The controversial Bayreuth “Ring des Nibelungen” makes a new start. The first part, the “Rheingold”, was cheered by the festival audience on Wednesday evening. When Valentin Schwarz’s production was resumed, there was a lot of applause on the Green Hill, which was mainly due to an excellent Alberich.
The Icelandic baritone Olafur Sigurdarson, who had already proved to be the audience’s favorite at the open-air concert before the official start of the festival, inspired the audience with emotion and vocal power – even more than mezzo-soprano Okka von der Damerau, who was in Bayreuth in her second year when Erda got even better, and when Tomasz Konieczny as Wotan, father of the gods.
Last year, Konieczny was so badly injured when a chair collapsed on stage in Die Walküre that he was unable to continue singing. In the “Rheingold” he avoided this chair.
Polite applause and some boos
The “Ring” production by director Valentin Schwarz is very controversial. At the premiere in 2022 there were loud booing concerts in the Festspielhaus and this year tickets for the four operas were even available immediately before the start of the festival – a novelty in the history of the festival.
The “Ring” will be conducted this year by Pietari Inkinen, who fell ill for a short time in 2022 – and on Wednesday audibly struggled with the special acoustics in the Festspielhaus. Singers and orchestra weren’t always harmonious, which in the end even earned the conductor a few boos in addition to rather polite applause.
Director Schwarz has announced “additional aids to understanding” for the second year of his production. “We’re looking at it again, and this results in many smaller changes,” he said in an interview with the German Press Agency.
In “Rheingold” he didn’t show exactly what he meant by that, in which he had a child represent the gold around which everything revolves. The child kidnaps Alberich into the underworld and later turns out to be Siegfried’s murderer Hagen.
Schwarz: Intergenerational justice is an important issue
For him, the “Ring” is a drama of the here and now, said Schwarz about his ambitious, but sometimes overloaded and somewhat unstructured-looking production, which was also known as the “Netflix Ring” before its premiere because the director produced the four-part Richard -Wagner opera staged as a kind of drama series and provides the characters with background stories.
Intergenerational justice is an important topic for him, emphasized Schwarz – and a central one in his production. “I think this question – what world are we leaving behind – is uncomfortable for many people because it involves a good deal of self-criticism.”
Last year, the “Rheingold” was the “Ring” part, which was still relatively well received by the audience, but especially the “Götterdämmerung” at the end fell through with viewers and many critics.
The second part, “Valkyrie”, is on the schedule for today. Schwarz and his directing team will only appear to the public after “Götterdämmerung” this Monday.
