# New idea For Staging The Ring



## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

Bayreuth will be doing a new Ring in 2113 to celebrate the Wagner bicentennial.
They've already chosen a German Eurotrash director. How about doing the Ring as 
episodes from the Simpsons ? Homer is Wotan, Marge is Fricka, Bart is Siegfried and Lisa is 
Brunnhilde, with Mr. Burns as Alberich . 
Fricka : "Siegmund must fall to Hunding !". Wotan : D'Oh ! 








:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

how about a nude ring??? hoyotohooo!

or has that been done?


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

Itullian said:


> how about a nude ring??? hoyotohooo!
> 
> or has that been done?


Nude Rhinemaidens in the Royal Opera House Ring.


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## MAuer (Feb 6, 2011)

Itullian said:


> how about a nude ring??? hoyotohooo!
> 
> or has that been done?


I'm sure Bieito would love to give it a try.


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## AmericanGesamtkunstwerk (May 9, 2011)

superhorn said:


> Bayreuth will be doing a new Ring in 2113 to celebrate the Wagner bicentennial.
> They've already chosen a German Eurotrash director.


oooh pray tell, whom?


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

superhorn said:


> Bayreuth will be doing a new Ring in 2113 to celebrate the Wagner bicentennial.


I wasn't going to be tacky about this but . . . you *do* realize that we'll all be long dead by 2113, right?


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## AmericanGesamtkunstwerk (May 9, 2011)

http://www.soundsandfury.com/sounds...hosen-for-the-bayreuth-bicentennial-ring.html found this... interesting enough. we'll see. (i have a not always so negative outlook on 'eurotrash' productions of opera)

infinitely more interesting is this WagnerWorldWide2013 this could be massive.


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## DarkAngel (Aug 11, 2010)

Hope it doesn't turn into a kiddie clown show like the big budget LA Ring recently.....


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

DarkAngel said:


> Hope it doesn't turn into a kiddie clown show like the big budget LA Ring recently.....


unbelievable, huh?


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## AmericanGesamtkunstwerk (May 9, 2011)

hey, I happen to like light sabers...

A quick wikipedia of this Frank Castorf who was hired for the '13 Bayreuth ring lists him as a contemporary of the likes of Heiner Muller and Robert Wilson. Muller's Bayreuth Tristan is actually listed in TC most recommended opera dvds, and its a very personal rather weird style (I refer to it as "neo-neobayreuth"). 

More reading on this Frank Castorf character reminds me of what I've read about "The Panic Movement", a collective of theater, film, and performance art centered in late50's-early70's France channeling surrealism, shock art, and absurdism. Bottom line, I know its a very weird choice for Herr Wagner's great granddaughter to make but I really look forward to seeing how it pans out.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

DarkAngel said:


> Hope it doesn't turn into a kiddie clown show like the big budget LA Ring recently.....


I would be very interested in seeing Achim Freyer's LA Ring. It still frustrates me that they never film what look like their most stimulating productions (the Maximilian Schell _Rosenkavalier_, the Marta Domingo 20's-era _Traviata_).



AmericanGesamtkunstwerk said:


> Muller's Bayreuth Tristan is actually listed in TC most recommended opera dvds, and its a very personal rather weird style (I refer to it as "neo-neobayreuth").


I'm not sure I see Muller's _Tristan_ as all that new; in a sense, I might even call it a throwback. Its pared-down, modernist style uses a different vocabulary but still has a spare, epic simplicity not that far removed from Wieland Wagner's productions of the 1950s. In that sense, it's less revolutionary than Patrice Chereau's post-modern, eclectically updated Ring from nearly twenty years earlier, not to mention more recent Bayreuth grab bags directed by Schlingensief, Herheim, and Katarina Wagner herself.


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## AmericanGesamtkunstwerk (May 9, 2011)

amfortas said:


> I'm not sure I see Muller's _Tristan_ as all that new; in a sense, I might even call it a throwback. Its pared-down, modernist style uses a different vocabulary but still has a spare, epic simplicity not that far removed from Wieland Wagner's productions of the 1950s. In that sense, it's less revolutionary than Patrice Chereau's post-modern, eclectically updated Ring from nearly twenty years earlier, not to mention more recent Bayreuth grab bags directed by Schlingensief, Herheim, and Katarina Wagner herself.


dully noted. I suppose I'm speaking of a more superficial dimension- strictly aesthetics- rather than more involved comments of the nature of action. I was interested that Muller came up as a contemporary of Castorf, it seemed worth noting that's why i brought it up. When I say "neo-neobayreuth" I am referring to the fact that it is not far removed from Wieland Wagner in the 50's. the stills from those productions have always been very meaningful to me, and i always thought that productions like Muller's Tristan were a taste of that.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

AmericanGesamtkunstwerk said:


> dully noted. I suppose I'm speaking of a more superficial dimension- strictly aesthetics- rather than more involved comments of the nature of action. I was interested that Muller came up as a contemporary of Castorf, it seemed worth noting that's why i brought it up. When I say "neo-neobayreuth" I am referring to the fact that it is not far removed from Wieland Wagner in the 50's. the stills from those productions have always been very meaningful to me, and i always thought that productions like Muller's Tristan were a taste of that.


