The Wagner Cycles

Richard Wagner's »Ring« historically informed
A Project of the Dresdner Musikfestspiele

It is an operatic tale which has raised as much wild enthusiasm as it has polarized opinion, which has been probed academically and widely discussed, and which clearly, humanity is not done with: When Richard Wagner opened the first Bayreuth Festival in 1876 with his »Ring«, this event went down in music history and the composer destroyed genre boundaries with a bang.
In 2026, as the 150th anniversary of the world premiere is celebrated, the »Ring« is set to make history once again: under the artistic leadership of Kent Nagano and Jan Vogler, it will be re-examined, rehearsed and performed over several years, from 2023 to 2026 – in the artistic context of the time when it was first produced, on the basis of the most recent research on Wagner and historical performance practice, flanked by a comprehensive framework program and in association with a new Wagner Academy in Dresden.

Academic research meets theatrical practice

The project’s focus is a direct combination of scientific work with musical practice, exploring how Wagner imagined his »Ring« and what it might have sounded like. Academics work directly with the conductor Kent Nagano, the orchestra members and the singers. In doing so research and practice inspire each other in an unique way.

The undertaking entails a detailed reconstruction of historical instruments and their playing techniques as well as the rediscovery of a vocal style of singing and speaking which differs significantly from today’s techniques of interpretation: in Wagner’s day, vocalists not only used far less vibrato, but also employed numerous dramatic devices ranging all the way to speaking.

The interpretation is also based on each creative protagonist’s intense intellectual and practical exploration of performance techniques of the Wagner era, through a multitude of workshops. Another central issue is illuminating Wagner’s socio-political attitudes and examining his antisemitism, which also influenced his thoughts on performance practice.

The individual works of Wagner’s tetralogy will be performed in concert every year from 2023 to 2026 at renowned concert halls in Germany and abroad. One particular focus in 2025 will be on performance venues in Central Europe with a long-standing Wagner tradition, for example Prague. Thus, the theatre then known as the Neues Deutsches Theater in Prague was inaugurated in 1888 with Wagner’s »Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg«; its first director was Angelo Neumann, who had championed the popularization of Wagner’s »Ring« in Europe like few others.

Weitere Wissenschaftler:innen des Projektes

Die wissenschaftlichen Arbeiten werden begleitet von Forscher:innen verschiedener Disziplinen, darunter Expert:innen für Sprech-, Musik- und Kulturwissenschaft.