its second instalment. I was unable to see Das Rheingold; but on the evidence of this, as well as much of his other work – his near-universally loved Bayreuth Tannhäuser, various Deutsche Oper productions, and more – I hope to put that right before long. Even considered on its own, Kratzer’s Walküre has numerous distinctions, but perhaps its most distinctive feature, at least until the third act, is a more overt Feuerbachian element than any other I can recall. I suspect it would seem so all the more in light of the Rheingold, but that must remain a matter of speculation by now. What it certainly does is put the gods, even here, centre-stage, not only as ‘the gods’, characters in this drama, but emphatically as gods—and emphatically not, as Ernst Bloch put it, ‘called gods without being gods’.

The curtain rises on a rural, possibly suburban chalet; by deduction, it may be somewhere outside Munich, though it need not be. This, of course, is Hunding’s house, at the end of the driveway a quasi-Marian shrine, albeit to Fricka. That is, Kratzer follows Wagner absolutely in presenting a dramatic critique of religion, mostly yet not only Christianity, albeit shrouded, as it were, in the guise of Germanic paganism. (Wagner is doing other things with reference to the Eddas and sagas too, but he is certainly doing that, in unambiguously post-Feuerbach fashion.) It is here, under Fricka as well as Hunding, also under a larger, indoor ecclesiastical shrine, not unlike a tabernacle or reliquary, perhaps denoting the rule of Valhalla/religion/Christianity more generally, that Siegmund takes refuge. Sieglinde is clearly a member of this religion too, since she genuflects before the shrine even when Hunding has gone—and, initially shamefully, later with abandon, celebrates her wholesale abandon(ment) only after covering it. When, in the second act, Wotan comes to earth, like the gods of old (though also, if we believe the New Testament, ours too), he is distressed not only by Fricka’s demolition of the new religion he has ultimately inspired, but by the destruction of the shrine within: his old religion, one might say. Just as Wagner’s god is torn, so is he, visibly as well as audibly so. 

That Hunding, whose cause Fricka takes, should be a devotee of her understanding of this religion – sect, perhaps – will surprise no one, but it is clear, not assumed. She even recognises herself in it; I am tempted to add, in Biblical style, ‘and it was good’, save that obviously it was not for humanity. We even see a ram, albeit a dead one; hers is a chariot, if only metaphorically, of death—as in Wagner. When death occurs, moreover, it is unquestionably violent; we are no more spared than its more direct victims. When Wotan, in anger, bids Hunding kneel before Fricka, Wagner’s goddess of ‘custom’ (as he explained in a letter to August Röckel), the bourgeois property- and motor-owner does just that: not something I have seen before. She and other gods – I assume, Froh, Donner, and Freia – whom we have already seen, in a drawing projected at some point during Wotan’s monologue, observe events on the battlefield. Dressed in designer Rainer Sellmaier’s mediaeval, even Burgundian-Nibelungenlied garb, they offer strong connection to the mediaevalism of work, Wagner’s selection and adoption of sources, and to the hostile, Young Hegelian critique of church and state such as had been mystically united in states such as the Prussia of Frederick William IV.

Another such example, if less fanatically so, was the Saxony in which Kapellmeister Wagner threatened to burn it all down—and took delight in seeing just that in his opera house: ‘8 May (Monday) Morning once again by roundabout route via barricades to Town Hall. At S. Anne Barricade guard shouts “Well, Mr Conductor, joy’s beautiful divine spark’s made a blaze.” (3rd perf. 9th Symphony at previous Palm Sunday concert; Opera House now burnt down. Strange feeling of comfort.)’ Another important point, I suspect, from Wotan’s monologue: in his proto-Parsifalian wandering, he passes a church. Out of it ran two hooded figures, disaffected youth, it would seem. Something within me wondered whether one might be Alberich, in the one Ring drama in which he ‘should’ not appear onstage. I think it was, for during the Ride of the Valkyries, a hooded figure with child, surely Hagen, watches. We shall see. To be reminded, at any rate, of Wagner’s contemporary and fellow Feuerbach enthusiast (for a while), Marx, and his more or less contemporaneous observation, in explicit Young Hegelian critique of Hegel, that ‘the relationship of industry [Alberich] and, in particular, the world of wealth to the political world [the gods] is one of the principal problems of modern times,’ was salutary—and I should be surprised to learn that it had merely been my interpretative fancy. 

So far, so excellent—all accomplished in fine Personenregie and response thereto. This is no mere concept; it is an absorbing drama. That of the third act is hardly less so in the latter respect, although it seems strangely distant from what has gone before. Perhaps more will be revealed in Siegfried or Götterdämmerung, but once past a video ‘Ride’ that took in much of Munich, Brünnhilde at the helm of Apocalypse Now helicopter, an original ‘Bavarian host’ of the Siegestor, thus returning to source as it were. Naturally, the local audience loved it, and why not, numerous aspects of the city eliciting gasps of recognition and, less laudably, actual applause. Surely one can appreciate a coup de théâtre or de cinéma without Pavlovian response. That nonetheless we should end up in the Nationaltheater may have particular warrant, given it was here that, against Wagner’s wishes, Ludwig II had it all begin. Perhaps Kratzer anticipated the applause or such reaction, and turned it against the audience avant la lettre. We can read it that way anyway. And perhaps subsequent events will play out more fully in that respect—and not too closely to Stefan Herheim’s metatheatrical Deutsche Oper Ring. But it seemed a slight pity. There is still much to admire in the emergency repair work – and religious rebirth? – offered by Valkyrie body-snatchers to heroes, as well as in the passionate direction and portrayal of Wotan and Brünnhilde thereafter. That the demi-god Loge appears as bidden, with flame, at the close, ties all neatly together. Yet I could not help but think – this is really my sole cavil – a more apt setting might have been found, unless the point be that the opera house is now our dubious temple. If so, I shall happily recant; again, we shall see.

