The Rhinegold by Wagner, De (2021/2021), Dirigit per Stephan Kimmig,, Director musical Cornelius Meister, Opernhaus, Stuttgart, Germany

When the floods of the Rhine arise from a single note at the beginning of the Ring des Nibelungen, it sounds as if the world is following an unshakable elementary order. But after just a few minutes Wagner locates a momentous fall in her: the curse of love and the robbery of gold by Alberich. Even above the water, the world does not prove to be crisis-free: an unaffordable prestige building, dubious contracts, indebted business partners, women as attachable equity - all of the mythical staff, above all Wotan, the father of the gods, are involved in dubious family and business relationships. And everyone gets entangled even more deeply with each action step and each new musical motif. When Wagner tackled the composition of his ring tetralogy, he had nothing less in mind than a critique of human forms of socialization. And while recklessly recycling myths, he told a wide-ranging story of the creation and the end of the world, to be performed and looked at by the people of a later time freed from economic constraints. It remains to be seen whether we can consider ourselves just that. The Stuttgart State Opera will definitely once again accept Wagner's offer to tell of the deep structures of social relationships in a variety of ways. Stephan Kimmig reveals in his staging of the “previous evening” the colportal and clown-like features of the hunt for the ring. In a panic-driven attempt to save one's own advantage, the opponents keep tricking and screwing each other up - with flimsy tricks and dizzying volts. A ghostly vaudeville, a nightmare or the real world? What exactly is the difference? However, the admonition of the primordial mother Erda that the chosen path leads to destruction could lead to the awakening of everyone this time. Then, in spite of this beginning, perhaps no end would be necessary.