Organization

Bayreuther Festspiele

Conductor

Daniel Barenboim

Set designer

Hans Schavernoch

Costume designer

Reinhard Heinrich

Baritone

John Tomlinson

Wotan

Bodo Brinkmann

Donner

Tenor

Kurt Schreibmayer

Froh

Graham Clark

Loge

Mezzo-soprano

Linda Finnie

Fricka

Soprano

Eva Johansson

Freia

Contralto

Birgitta Svendén

Erda

Günter von Kannen

Alberich

Helmut Pampuch

Mime

Peter Keller

Bass

Matthias Hölle

Fasolt

Philip Kang

Fafner

Hilde Leidland

Woglinde

Annette Küttenbaum

Wellgunde

Jane Turner

Flosshilde

Orchestra

Bayreuther Festspielorchester

German

Das Rheingold -  (The Rhinegold)

Germany

Even before the beginning of the work, the power-hungry Wotan had destroyed the order of nature: he cut his spear out of the world ash as a sign of his power, which was manifested in contracts. When the curtain opens, the Nibelung Alberich appears, who robs the Rhinemaidens of the gold and renounces love for his sake. Wotan and his clan of gods need the gold. They have to pay the giants Fasolt and Fafner, who built the Valhalla Castle for them and kidnapped the goddess Freia as pledge. Fire god Loge descends with Wotan to Nibelheim, where Mime forged a ring and a magic cloak from the gold treasure for Alberich. Wotan robs Alberich, who curses the ring. He ransoms Freia with the treasure. During the dispute over the ring, Fafner kills Fasolt. The gods enter Valhalla.

Conductor Daniel Barenboim, director Harry Kupfer, set designer Hans Schavernoch and costume designer Reinhard Heinrich came to Bayreuth in 1988 to realize their vision of Wagner's "Ring". They consistently turned away from the time the work was created and conceived their staging as "a critique of human history, of the entire cultural development, at the end of which we are heavily involved" (Kupfer).

The Kupfer team set Wagner's "critique of man's rage for destruction, of lovelessness and alienation" (Kupfer), which is rooted in Germanic mythology, in a present that harbors a past and a future at the same time. The space for this pre-time, simultaneity and post-time is the "road of history" on which power struggles and love troubles occur and which leads us directly into the depths of the human soul.

"Under Barenboim, the music is exquisite. Especially the narrative power of Rheingold, the descriptions of the above- and below-ground events run off with great musical imagery in a fascinating variety of colors... All roles are again cast with sharp characters." (The world)

"Harry Kupfer and the protagonists brought the story as close to the audience as an opera can ever do." (Münchner Merkur)

"With admirable rigor of the means of expression in the ring, he creates an opportunity to present the abundance of forms in an exemplary manner and to clarify the basic questions of the 20th century without blatant one-sidedness." (Stuttgarter News)

"You can already feel it: saying goodbye will be a difficult one. Harry Kupfer's production of Richard Wagner's Ring des Nibelungen has by no means lost any of its expressiveness over the years... The meeting of past, present and future is more than a vision. After Rheingold und Walküre it is beyond doubt that Harry Kupfer has presented what is perhaps the most important interpretation of the mammoth drama after Patrice Chéreau." (West German General)

"Harry Kupfer's production of the Ring, intellectually well-founded, comedy-inspired, psychologically motivated, became the third important interpretation in Neubayreuth after Wieland Wagner and Patrice Chéreau. These three interpretations alone reveal the variety of scenic possibilities; they open up the widest spectrum in the stylistic pluralism of the today's music theater..." (Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger)

"Kupfer overheard things from Wagner that he perhaps could not even have imagined." (The mirror)

"Copper liberates us, if not all the time, then in striking scenes from our superego by enmeshing us in the story of the Ring of the Nibelung. No singer in Bayreuth needs to ask what this old myth still means today who lives his art, and basically no listener either." (FAZ)

"Thus Bayreuth, much to the fury of its ancient Wagnerians, can boast of an apocalyptic Ring interpretation for the ecologically conscious late eighties: Twilight of technology instead of Twilight of the Gods." (Profile, Vienna)

"The detailed work on this ring has been going on since the start in 1988, and it has served in the Bayreuth workshop to bring the quality of the performance to the limits of what is achievable." (Der Tagesspiegel, Berlin)

Das Rheingold Wagner,Richard

Public

The Rhinegold

Approved

The Rhinegold by Wagner, Richard, Thu 08 Aug 1991, From (1991/1991), Conductor Daniel Barenboim

Performance credits (Cast & Crew )

Cast

Crew

Ensemble

Programme, About & Synopsis

Photos

Further reading

Performance Dates & Venues

Venues