In one sense, though, even that helped point, in the unlikely event anyone should have needed pointing, to the truest heroes of all: the orchestra that first performed this work. Wherever you may have heard it, in Berlin, Bayreuth, Dresden, Vienna, or elsewhere, it is unlikely to have been played better than this. Strings were dark yet incisive, ‘old German’ in a way Furtwängler might have recognised, ‘dramatic’ in a way Boulez might have done. The rest of the playing was equally outstanding, the Ride far more than showpiece, but rather quite rightly a symphonic movement taking its place in Wagner’s dramatic whole. Vladimir Jurowski’s conducting had its moments in better and worse senses. To begin with, too often one could hear as well as see him conduct. Wagner became a miniaturist in a sense too close to Nietzsche’s jibe. It was all too effortful, though to Jurowski’s credit, he never tried to get this great orchestra to sound like anything other than itself. The third act was more at ease with itself, with far fewer odd impositions upon it; it flowed in a way closer to the Rhine (or Isar) and thus the orchestra’s mysterious, Delphic oracle sounded more unbidden—save, in the eternal riddle, for who might have created its own gods.

Speaking of heroes, Joachim Bäckström made for a fine Siegmund, his chemistry with Irene Roberts’s increasingly ecstatic Sieglinde – what a foretelling of Siegfried she offered! – thrilling and, at times, disturbing to watch. For Kratzer did not follow Wagner in his understanding of incest. These twins, even the religious Sieglinde, were positively excited by the prospect of incest, as opposed to loving each other and its revelation not mattering. Again, film revealed some of the backstory, adding to rather than merely mirroring what we learned from narration—at least after the first, slightly disappointing instalment. Nicholas Brownlee’s Wotan we had thus seen and known already, his fireside sadness, seen by the siblings’ mothers, projected into a wise, multivalent portrayal of the ‘sum of present-day intelligence’ (Wagner on the character, immediately prior to starting work on the score of this opera).  

Ekaterina Gubanova’s imperious, haughty, godlike Fricka was all one might hope for, in general and in context. Ain Anger’s self-assured Hunding was no mere thug, though he was certainly given to violence; here was a man who knew his beliefs and his patriarchal rights, and was willing to fight for them. Miina-Lisa Värelä’s Brünnhilde’s journey to the brink of losing immortality absorbed us through excellent, Wagnerian command of words, music, and gesture. Other Valkyries offered singing and acting of the highest order. For not the least of the work’s and performance’s virtues was a celebration of Wagner’s Feuerbachian conception of the ‘purely human’ and its socialist expansion into a vision, political, social, religious and more, that only in cooperation might we begin to achieve our potential as a species.

Das Rheingold, Opéra de Marseille, 10 May 2026

Opéra Municipal de Marseille

Images: Camille Rovera

Fricka – Marion Lebègue
Freia – Élodie Hache
Erda – Amandine Ammirati
Wellgunde – Marie Kalinine
Flosshilde – Lucie Roche
Wotan – Alexandre Duhamel
Alberich – Zoltán Nagy
Mime – Marius Brenciu
Donner – Yoann Dubruque
Froh – Éric Huchet
Loge – Samy Camps
Fasolt – Patrick Bolleire
Fafner – Louis Morvan

Director – Charles Roubaud
Assistant director – Jean-Christophe Mast
Costumes – Katia Duflot
Set designs – Emmanuelle Favre
Lighting – Jacques Rouveyrollis
Video – Julien Soulier

Orchestra de l’Opéra de Marseille

Michele Spotti (conductor)

Thirty years since Das Rheingold – or L’Or du Rhin, as it was dually advertised – was last staged in Marseille, it returns as part of what I assume to be a new Ring, directed by Charles Roubaud and conducted by the Marseille Opera’s music director (also incoming Principal Guest Conductor of Berlin’s Deutsche Oper), the energetic and highly talented Michele Spotti. Marseille’s handsome art deco opera house is celebrating the occasion in some style, including an outing on the staircase for Erda’s stylish costume of thirty years ago (director also Charles Roubaud, designer Katia Duflot). 

This too is stylishly conceived, evoking a time when the house was new: round about 1930, I should guess. The opening scene takes place, as in a sense it should, beneath the bank of the Rhine, albeit in the guise of a ‘Rheinbank’ vault. As the Prelude progresses and the curtain rises, a cleaner goes about his business, dreams of ‘higher’ things on his mind as his theatrical sweeping, in time with the music’s close, suggests. This is Alberich, soon to be teased by glamorous employees indeed, Rhinemaidens with keys to the safe and its gold bars. So, if Wagner dramatises primal conversion of value-free gold into capital, here we see a redramatisation such as happens every day, indeed every second, in our accursed age of capital. There never was a golden age: on that Wagner is clear. As we did with Patrice Chéreau at Bayreuth and have done many times since, we witness a specific case of Alberich’s ‘theft’ – in essence, he simply offers the asking price, though that is already to argue in the language of private property and capital – in a world created by the gods and yet already shaped by his forerunners.   

The second scene introduces us, as one might expect, to older ‘money’ and power. Here, is a gilded age, redolent in particular of the United States, the age of Gatsby – they were careless people, Wotan and Fricka – with art deco to boot. It does not portray the house or its origins directly, but one might be led, as one is with the North American trappings, to reflect in kind. A nice touch is an ornamental, visibly protected tree in the corner, the light of Freia’s apples extinguished following her abduction. Another is that an Empire-State-Building like Valhalla can be partially seen, through the mists: yes, as Wagner intended, albeit for the age of King Kong. Video projection enables us to witness Alberich’s transformations in Nibelheim, whilst we hear him when invisible via totalitarian tannoy. Such points of detail are welcome, not because everything necessarily has to be done in this way, but because they anchor the drama with stage action that has been thought through. The beginning of the final scene I found a little disappointing: empty, without much to look at or have one think, but perhaps that was the point, prior to entry into the new tower via gilded lift (ring any bells, Donner(ld)?) 

