In 2016 Wagner fans from all around the world will be looking to Leipzig, because with its performance of "Götterdämmerung" - the last part of the tetralogy - on 30 April 2016 Leipzig Opera House will complete the staging of the entire "Ring des Nibelungen" which it began in 2013. This means that for the first time in 40 years the city of Wagner's birth will once more have performed the composer's main work in full, thus adding a further musical milestone to the city's history.
May 2013 saw a performance of "Rheingold", followed by "Die Walküre" in December of the same year, then by "Siegfried" in April 2015 and by "Götterdämmerung" the following April. The complete Ring Cycle can now be experienced in Leipzig in May 2016.
Experiencing the "Ring des Nibelungen" on four consecutive days
From 5 to 8 May 2016 Leipzig Opera House will be the only opera company in Germany this year to perform the Ring Cycle on four consecutive days. In all four parts the Gewandhaus Orchestra will be conducted by Musical Director Professor Ulf Schirmer. "When a city performs the entire 'Ring'", comments Prof. Schirmer, "this is something very special. Members of Wagner associations and Wagner fans from all around the world travel to whatever city is carrying out this mammoth task. Full-scale performances of these works on four consecutive days without a break represent an enormous challenge for any opera house. In 2016 Leipzig Opera House will be the only opera company in Germany undertaking this task."
Carrying out this mammoth project is the responsibility of the production team consisting of Rosamund Gilmore (production), Carl Friedrich Oberle (stage management) and Nicola Reichert (costumes). Wagner's story focuses on the role played by love and power in the entanglements between humans and the gods, with everything revolving around the possession of a magical ring which gives its owner possession of the world but at the same time leads to death and destruction.
The "Ring des Nibelungen" and its special significance for Leipzig
Richard Wagner's "Ring des Nibelungen" has a special significance for Leipzig. Immediately after the very first performance of the entire cycle in Bayreuth in the year 1876 Leipzig was the first city to perform the works, with a performance of "Siegfried" only a few years later under the baton of none other than the young Gustav Mahler. Legendary status was also achieved by the new production directed by Joachim Herz in the 1970s. Here, too, the pioneering spirit of the Leipzig opera company was once more demonstrated, as Herz for the first time placed the "Ring" within the context of the age in which it was created.
The return of the four-part Ring Cycle to the concert programme of the Wagner city was not just one of the first projects Ulf Schirmer launched when he was appointed Musical Director, it was also a major gift to the people of Leipzig in the Wagner anniversary year of 2013. To direct the works he picked English director Rosamund Gilmore, who consciously broke away from the wide-ranging past interpretations of the Ring in favour of narrative theatre on the basis of mythical realism.