Bayreuth Festival 2021: The whole “Ring” in one day – culture

Wagnerians are believers and therefore pilgrims and therefore pedestrians. A real Wagnerian and her male counterpart climb the Green Hill in Bayreuth on foot. This only takes twenty minutes, but in the heat it can give a strong foretaste of the overheated wooden festival hall of the Richard Wagner Festival. Temperatures on Thursday are moderate. The sky threatens in the morning with black clouds, which then do not discharge over the green hill.

This Thursday will go down in festival history as a special and inspiring one. For the first time, the entire four-part “Ring des Nibelungen” is offered in one day, at least in fragments, iridescent and idiosyncratic. Originally, this fifteen-hour parable of a dream of world domination should have come out last year with the little-known young director Valentin Schwarz and the equally unknown young conductor Pietari Inkinen. But then the epidemic and Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder took over the direction, the festival was canceled and the “Ring” postponed to 2022. This made this one-day ring possible for the year in between, with many dazzling ideas and artists, above all the 82-year-old action painter and conceptualist Hermann Nitsch, who created the second “Ring” part – the “Valkyrie” – with live, large-scale, colorfully striped pouring, Drip and paint slingshots illustrated what he had to take a few boos for. The grand master of the orgy-mystery and blood-and-testicle theater will easily cope with this, however, as he is used to resistance and rejection, even for his art slaughter with real animals.

On Thursday morning, however, Nitsch is still a long way off. The Wagnerian who came to Franconia early is stopped right at the beginning of the hill climb. No, not from the omnipresent police (Angela Merkel is not coming), but from art. In the middle of the park stands Bernar Venet’s one and a half meter high bronze ring “222.5 ° Arc x 5”, which is open at the top and consists of five parts: an invitation to Wagner to compose another part for his tetralogy? No, it is a memorial for 1000 years of the Bamberg diocese. But behind it there is a real Wagner accessory. From a distance, it appears to be a large, red mouse trying to jump through the bronze ring. When you get closer, the mouse turns out to be a filigree knotted giant fabric made of red cord, which not only attracts children to climb around in it. Hopefully no policeman is watching.

The Rhine daughters disguised as monster nymphs bob about in the pond this morning

The enlightened Wagnerian, however, immediately taps the beginning of “Götterdämmerung” and the spider thread that the three fateful horns throw at each other while singing and loop around various rocks until it breaks and heralds the end of the gods. “Thread of fate” is the name of this climbing plant that seduces you to dream like climbing, it comes from Chiharu Shiota, who equipped the Japan pavilion at the 2015 Venice Biennale. And the Wagnerian is in a good mood that the “Götterdämmerung”, the longest piece, is finished so quickly right at the beginning of the “Ring” day.

Now it’s time to go to the “Rheingold” in the festival pond. You read that correctly: The Rhine daughters, who are fantastically disguised as monster nymphs, bob up and down in the pond this morning, which the puppeteer and director Nikolaus Habjan uses as a fairy tale backdrop for the one-hour world premiere of “Immer noch Loge”. The music comes from Gordon Kampe, born in 1976, and has received many awards. Kampe only needs three singers, a few instruments, electronics, and amplifiers. It thunders, it wagons, it waltzes. The sounds are controlled and cool, repetitive is common. On a ramp that leads into the pond, the giant doll Erda sits in a wheelchair and files a lawsuit against the populist Loge, whom she accuses of having driven loads of gods and people to their deaths. The fact that Erda’s lover, the chief god Wotan, caused all this calamity through his lust for power does not play a role in Paulus Hochgatterer’s discourse-heavy libretto. But then the singers overturn their music stands and into the pond, the Loge doll keeps getting a plastic fish as a gag between its teeth. Finally Loge, the god of fire, is surrendered to death by fire, to being blown into the air. Erda, sung by the fabulous Stephanie Houtzeel, triumphs.

Four hours later in the Festspielhaus there will be a concert by Nitsch painting “Walküre”. The conductor Pietari Inkinen acts slowly and chamber music and far removed from the palatable, strictly applied Nitsch colors. That brings him boos and dampens the anticipation for his “Ring” -dirigat next year.

During the break, the Wagnerian can kill dragons himself with the 3-D glasses

It’s about a twin superhuman couple who testify to the hero Siegfried in a blood-disgraceful manner and are sentenced for adultery. Klaus Florian Vogt, a Bayreuth darling, sings Siegmund slowed down and bright, Lise Davidson as his sweetheart can turn up a lot, but doesn’t need it because Pietari Inkinen also keeps the orchestra short in terms of volume. But that doesn’t prevent Tomasz Konieczny, who only stepped in as Wotan a few days ago, from singing loudly. And Irène Theorin generously adds vocalically to Wotan’s rebellious daughter Brünnhilde, whom he has to punish very much against his will. There is little or no space for subtleties, not even for immersion into the abyss of the piece or even a reinterpretation. While performing in concert, the Wagnerian is spared the painful driving around with spear, sword and ring, but he is also given no new insights into Wagner’s puzzling world.

During the breaks, the Wagnerian himself can take up his sword and, like Siegfried, the title hero of the third “Ring” part, kill a dragon. There are six tents in front of the Festspielhaus with 3-D glasses waiting for them. The Wagnerian finds himself immediately in the empty Festspielhaus. Siegfried’s weird foster father Mime points to a glowing red cave on the stage and ravens (Wotan’s birds) are circling in the room. A terrifying 3-D giant dragon pounces on the intimidated Wagnerian, hisses fire, flaps its tail and wings. Eerily beautiful ghost train. Then the Wagnerian gets a 3-D sword in his hand, the dragon’s heart lights up and, faster than thought, the viewer becomes a dragon slayer. What would have happened if it hadn’t happened? Would the dragon have eaten one? Jay Scheid came up with this VR project, and in 2023 the man will prepare the Bayreuth “Parsifal” for 3-D glasses.

The “Walküre” stage is completely white at the beginning. In the back there are three giant screens, screens are on the floor. On the sides paint buckets in a row, plus two brooms. Plain wooden chairs facing the orchestra pit for the singers, who appear modestly in black robes, often sit, and only act minimally. Hermann Nitsch lets a group of his fellow painters improvise brightly colored drip and pouring pictures live. Some let floods of color flow down rhythmically on the canvases in the background. The others gradually fill up the canvases lying on the floor. This results in an intoxicating play of colors orgies. Everything runs, shines, splashes, drips, smears. The synesthete Nitsch, who conducts everything off-screen, translates Wagner’s dark passions and despair into bright strips of light and lakes of color. There is a lot of green, yellow, magenta, orange and blue to be seen. Wotan’s weariness with life appears in the middle of the piece in black, which soon becomes clearer through yellow and white. In the end, Nitsch’s beloved red dominates. Exact matches between music and painting are rare in this summery, light live action.

After thirteen “ring” hours on the hill, the Wagnerian happily passes Chiharu Shiota’s red “thread of fate” mouse tangle and the open five-ring made of bronze. The Wagnerian pauses briefly. It’s amazing how Wagner’s myth of world rulers still inspires such different artists. All of this is more stimulating than any conventional opera production. Hopefully the festival will make such a Wagner game day an integral part of their program.