Spotti’s musical direction was resourceful, given the relatively small orchestra at his disposal. Wind naturally came more to the fore than they might usually do, but that opportunity was seized to have us hear a good deal of that detail. Not that the Marseille strings were underwhelming, far from it; at their best, they played with an appropriately golden sheen. Some musicians were heard from beyond the pit, a pair of harpists in a box above included. The latter certainly worked hard for their gold. If there were a few awkward corners – this is far from an easy score for any orchestra – Spotti marshalled his forces with flair and assurance. It was a relatively broad reading - just over two-and-a-half hours, I think – but only occasionally, above all during the beginning of the final scene, did tension sag. I have heard many performances considerably more lacking in starrier houses. 

Zoltán Nagy’s Alberich would have graced any house, conceived and brought to life with a theatricality that did not preclude but rather gave birth to musical excellence. His way with Wagner’s words was similarly captivating. Much the same could – and should – be said of Samy Camps’s Loge, a definite star turn. Alexandre Duhamel’s Wotan was more mixed: initially sounding somewhat parted and unusually vibrato-laden, though it improved. Marion Lebègue made the most of Fricka, bringing words and music vividly off-page on-stage. Gangster giants – dead ringers, as it were, for Babylon Berlin’s Ringverein – were presented by Patrick Bolleire and Louis Morvan, the dark brutality of the latter’s Fafner properly chilling. A fine trio of Rhinemaidens and, in general, a cast with excellent ensemble contributed to the important lesson, familiar to many of us in London from Regents Opera’s ringside events, that Wagner should not, should not be left solely to our metropolitan theatres. Emphasis, in both cases, on story-telling and character definition, not eschewing conceptual apparatus yet also not being overwhelmed by it, forms a crucial part both of our operatic ecology and of a continuing tradition of Wagner as nineteenth-century theatrical drama that can yet speak to us today.

Salzburg Easter Festival (3): Das Rheingold, 6 April 2026

Felsenreitschule

Images: Frol Podlesyni
Performers: Olade Roland Rodolpho Sagbo, Delavallet Bidiefono, Roméo Bron Bi

Director – Kirill Serebrennikov
Set designs – Kirill Serebrennikov, Olga Pavluk
Costumes – Kirill Srebrennikov, Slavna Martinovic, Shaiva Nikvashvili
Lighting – Sergey Kucher
Choreography – Ivan Estegneev, Delavallet Bidiefono
Dramaturgy – Daniil Orlov

Wotan – Christian Gerhaher
Donner – Gihoon Kim
Froh – Thomas Atkins
Loge – Brenton Ryan
Alberich – Leigh Melrose
Mime – Thomas Cilluffo
Fasolt – Le Bu
Fafner – Patrick Guetti
Fricka – Catriona Morison
Freia – Sarah Brady
Erda – Jasmin White
Woglinde – Louise Foor
Wellgunde – Yajie Zhange
Flosshilde – Jess Dandy

Performer Compagnie Baninga

Actors, Performers

Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra

Kirill Petrenko (conductor)

Determined to bring Wagner and Berlin Philharmonic opera to his native Salzburg, Herbert von Karajan inaugurated the city’s Easter (for the greater part, Holy Week) Festival in 1967. It began with a Ring (Die Walküre first), partly co-produced with New York’s Metropolitan Opera and directed by Karajan himself, which formed the foundation for Karajan’s Deutsche Grammophon audio recording. The Ring returned to Salzburg under Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic from 2007-10, in Stéphane Braunschewig’s production, given also in Aix. Now in 2026, with the triumphant return of the orchestra to Salzburg, the Easter Festival’s third Ring begins, in a co-production with Copenhagen’s Royal Danish Opera, conducted by Kirill Petrenko and directed by Kirill Serebrennikov. 

Fafner (Patrick Guetti)

I say triumphant, since there can be no doubting that the orchestra proved the brightest stars of all in this Rheingold’s firmament. I doubt the score can ever have been better played at the level of execution—and at this stage of my Wagnerian life, I have heard it a good few times. Depth of tone, balance, and pinpoint accuracy were second to none; and, as I have noted a few times with the BPO under Kirill Petrenko, they (or their conductor) show a greater willing to draw on the wisdom and experience of their long history, a dark, more Furtwänglerian sound, closer to that of the Staatskapelle Berlin, than tended to be heard from Rattle, Claudio Abbado, or indeed Karajan proving the baseline – sometimes even the bass line – in core Austro-German repertoire. Petrenko’s Wagner conducting has also progressed in leaps and bounds not only since he conducted the Ring at Bayreuth, but also from his Wagner in Munich. Not that the former was poor, far from it, but the theatre brings its own, notorious challenges for a director and, more to the point, the conception often lacked metaphysical and, in many ways, physical depth. There is no doubting Petrenko’s grasp of the work’s vast architecture, heard and communicated as if (almost) in a single breath – not quite Daniel Barenboim, though no one else has been this century, arguably since Furtwängler himself. With this orchestra as his collaborators, though, he can draw on a greater, multi-dimensional canvas, gaining harmonic depth, timbral variegation, and a more varied, yet always firmly directed narrative thrust. If the strings sounded as of old (or so one could fancy), the woodwind arguably sounded more variegated and characterful than ever, the brass both more tender and more malevolent as necessary (and much more). Underwhelming anvils, poorly integrated were a pity, but they often are; the technical difficulties here lie far beyond a merely ‘musical’ issue. 

