The ''Jahrhundertring'' (''Centenary Ring'') was the production of
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most op ...
's ''Ring Cycle'', ''
Der Ring des Nibelungen
(''The Ring of the Nibelung''), WWV 86, is a cycle of four German-language epic music dramas composed by Richard Wagner. The works are based loosely on characters from Germanic heroic legend, namely Norse legendary sagas and the '' Nibe ...
'', at the
Bayreuth Festival
The Bayreuth Festival (german: link=no, Bayreuther Festspiele) is a music festival held annually in Bayreuth, Germany, at which performances of operas by the 19th-century German composer Richard Wagner are presented. Wagner himself conceived ...
in 1976, celebrating the centenary of both the festival and the first performance of the complete cycle. The festival was directed by
Wolfgang Wagner
Wolfgang Wagner (30 August 191921 March 2010) was a German opera director. He is best known as the director (Festspielleiter) of the Bayreuth Festival, a position he initially assumed alongside his brother Wieland in 1951 until the latter's ...
and the production was created by the French team of conductor
Pierre Boulez
Pierre Louis Joseph Boulez (; 26 March 1925 – 5 January 2016) was a French composer, conductor and writer, and the founder of several musical institutions. He was one of the dominant figures of post-war Western classical music.
Born in Mont ...
, stage director
Patrice Chéreau
Patrice Chéreau (; 2 November 1944 – 7 October 2013) was a French opera and theatre director, filmmaker, actor and producer. In France he is best known for his work for the theatre, internationally for his films '' La Reine Margot'' and ...
, stage designer
Richard Peduzzi
Richard Peduzzi (born 1943 in Argentan, Orne) is a French scenographer. He was the director of the French Academy in Rome from September 2002 to August 2008.
Since 1969, he has decorated the sets designed by Patrice Chéreau, and together they ...
, costume designer
Jacques Schmidt and lighting designer
André Diot
André Diot (born 1935) is a cinematographer and lighting designer of French theatre and film, who played an important role in the emergence of the profession in France. In a long career, he designed the lighting for the 1976 Bayreuth ''Jahrhund ...
. The cycle was shown first in 1976, then in the following years until 1980. It was filmed for television in 1979 and 1980. While the first performance caused "a near-riot" for its brash modernity, the staging established a standard, termed ''
Regietheater Regietheater (German for ''director's theater'') is the modern practice of allowing a director freedom in devising the way a given opera or play is staged so that the creator's original, specific intentions or stage directions (where supplied) can b ...
'' (director's theater), for later productions.
Centenary
Festival director
Wolfgang Wagner
Wolfgang Wagner (30 August 191921 March 2010) was a German opera director. He is best known as the director (Festspielleiter) of the Bayreuth Festival, a position he initially assumed alongside his brother Wieland in 1951 until the latter's ...
selected the composer
Pierre Boulez
Pierre Louis Joseph Boulez (; 26 March 1925 – 5 January 2016) was a French composer, conductor and writer, and the founder of several musical institutions. He was one of the dominant figures of post-war Western classical music.
Born in Mont ...
as the conductor for the centenary celebration of Wagner's most complex work, which had been first performed at the first Bayreuth festival. The conductor's first choice for a stage director was
Ingmar Bergman
Ernst Ingmar Bergman (14 July 1918 – 30 July 2007) was a Swedish film director, screenwriter, Film producer, producer and playwright. Widely considered one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers of all time, his films are known ...
. When he refused,
Boulez recommended as stage director
Patrice Chéreau
Patrice Chéreau (; 2 November 1944 – 7 October 2013) was a French opera and theatre director, filmmaker, actor and producer. In France he is best known for his work for the theatre, internationally for his films '' La Reine Margot'' and ...
.
Chéreau brought in the team of stage designer
Richard Peduzzi
Richard Peduzzi (born 1943 in Argentan, Orne) is a French scenographer. He was the director of the French Academy in Rome from September 2002 to August 2008.
Since 1969, he has decorated the sets designed by Patrice Chéreau, and together they ...
, costume designer
Jacques Schmidt and lighting designer
André Diot
André Diot (born 1935) is a cinematographer and lighting designer of French theatre and film, who played an important role in the emergence of the profession in France. In a long career, he designed the lighting for the 1976 Bayreuth ''Jahrhund ...
,
with whom he had collaborated already in his first theatre, the ''Public-Theatre'' in the Parisian suburb of
Sartrouville
Sartrouville () is a commune in the Yvelines department, Île-de-France, north central France. it is located in the north-western suburbs of Paris, from the center of Paris.
Name
In the Middle Ages the name Sartrouville was recorded in Medieva ...
, from 1966.
The French team revolutionised the understanding of Wagner in Germany, as music critic
Eleonore Büning
Elisabeth Eleonore Büning (née Bauer; born 2 January 1952) is a German music journalist and writer, known for her opera reviews in the ''Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung''.
Early life and education
Elisabeth Eleonore Bauer was born in Frankfurt a ...
wrote in the ''
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
The ''Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung'' (; ''FAZ''; "''Frankfurt General Newspaper''") is a centre-right conservative-liberal and liberal-conservativeHans Magnus Enzensberger: Alter Wein in neuen Schläuchen' (in German). ''Deutschland Radio'', ...