Ah, sorry! I was being a bit dense as to what you meant by "neo-neobayreuth." Now that I see what you had in mind, I think it's brilliant (as are all views that agree with mine).


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

i think the wild, wild west would be good.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

Itullian said:


> i think the wild, wild west would be good.


Like Francesca Zambello's "gold rush" Rheingold for San Francisco Opera?


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

According to reports , Castorf did a production of Die Meistersinger in Berlin several years ago in which Walther Von Stoltzing, a 16th century German aristocrat ,sports a machine gun ! This is beyond ludicrous. 
I've also heard of a recent Meistersinger where the various mastersingers in the first act were using lap tops and cell phones ! How ridiculous can you get ?


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## AmericanGesamtkunstwerk (May 9, 2011)

amfortas said:


> Like Francesca Zambello's "gold rush" Rheingold for San Francisco Opera?


aahhh. want that on dvd so bad.

I actually had in mind an Americana ring that draws comparisons to the American cine-mythological archetypes. Wotan as John Wayne's Rooster Cogburn, Siegfried as Errol Flynn, a Bierstadt Rocky Mountains landscape as Brunnhilde's rock, Siegmund and Sieglinde as Native-Americans. not against casting the spear as a shotgun, and maybe even a revolver as Nothung. The Rhine becomes the Mississippi delta... I feel it would be extremely difficult to get people to take it seriously, and Zambello seems to have done just about everything an Americana Ring could hope to accomplish, so I guess the idea's a bust.

Don't let that stop you from picturing Bryn Terfel in the costume though.

What does that make Fafnir's lair, New Jersey?? :yuckyuckyuck:


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## waldvogel (Jul 10, 2011)

Having seen a few Eurotrash productions, it would only be natural to set the 2013 Ring in some dreary East European city with neo-Stalinist sets. The local minority could be portrayed as the Nibelungen - or if the director is really on his toes, the gods. 

Siegmund and Sieglinde will be abused foster children.

Siegfried will be a street kid, who hangs around with a homeless guy until a pigeon tells him that the homeless guy is out to get him. Then Siegfried will kill the nastiest alley cat in the 'hood to get at the ring on a pull-top of a can of cat food. 

Brunnhilde will be the social worker who breaks some rules trying to help the extended Siegmund/Sieglinde/Siegfried family, enraging her boss/dad, Wotan, who is the local city alderman. 

Gunther, Gutrune, and Hagen will be middle-class kids from the nice part of town. That will make them evil,of course.

Depending on the news headlines a week before production begins, Alberich will be either a bank executive or an opera critic.


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## Sieglinde (Oct 25, 2009)

I would have so many ideas. Kurosawa-style Ring. GRRM-style Ring, fantasy but very gory and very M-rated. Steampunk Ring. Dune-style Ring complete with surrealist but beautiful, overdone sets and costumes.


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## NightHawk (Nov 3, 2011)

I may be wrong about this, but I swear I saw pics and read of a Ring Cycle done on Roller Blades! (or maybe skates) - the obvious first hurdle would be getting Jessye, James, and Jane fitted properly. lol. I must have dreamed it.



Itullian said:


> unbelievable, huh?


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## AmericanGesamtkunstwerk (May 9, 2011)

Sieglinde said:


> I would have so many ideas. Kurosawa-style Ring. GRRM-style Ring, fantasy but very gory and very M-rated. Steampunk Ring. Dune-style Ring complete with surrealist but beautiful, overdone sets and costumes.


would it function in feudal Japan? is that what you mean by Kurosawa style? because Red Beard Mifune could do Wotan as well as Yojimbo Mifune could do Siegmund as well as Seven Samurai Mifune could do Siegfried!! aha!!

I really like what my mind conjured when you said "Dune-style Ring"... a lot. I'm surprised at the lack of "Wagner in Space" concept productions, when i really think about modern scifi.


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

Here's a radical idea : Recreate the sets and costumes of the first Ring ever at the opening of the Bayreuth festival in 1876 exactly , and use period instruments ! 
A really old fashioned, retro Ring ! With Sir Simon Rattle conducting the 
Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, which gave a period instrument Rheingold in concert under him several years ago in London .


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## AnaMendoza (Jul 29, 2011)

superhorn said:


> Here's a radical idea : Recreate the sets and costumes of the first Ring ever at the opening of the Bayreuth festival in 1876 exactly , and use period instruments !
> A really old fashioned, retro Ring ! With Sir Simon Rattle conducting the
> Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, which gave a period instrument Rheingold in concert under him several years ago in London .


That's too wild an idea.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

superhorn said:


> Here's a radical idea : Recreate the sets and costumes of the first Ring ever at the opening of the Bayreuth festival in 1876 exactly , and use period instruments !
> A really old fashioned, retro Ring ! With Sir Simon Rattle conducting the
> Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, which gave a period instrument Rheingold in concert under him several years ago in London .


Or go to Seattle. About as close as you're gonna' get.

It might be an interesting experiment, but I hope people wouldn't get too reactionary and militant about it. I'm not sure we need the return of Cosima Wagner, preserving every last detail of her husband's legacy (along with decaying sets and costumes) for decades after his death.


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