Froh (Thomas Atkins), Wotan (Christian Gerhaher), Loge (Brenton Ryan)

On, then, to Serebrennikov’s vision and its realisation. A post-apocalyptic setting in the/a potential future, presumably following a cataclysm such as we shall encounter at the close, may not be ‘groundbreaking’. We have been there before in the Ring, perhaps most celebratedly with Harry Kupfer, let alone in other works. It is difficult to imagine, at least until it happens, what could, at least on that broad, outline scale could be by now, although arguably Frank Castorf achieved something of that kind in his 2013-17 Ring (conducted initially by Petrenko). It is surely, by the same token, especially apposite right now, at a time when monsters such as Trump and Netanyahu are threatening to unleash still worse than they have already. The devil and, just perhaps, the angels will of course lie in the detail, and here Serebrennikov’s conception offers much promise—as well as certain caveats. It is always difficult, indeed impossible, to tell from a single instalment, although one can always tell if all has gone horribly wrong. In so bleak a landscape, visited both on stage and above on Serebrennikov’s own film, should one start entirely from scratch or recall the before times? It may not be either/or; indeed, there will be choices to be made from which or, better, whose before times. The question nonetheless retains some validity. The gods seem bound to a past that may lie beyond recovery; arguably they do by at least the final scene of Rheingold anyway, perhaps earlier still. In light, uncoloured, perhaps even ragged robes, they affect poses, probably attempt solutions as if an Attic (more than Teutonic?) past were present. All they seem positively, promisingly to possess is the technology of a greenhouse to cultivate Freia’s apples of immortality. We do not so much as glimpse Valhalla; perhaps it does not exist. 

Rhinemaidens (Yajie Zhang, Jess Dandy, Louise Foor)

For this is clearly Alberich’s story more than theirs. Whether that will be the case throughout the Ring, we do not know, but it seems unarguable at least for this Rheingold. The film begins and continues with his quest across a barren, Icelandic landscape, both harking back to the Eddas and representing the problem, even the terror of the present. Where he is heading remains unclear, but when he appears onstage we recognise him and this doubling (like others between singers and actors, purely onstage) proves dramatically enabling and productive, without provoking confusion. This is a world in which religion, like all else, must or at least may be recreated, the gods and their heroes – viewed as ceramic memories at the close, hardly promising for the future – facing just the replacement Alberich threatens will come from him and his horde. And so, he builds a cult of his own, enthroned under a canopy, learning from those who have oppressed him, including an able trio of Rhinemaidens replete with actor-provided tentacles of the erotic urge (liebesgelüste) Wagner divined in Alberich. Film turns to fire and even  disintegrates, though recovers, possibly presaging the future's future.

Whether ‘borrowing’ from African cultures onstage is the best way to go about some of this may be questioned. Questions of appropriation or downright (neo-)colonialism – primitive or primitivism? – are complicated by the engagement of African dancers under the responsive choreography (and dance) of Delavallet Bidiefono. These artists have clearly contributed, to my eyes highly productively. So too have Recycle Group (Andrey Blokhin and Georgy Kuznetsov) in provision of materials. Matters are not so clearcut here as they might initially seem, though the suspicion of ethnographic tourism lingers even when one learns of the creditable research that has gone into the production from reclaimed materials and office rubbish of a reenvisaged Egungun masquerade dress for Loge. His colourful world, what appears to be a reinvention of magic – what else is there in such an environment – makes quite an impression. What lies within the portable hut his double guards remains a mystery, as doubtless it must. The questions it provokes may prove key to the whole enterprise. What seems to mark a remythologising of the Ring bucks recent practice. The politics remain; how could they not? They do not, bar the overall post-catastrophic setting, laudable environmentalism in production values, and the coming of the Global South, seem to be paramount conceptually. Perhaps that will change, or perhaps it is the intention: something approaching a new direction in itself in the twenty-first century. But will this be Wieland Wagner with a world tour and integrated recycling, or rather more than that? All eyes, or at least mine, lie on Alberich and Loge—rather than on Wotan. 

Alberich (Leigh Melrose)

That shift of emphasis was paralleled, less fortunately, in terms of singing. That Loge might steal the show in Das Rheingold is far from unprecedented; it is almost to be expected. Brenton Ryan’s quicksilver portrayal was nonetheless far more than a reflection of the work, vocal and stage presence combining (in collaboration with his redder ‘double’) to represent something both primal and advanced, whether instrumental reason or sham magic dramatically ambiguous. Leigh Melrose’s Alberich was again a true animating as well as animating presence, his use of words and music in Wagner’s radical alchemy not only tracing but helping form the narrative. Christian Gerhaher, by contrast, was, like many of the full gods, oddly static. This, again, was partly a matter of the production, but there were times when he seemed parted, resorting to barking reminiscent of aspects of Karajan’s Fischer-Dieskau but without his commanding presence. Gerhaher is a superlative artist as a singer, but not so much of an actor, and it is difficult to consider Wotan, even in this ‘preliminary evening’, his ideal role. Whether he will continue in Walküre and Siegfried – Fischer-Dieskau did not – we shall see. Le Bu’s Fasolt and Patrick Guetti’s Fafner were formidable giants, offering portrayals with considerable psychological depth as well as necessary force. Erdas rarely disappoint and Jasmin White was no exception; theirs was a moment that cast its shadow over all that was to come—and presumably that is still to come. Thomas Cilluffo’s characterful Mime promised well for the greater stint to come (assuming he continues in the role). Even here, then, much judgement must necessarily be provisional, but the best onstage and all in the pit augur well indeed.