''.
Unprecedentedly, the scene was set in the
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...
, "dressing the gods as capitalists at war with the Nibelung proletariat".
Set at the time of the composition, it took a critical view of the time's capitalism, industrialism and spiritual background.
The
Rhinemaidens
The Rhinemaidens are the three water-nymphs (''Rheintöchter'' or "Rhine daughters") who appear in Richard Wagner's opera cycle ''Der Ring des Nibelungen''. Their individual names are Woglinde, Wellgunde and Flosshilde (Floßhilde), although the ...
appeared as 19th-century
cancan dancers and Wotan as a banker in a frock coat. Siegfried enters the hall of the Gibichungs dressed in the "ragged clothes of a mythical hero" and meets Gunther wearing a dinner jacket, visualising how alien the hero is to the world. The director's approach was described as a mix of "a vague sense of 19th-century melodrama with
Shaw's messianic socialism and
Strindberg
Johan August Strindberg (, ; 22 January 184914 May 1912) was a Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist and painter.Lane (1998), 1040. A prolific writer who often drew directly on his personal experience, Strindberg wrote more than sixty p ...
's psychodrama.
Pierre Boulez (1968).jpg, Pierre Boulez
conductor
Patrice Chéreau 66ème Festival de Venise (Mostra) cropped.jpg, Patrice Chéreau
stage director
Jacques-Schmidt.jpg, Jacques Schmidt
costume designer
Singers
The singers for the production had to act as much as to sing, especially for the filming in 1980.
The following table shows singers from the first year 1976 to the last year, when it was filmed. The parts of Wagner's stage work are abbreviated R for ''Das Rheingold'', W for ''Die Walküre'', S for ''Siegfried'', G for ''Götterdämmerung''.
Alternate singers were in 1976
Hans Sotin as Wotan and
Karl Ridderbusch
Karl Ridderbusch (29 May 1932 – 21 June 1997) was a German operatic bass (vocal range), bass, associated in particular with the music of Richard Wagner, Wagner. He was recognised as a notable exponent of the role of Die Meistersinger von Nürnber ...
as Hunding,
Roberta Knie as Brünnhilde in ''Götterdämmerung'' and Bengt Rundgren as Hagen. In 1977, Patrice Chéreau acted the part of Siegfried in one performance of ''Siegfried'', because singer René Kollo had broken his leg. In 1978,
Astrid Schirmer performed Sieglinde in ''Walküre'',
Jean Cox
Jean Cox (January 16, 1922 – June 24, 2012) was an American tenor.
Early years
Cox was born in Gadsden, Alabama. He served in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II era as a pilot. After obtaining a degree in Music from the ...
sang the part of Siegfried in one performance of ''Siegfried''.
Reception
The Ring production was initially met with controversial reactions,
provoking "a near-riot", due to its controversial setting of the saga in the Industrial revolution, with the Rhinemaidens as prostitutes.
Later it was understood as "a thoughtful allegory of man's exploitation of natural resources".
Winifred Wagner
Winifred Marjorie Wagner ( Williams; 23 June 1897 – 5 March 1980) was the English-born wife of Siegfried Wagner, the son of Richard Wagner, and ran the Bayreuth Festival after her husband's death in 1930 until the end of World War II in 1 ...
, the then elderly matriarch of the Wagner dynasty, disliked the production but asked rhetorically "isn't it better to be furious than to be bored?".
After its final performance in 1980 the production was celebrated in a 45-minute standing ovation.
It set a standard for productions of the ''Ring Cycle'' to follow.
Called the beginning of ''
Regietheater Regietheater (German for ''director's theater'') is the modern practice of allowing a director freedom in devising the way a given opera or play is staged so that the creator's original, specific intentions or stage directions (where supplied) can b ...
'' (director's theater), the production influenced directors and designers.
The production was filmed for television in 1979 and 1980.
''Die Walküre'' was shown in the
ARD on 28 August 1980.
The cycle was shown completely in 1983, in commemoration of the composer's death, and also presented in the cinema internationally.
While a DVD review of the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
James Leonard noted: "... more controversial than Chéreau's dramatic conception was Boulez's musical execution. With startlingly clear textures, spectacularly bright colors, and stunningly light tempos, Boulez obtains a Wagner sound like no other. And for those with ears to hear, it works. Wagner's music doesn't have to be murky to be metaphysical or massive to be overwhelmingly moving and Boulez gets playing from the too-often turgid Bayreuth Festival Orchestra that makes the music crackle and blaze with musical and dramatic meaning."
Edward Rothstein wrote for the ''New York Times'': "Aspects of the score emerge with unexpected clarity. In the opening of 'Die Walküre', he deliberately understates the bass line, giving the music's aggressive restlessness an eerie disembodied character. Throughout 'The Ring', filigree and details are crisply articulated without undue stress on the
s; nothing is made sentimental or obvious. Particularly drawn to the intricately shifting sound world of the late, last opera, Mr. Boulez gives it a dramatic sweep along with a crystalline gleam."