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Rehearsal for »Siegfried«
Photo: Enrico Nawrath / dpa
With »Rheingold« and »Valkyrie« things got bumpy at the start of the new »Ring des Nibelungen«, now director Valentin Schwarz's concept is slowly beginning to work out.
Questions that arose in the first two parts are gradually answered in »Siegfried« and light falls on the complicated network of relationships that the young Austrian brings to the stage in the family saga.
So the dragon Fafner (Wilhelm Schwinghammer), whom Siegfried (vocally and loudly: Andreas Schager) has to kill in the second act, is not a fire-breathing mythical creature in Schwarz, but the bedridden, elderly head of a mafia-like family who is groping his nurse.
And this dies not by the hand of Siegfried - but quite profane from a heart attack.
The young man who sits silently at the sickbed finally turns out to be the child that Fafner kidnapped in »Rheingold« – in exchange for Freya, daughter of the gods: Hagen, the later Siegfried murderer, who was already with Schwarz before the »Twilight of the Gods« appears on the »Ring« stage.
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Many in the audience don't like that - in complete contrast to the musical performance on this evening.
In addition to Schager, who is frenetically celebrated, there is also a lot of cheering for Daniela Köhler and her warm, multifaceted, if not quite as powerful Brünnhilde and conductor Cornelius Meister.
Wotan »Wanderer« Tomasz Konieczny, who was so injured in »The Valkyrie« that he had to be replaced in the third act, was also well received by the audience.
Even Arnold Bezuyen, who was remarkably weak as a mime, was enthusiastically applauded.
After »Siegfried«, only »Götterdämmerung« is missing to complete the new »Ring«.
The premiere is scheduled for this Friday.
Then Schwarz' team of directors will appear on stage for the first time.
The revival of the "Lohengrin" production with a stage design by Neo Rauch is planned for Thursday, which will be on the Green Hill for the last time this year.
jul/dpa