 

Die Walküre, Royal Opera, 17 May 2025

Royal Opera House

Siegmund – Stanislas de Barbeyrac
Sieglinde – Natalya Romaniw
Hunding – Soloman Howard
Wotan – Christopher Maltman
Brünnhilde – Elisabeth Strid
Fricka – Marina Prudenskaya
Gerhilde – Lee Bisset
Helmwige – Mauda Hundeling
Waltraute – Claire Barnett-Jones
Schwetleite – Rhonda Browne
Ortlinde – Katie Lowe
Siegrune – Catherine Carby
Grimgerde – Monika-Evelin Liiv
Rossweisse – Alison Kettlewell
Erda – Clare Almond
Actors – Illona Linthwaite, Lucy Brenchley, Clea Godsill, Maria Leon, Virginia Poli, Nadia Sadiq, Jay Yule

Director – Barrie Kosky
Set designs – Rufus Didwiszus
Costumes – Victoria Behr
Lighting – Alessandro Carletti

Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
Antonio Pappano (conductor)

The Royal Opera’s new Walküre proved very good in every respect, often excellent, offering some degree of solace for having come close to taking out a bank loan to buy a ticket. Our ultra-neoliberal, genocidal government will no more fund the arts than its kindred, ever-so-slightly-less genocidal, ever-so-slightly-more-separatist predecessor. As the last remnants of humanity crash down livestreamed before us, an historic half a million-plus citizens protesting but a stone’s throw away to stop the genocide in Gaza, Wagner’s message could hardly be more urgent. Will anyone listen? Doubtless. Will any of the people who need to listen do so? Almost certainly not, as signalled by the unpleasant experience of passing a key architect of Brexit Britain’s malaise, Michael Gove, on the stairs. What do these people think the Ring is about? It is a question as old as the work itself, but then the same question could be asked – doubtless was – in the theatres of Athens. A politically committed artist such as Wagner could not have been less concerned with l’art pour l’art: that was at best the world of actually existing opera houses and their ‘absolute music’. Such is never all we have, though sometimes it may feel like it. As once again, Wagner and his performers sought to ‘make clear to the men of the revolution the meaning of that [non-]revolution,’ it was possible, whatever the catastrophes outside and perhaps even on account of them, once again to be moved and challenged by Wagner’s drama in the theatre. 

I missed Das Rheingold, though if the final Götterdämmerung has not by then subsumed us all, I hope to catch up when the whole Ring is staged. Barrie Kosky’s outward-looking Kammperspiel of a Walküre seemed nevertheless to stand perfectly well on its own merits. Hallmarks not only of Kosky’s direction, indeed not only of the cast onstage, but also of Antonio Pappano’s direction of a splendidly responsive Orchestra of the Royal Opera House were listening and collaboration: qualities in shorter supply than ever as fascism deepens its grip with every day—over Starmer’s ‘island of strangers’. Trump’s politics-as-gameshow, and almost anywhere else one can think of in the benighted ‘West’ (and not only there). 

I have not been a fan of Pappano’s Wagner in the past; here, both his conducting and that orchestral response sounded transformed. (In retrospect, there may have been something of an augury in the unusually Wagnerian Turandot I heard him conduct in 2023, but the Ring is a challenge of quite another order.) Now it seemed to spring directly from the words – perhaps a little too much, rather than asserting itself as an equal partner – but, if one wanted an Opera and Drama Wagner, at least according to many readings, here it was. There was none of the orchestral scrappiness, none of the merely following (‘supporting’) singers that had bedevilled earlier Ring performances I had heard. (I skipped the last outing of Keith Warner’s Ring, or rather could not afford to go.) No Wagner performance, not even Barenboim’s or Furtwängler’s, will cover every base; this is music, as it is drama, that encompasses and suggests more than any one performance can. On its own terms, it convinced, and there was no doubting the strong relationship built with the production.   

Kosky’s production is in many ways straightforward, its overriding concept of the despoliation of Nature (chapter four of my book on the Ring) clear and fatally apparent. A tree and all that has been felled from it, presumably beginning with Wotan’s spear (in the work’s prehistory as recounted to us by the Norns in the Prologue to Götterdämmerung), offer the roots and present of the tragic calamity that has befallen this world. Designs, especially set and lighting, contribute powerfully, a black-grey-white colour scheme occasionally bloodied in red, for instance that on Siegmund as Wotan chillingly watches him expire. Perhaps at some level he cares; perhaps not. Ambiguity renders it all the more chilling. There is perhaps a touch of the actor-politician Zelensky to him: a fascinating figure, with whom the Nietzsche of The Case of Wagner would have had a field day. Continuation and re-emergence of that red, flowing from the tree and seeping into the scene with the Valkyries and their carts of heroes (also tree-like, Nature’s wholeness still just about intact), made its point unmistakeably. So did Wotan’s brutal violence: no Rheingold ‘Nicht durch Gewalt’ here, should we take it seriously. Even Fricka’s glamourous arrival in a vintage car, which could readily have seemed an expensive distraction, took its place against this backdrop, connected to it in clear musicodramatic terms, as did Beckettian emergence of characters, Endgame-like, from holes in the savaged tree in the final scenes of the second act. For all the fuss about Erda, her appearance seemed in many ways of lesser importance, though the painterly provision of her spring fruits at the end of the first act was a nice touch. The tree doubled as Brünnhilde’s rock; in lesser hands, that might have confused, yet here seemed perfectly in order, aided by interventionist surtitling. 

Binding together musical performance and stage direction was of course the cast, which worked together very well indeed—almost as if this were a repertory spoken theatre with singing, in which company members worked together day in, day out. This made for moments of extraordinarily powerful emotional impact: Sieglinde’s ‘Lenz’ jubilation; Brünnhilde’s quandary following Wotan’s monologue, spotlit simply in front of the curtain; her embrace of Sieglinde following her decision to defy Wotan; and above all, Brünnhilde’s sobbing on her separation for the rock. Natalya Romaniw and Elisabeth Strid offered powerful portrayals of our two heroines, if we may call them that, founded, like the performance as a whole, in a word-driven approach that proposed rather than detracted from musical possibilities. Stanislas de Barbeyrac’s subtle Siegmund grasped at vocal steel when required, a fine match for Soloman Howard’s Hunding-as-policeman, as rounded a portrayal as any I can recall, perhaps more so, with unforgettable physical presence. Christopher Maltman’s Wotan occasionally lacked heft, but more than often than not impressed, in another highly text-driven performance. Marina Prudenskaya seems always to offer a class act, and certainly did here as a proud Fricka, marshalling instrumental reason just as her consort has always done. Individual direction (and performance) of the other Valkyries was put to excellent dramatic ends, one daring to tarry, so as to confront Wotan with the heinousness of his deeds, only to be brutally dismissed. 

