Castorf's Bayreuth Ring - Das Rheingold in photos

Here's Das Rheingold, set in Texas. To avoid massive photo-heavy posts that take ages to open, the rest of the cycle follows in separate posts.

Credits:
Conductor Kirill Petrenko
Director Frank Castorf
Stage Design Aleksandar Denić

Wotan Wolfgang Koch
Donner Oleksandr Pushniak
Froh Lothar Odinius
Loge Norbert Ernst
Fricka Claudia Mahnke
Freia Elisabet Strid
Erda Nadine Weissmann
Alberich Martin Winkler
Mime Burkhard Ulrich
Fasolt Günther Groissböck
Fafner Sorin Coliban
Woglinde Mirella Hagen
Wellgunde Julia Rutigliano
Floßhilde Okka von der Damerau

A first night review (in English) from journalist Simon Morgan.

More photos:

Photos: Bayreuther Festspiele/Enrico Nawrath

Comments

[Oroveso]

Sweet mother of Woglinde. Gimme horns and helmets. One wonders what old Richard (and steely Cosima!) would have to say if they were able to see these productions --- and in the Heiliger Tempel of Bayreuth itself! I suspect there would be disownments and banishings for their great granddaughters if not outright beatings with a big stick.

[Iskender]

On the contrary - judging by a favorite Wagner quotation "Kinder, schafft Neues" (People create new things!), Wagner was a great supporter of new, innovative and novel ideas.

[Oroveso]

I'm well aware of his famous injunction and I strongly suspect he meant, Children, create your own new, individual things, don't mess around with mine.

[SJT]

It's always quoted out of context as a mantra by the self-appointed cognoscenti proselytising for "those" sort of stagings: "Ah , but Wagner himself said....".

He said it to his army of assistants when all the carefully planned flying and steam effects failed to work properly. What he wanted was what he wrote in his libretti to be efficiently realised by whatever means could be found at a technical level. It isn't a license for artistic experimentation: it's an injunction to get things right as theatrical illusion.

[C Wong]

Managed to secure one-off to Rheingold IV at Bayreuth last week (thank you, Intermezzo!). The critics who called the staging incoherent, with 2 storylines (Wagner's and Castorf's), video screens distracting from the music, etc etc etc were all correct. Oil being the new gold made no sense when, nonetheless, when Alberich fished a bit of gold mesh from an above-ground pool, and Freia was covered in gold bars. And technology failed when one of the video screens malfunctioned. Singing was quite good, as was the music, but nothing to write home about. Don't think I'll make the effort to go to Bayreuth again.