This was the production the Bayreuth Festspiele staged in 1976 in celebration of its 100th year. It was thus designed to be different, a defining event in the history of both Ring Cycle performances and the Festival. It was, but not without controversy! One that centered mainly on the staging and its specially chosen director, the enfant-terrible of French theatre, PATRICE CHEREAU. Then only 28 but already a much celebrated icon, he had never directed opera before. And he dared transport the mythic gods and dwarves and dragons of Wagner’s venerated masterwork to the sooty, grimy world of the 19th century Industrial Revolution with all its socio-political baggage -to the shocked disbelief and outrage of the audience whose expectations were clearly other-worldly.
“Leb wohl” from the final scene, Act 3 of Die Walküre
with bass Donald McIntyre as Wotan and
soprano Dame Gwyneth Jones as Brünnhilde
It was unquestionably revolutionary. There was also audience outrage at the choice of a conductor in PIERRE BOULEZ. They remembered this other Frenchman as another revolutionary, formidable composer and advocate of new serialist music who once suggested blowing up old-fashioned German opera houses as an elegant solution to their hostility toward producing new opera. Those who have a more than passing familiarity with opera know that opera fans are fanatically passionate (or passionately fanatic) about the art form, and should not have been surprised that the centennial celebration though perhaps welcomed by some largely anonymous connoisseurs, was riotously un-welcomed by deafening boos and bloody, mob-like brawls that reportedly ended in ripped dresses and torn earlobes!
A video playlist of scenes from the CHEREAU RING CYCLE
Music Direction: PIERRE BOULEZ / Stage Direction: PATRICE CHEREAU /
Set Design: RICHARD PEDUZZI / Artistic supervision: WOLFGANG WAGNER
But the show went on… for four more customary years. Time and familiarity did mellow artistic sensibilities. Gaining acceptance and admiration, the production had an unexpectedly happy ending, its last curtain calls greeted with roaring standing ovations-the polar opposite of its first. The 1980 presentation was even the first Ring Cycle to be taped for television, an undertaking so much more complex then, before the advent of digital recording technology, than it is today. Now regarded as a milestone production, the Chereau Ring in liberating the mindset of opera directors from the shackles of tradition, planted the seed for Regieoper (or director’s opera) and forever changed the way opera is produced. - © 2011 GJ Cajipe
CAST:
GWYNETH JONES - Brünnhilde, MANFRED JUNG - Siegfried, PETER HOFFMANN - Siegmund, JEANNINE ALTMEYER - Sieglinde, HANNW SCHWARZ - Fricka, HEINZ ZEDNIK - Loge, HERMANN BECHT: Alberich, HELMUT PAMPUCH - Mime