I look forward to Siegfried. 

Götterdämmerung, Regents Opera, 16 February 2025

York Hall, Bethnal Green

Images: Steve Gregson
Siegfried (Peter Furlong), Hagen (Simon Wilding), Gunther (Andrew Mayor)

First Norn - Ingeborg Novrup Børch
Second Norn, Flosshilde – Mae Haydorn
Third Norn, Woglinde – Jillian Finnamore
Brünnhilde – Catharine Woodward
Siegfried – Peter Furlong
Gunther – Andrew Mayor
Hagen – Simon Wilding
Gutrune – Justine Viani
Waltraute – Catherine Backhouse
Alberich – Oliver Gibbs
Wellgunde – Elizabeth Findon
Vassals – Davide Basso, Max Catalano, Anthony Colasanto, Jacob Dyksterhouse, Tim Sawers, Alfred Mitchell, Ed Walters, Robin Whitehouse, Guy Wood-Gush

Director – Caroline Staunton
Assistant directors – Eleanor Strutt, Keiko Sumida
Designs – Isabella van Braeckel
Lighting – Patrick Malmström
Producer – CJ Heaver  

Members of London Gay Men’s Chorus

Members of Regents Opera Upper Voices Chorus

Regents Opera Ensemble

Ben Woodward (conductor)

The Norns (Ingeborg Novrup Børch, Mae Heydorn, Jillian Finnamore)

Wagner’s Ring is the drama of our time, yet it is surely the drama of every time. Seeing Opera North’s concert Rheingold only five days after the fateful 2016 referendum, the work seemed to take its leave from that. In our present malaise, Götterdämmerung inevitably seems closer than ever. Wagner, after all, pointed to the great virtue of myth being its alleged truth for all time, its content inexhaustible for any age. He is not saying quite the same thing there, although nor is he saying something entirely different. Tempting though it might be to proceed down that road, the particularity of this particular production and performance should be our primary concern. If my personal experience was less than ideal, in that I was unable to see Die Walküre and Siegfried, the final day of Wagner’s Ring spoke mostly for itself, with tantalising suggestions of what I might have missed—and dearly wish that I had not. 

Caroline Staunton’s production continues to tell the story with great intelligence and clarity, further framing refreshing rather than distracting. The sense of a collection of objects, a museum or gallery even, has developed since Rheingold’s contest of Valhalla and Nibelheim, to something less distant, incontestably ‘present’, as many of the best Götterdammerungen have always been. In any Ring, thoughts almost inevitably turn to that of Pierre Boulez and Patrice Chéreau: testament not only to its extraordinary quality, almost taking upon itself that mythical quality to which Wagner referred, but also to its historical fortune, falling in the right place at the right time, and with the right technology (television) spreading its word. This is unquestionably, as Chéreau remarked and showed, a post-religious society of increasingly desperate rituals, which knows no morality and finds it difficult, perhaps impossible, to ‘know’ at all. Here, the sense of objects curated, possessed, and, like the gold, fatefully valued – an ‘art market’ not so very different from what one might encounter, say, in the Tate Modern’s Turner Prize – entwines with Wagner’s epic, genealogical method, verbal and musical, of telling, retelling, adding standpoints and perspectives, never repeating. The world of the Norns seeks, perhaps, to protect objects gathered from earlier instalments. One can see and feel this when, as a gallery spectator, one ventures during the intervals to inspect the saucepan and tins, presumably Mime’s, from Siegfried, and other such objets. 

Hagen, Gunther, Brünnhilde, (Catharine Woodward) Gutrune (Justine Viani)

The following world of the Gibichungs glories, trivially yet palpably, in their extraction and abstraction, in the fetishist need to add to the collection, as Alberich needed to add to his hoard, Wagner’s furchtbare Not turned Lacanian. (We might reflect on that as we seek to add to the collection of Ring performances we have seen. Why are we doing this? Is it as mere collectors, perhaps closer to Nietzsche’s ‘Wagnerians’ or as something more active, as participants, as the revolutionary audience Wagner himself demanded?) I could not help but think of the denizens of Frank Castorf’s Götterdämmerung safeguarding their Picassos as Brünnhilde, purposely underwhelmingly, set Wall Street (slightly) ablaze. That consumerism appears to be what drives Gunther and Gutrune to wish to acquire Siegfried and Brünnhilde, though Hagen of course knows better and deeper. When all is returned to the Rhinemaidens, one can read this in all manner of ways; an ecological imperative is not necessarily to the scenic fore, though it hardly need be, since it will surely present itself to any thinking person in the midst of our climate emergency. 

Instead, we are prompted to think of the role art and its commodification, as well as more general sliding into the ‘mere’ craft, indeed ‘effect without cause’ Wagner diagnosed in the more meretricious would-be art of his own time. Paris, the capital of the nineteenth century, is transposed to the Ring in a Bethnal Green boxing ring. And the ring itself, like various of these objects more akin to Loge’s Rheingold toyland ‘Tand’ than the fearsome object we have been led to believe, gains whatever power it might have through the act of investing. It is less a matter of it working on account of belief, than on account of its valuation, or perhaps better a financialised, late-capitalist merging of the two; until, that is, the bottom falls out of the market, as it always will, rope of Fate or otherwise. 

Gunther, Brünnhilde

Conductor Ben Woodward and his small ensemble continued to work wonders. Of course there are times when one longs for a full orchestra, just as in a large theatre, there are times when one longs to be able to see the faces of those onstage. What surprised was how relatively few they were. Götterdämmerung surely presents the toughest challenge in this sense of the four dramas. Das Rheingold as Kammerspiel makes considerable sense, but the cosmic scale and grand opéra hauntings of this tale of Siegfried’s death and Brünnhilde’s redemption, heard through all that has passed before, seem to require something different. Maintaining tension over its vast span is difficult enough at Bayreuth or Covent Garden. Even the most exalted orchestras will slip here and there. This, however, was decidedly not the moment for Beckmesserish quibbles. Musical drama unfolded with care and intelligence, in tandem with the staging yet far from enslaved to it. Opportunities to hear it anew, sometimes even a little ‘inside out’, were gladly taken, forming part of an overall refreshment for the jaded, as well as a riveting introduction for those enabled to attend for the first time. The instrumentalists deserve nothing but praise for their contributions throughout, and choral forces brought welcome and, in this context, all the more telling contrast, permitting that larger-scale operatic world thrillingly to burst in. 

Hagen

None of this could, of course, have been achieved without the contributions from an excellent set of singing-actors. Different audience members will have had different favourites, and all contributed to a drama that was very much greater than the sum of its parts. Nonetheless, I was particularly struck by Simon Wilding’s Hagen and Catharine Woodward’s Brünnhilde (partly the roles, no doubt, though only partly). Wilding’s Hagen, dark and dangerous, simply owned the stage, a study in evil and its undeniable charm. The scene with his father proved especially moving, Oliver Gibbs not so much reprising as developing his outstanding Alberich for new, still darker times. Woodward’s Brünnhilde was similarly blessed of stage presence. Art in many respects conceals art: it was difficult not to feel that this simply ‘was’ the Valkyrie, and these simply ‘were’ the final phases of her journey. She could certainly sing too, offering an Immolation Scene of equal humanity and grandeur, in tandem with conductor and orchestra. It seemed, then, in many ways fitting that, at the end of the second-act trio, perhaps haunted here more by Verdi than Meyerbeer, Staunton should offer the twist of an unexpected passing union between Hagen and Brünnhilde. 

Gunther and Gutrune offer different challenges, of course. Vocal portrayal of weak characters is always a tough call, to which Andrew Mayor and Justine Viani rose very well indeed. The key, it seemed, lay in portrayal arising from the text, as was also the case with Peter Furlong’s tireless Siegfried, the character clearly, intriguingly traumatised. I suspect a clue to this would have been found in Siegfried; even without, it pointed to the difficulties our age and indeed Wagner’s (later Attic tragedy too, for that matter) have found in heroism. Catherine Backhouse gave a heartfelt reading of Waltraute’s pleading. Norns and Rhinemaidens emerged in fine ensemble, without sacrifice to individual voice. 

To conclude, then, may I once again suggest that any reader feeling able to do so might consider supporting this extraordinary venture, thrice denied Arts Council funding? The ecology of opera in this country is now as parlous as that of the world around us. Maybe, just maybe, Götterdämmerung can still be averted.

Götterdämmerung, Deutsche Oper, 20 May 2024

Images: Bernd Uhlig (from 2021 premiere, with a considerably different cast)
Hagen (Albert Pesendorfer)

Siegfried - Clay Hilley

Brünnhilde – Ricarda Merbeth
Hagen – Albert Pesendorfer
Gunther – Thomas Lehman
Gutrune, Third Norn – Felicia Moore
Alberich – Jordan Shanahan
Waltraute – Annika Schlicht
First Norn, Floßhilde – Lindsay Ammann
Second Norn, Wellgunde – Karis Tucker
Woglinde – Lee-ann Dunbar

Director – Stefan Herheim
Revival directors – Eva-Maria Abelein, Silke Sense
Set designs – Stefan Herheim, Silke Bauer
Costumes – Uta Heiseke
Video – Torge Møller
Lighting – Ulrich Niepel
Dramaturgy – Alexander Meier-Dörzenbach, Jörg Königsdorf

Chorus and Additional Chorus of the Deutsche Oper (chorus director: Jeremy Bines)

Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper

Nicholas Carter (conductor)

All things, good, bad, and indifferent, must come to an end; or must they? The idea that Wagner’s Ring is cyclical is widespread – many routinely refer to attending a ‘cycle’ – but it is at least open to criticism. More on that later, but this Deutsche Oper Ring has certainly come to an end with performances of great distinction, perhaps the most uniformly well cast I have ever seen, and with astonishing conducting from Nicholas Carter, certainly the best I have heard since Daniel Barenboim in 2013. Not, of course, to forget the superlative playing given throughout by the Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper, showing itself once again to be the match of any (Wagner) orchestra in the world, the Staatskapelle across town included. No Ring would be anything at all without Wagner’s reimagined Greek Chorus, leading, commenting, questioning, seducing, thrilling, and chilling; this one, as translucent as it was darkly malevolent, as weighty as it was agile, did all that and more. Only now, in the final instalment, it was joined by Wagner’s actual chorus, those of the Deutsche Oper as seemingly always excelling not only vocally but as dramatic participants onstage. 

A Ring in the theatre is, of course, its production too; this marked the end of Stefan Herheim’s memorable staging. No Ring is perfect: it is not, should never be, that sort of work. It is too big, too unmanageable, too much a ‘world’ for that. This has contributed much, though, not least from its insistence on Wagner’s ‘three days with preliminary evening’ as a musically driven drama that navigates between the concerns of an ongoing rite and something explicitly contemporary. In that, at its best, it has penetrated to Wagner’s own mythological practice, doing what it has shown and what it has suggested to us. If the final scene of Siegfried proved for me a rare disappointment, it also gained from what happened next—though I still think it would have benefited from heightened attention to the drama of Siegfried and Brünnhilde and less to the crowd of copulating extras around them. Here, though, at the onset of the Prologue to Götterdämmerung, the generational shift (which has already, strictly, been accomplished) is accompanied by a scenic one; or rather, the action passes between two basic settings throughout, the old one of the rehearsal room and piano, and the new one of the Deutsche Oper itself. 

We probably should not make too much of a distinction, or maybe we should, between actors and chorus. Perhaps some have gone on to be audience members, whilst some continue in their movement and ‘extra’ roles. The more important thing, I think, is that two related worlds less collide than interact. There is, after all, little point in telling a story if no one is there to listen. In any case, the actors surround blindfolded Norns (echoing the state at one point of the treble Woodbird), choreographically heightening the drama just as they did to form the Rhine in the first scene of Das Rheingold—and just as they will in the final scene of Götterdämmerung to form the fire, aided by striking red lighting. Again, some of the most powerful effects are the simplest and, as Wagner put it, the most ‘purely human’. Meyerbeer’s ‘effects without cause’ are neither his business nor ours, whatever the (exaggerated) claims that have been made for the elder composer’s influence on this drama. A degree of grand opéra, yes, but other composers in that genre, the creator of Rienzi included, loom larger, which is not to say that a blazing account of the second act trio – courtesy of the orchestra, Carter, Ricarda Merbeth, Albert Pesendorfer, and Thomas Lehman did not thrill – for it very much did. 

Back for now, though, to Herheim. (In a sense, the distinction is false, albeit necessary to say anything at all.) The theatrical ‘business’ of dressing up continues to loom large, enabling characters to become – perhaps even to leave behind – ‘themselves’, as well as actors to become characters. White sheets become improbably large wedding dresses for Brünnhilde and Gutrune, their entanglements, their allure, and their physical dangers offering visual metaphors aplenty. Rhinemaidens, in losing their external trappings, become Norn-like, hieratic, in their warnings to Siegfried, Carter’s quasi-liturgical handling of the score both reflecting and leading that. Hagen assumes Siegfried’s heroic costume, whereas Siegfried fatally loses his. Gunther is likewise transformed from initial silliness (not a criticism, but rather a commendation of Lehman’s alert performance) into something more. The white tie of an ‘artist’ is the key, or at least it seems to be, as it is for Siegfried’s transformation (as well, undoubtedly, as whatever it is Hagen slips into his drink). Their scene on Brünnhilde’s rock is very well handled, both initially equals, sharing the lines, before Gunther fails and Siegfried must take over ‘as’ Gunther—before, of course, returning to the Gibichung Hall, where the sleep into which he keeps falling (Hagen’s doing?) overcomes him. It seems also to overwhelm during his final scene, staggering about, not ‘himself’—until he can finally become himself at his death, fully in keeping with Wagner. 

Gunther (Thomas Lehman), Siegfried (Clay Hilley)

In the meantime, Hagen’s departure into the audience for his watch proves, with further Brechtian use of house lights at critical moments, a telling and striking coup de théâtre. First he finds Waltraute there, his intimidation a prod to the mission she undertakes to her sister. Then he conducts the dialogue with Alberich from there, his father on stage, Siegfried sleeping. Alberich’s presence as clown of death, spying the action, even trying to force the ring from the sleeping Siegfried’s hand, visually informs not only his son’s appearance but that of zombie guests to the abortive weddings. As we hear the Nibelung and his ring musically envelop the action, so does he colour the participants too. Not for nothing does he manically play the piano at the end of the first act and resume his performance at the beginning of the second. His longtime antagonist appears too, actors assembling to show, first during Waltraute’s narration and on occasion thereafter, Valhalla’s throng of gods and heroes, a weary Walvater finally descending to the piano to receive Brünnhilde’s ultimate judgement. 

Before (re-)turning to the close, I should add a little about the vocal performances. Merbeth combined the headstrong virtues of her Walküre Brünnhilde and the lyrical ones of her Siegfried performance into a memorable assumption of her role. Clay Hilley again proved tireless – as tireless as a Siegfried can ever really be – and committed as the doomed hero. Pesendorfer and Jordan Shanahan’s Hagen and Alberich cast spells both dark and magical through voice and stage presence alike. Lehman’s Gunther and Felicia Moore’s warmly sympathetic Gutrune captured the difficult, sometimes thankless essence of their characters, always alert to the particular demands of the staging. Annika Schlicht’s chalumeau-like Waltraute was as much of a vocal and dramatic joy as her Fricka. Norns and Rhinemaidens were uniformly excellent. This was, I am delighted to reiterate, at least the equal of any Ring I have heard in uniform excellence of casting, and perhaps more than that. There may have been starrier casts; there may have been individual performances ‘bettered’ in one way or another, for there always will be. Yet across the board, the Deutsche Oper’s strong sense of company will take some beating. 

Following departure of all from the stage and a splendidly oracular image summoning up memories of Delphi, but also of Patrice Chéreau and Pierre Boulez revelling in Wagner’s own revisiting its prophetic indeterminacy, we return to where we began: rehearsal room with lights, emergency exit, and piano, no sign of suitcases, refugees, or anyone/-thing else we have seen in between. A cleaner (with a hint of Erda to her?) comes to check all is as it should be. All has been washed away, or has it? Others will doubtless come along to stage the work again. The question remains whether they will have learned anything. For Wagner’s ‘watchers’, those ‘men and women moved to the very depths of their being’ were all along intended to imply this was not entirely a return, that consciousness had been created or raised. The Ring ends not in E-flat-major, but in D-flat, the key of Valhalla. Over, then, to those who have made it, us included. Only, given the achievements to date of ‘human consciousness’, who would bet against catastrophic repetition?