Between the end-time game and a kettle myth: Stuttgart ends its disparate “Ring” with the “Götterdämmerung”.
And that raises fundamental questions.
Just close the curtain.
Taking a break, clearing your brain for new ideas, for new approaches, how to become master and wife of the most extensive, most meaningful opus in the history of music theater.
"One should let this work rest, preferably worldwide." Said Klaus Zehelein eleven years ago, at that time as director of the Bavarian Theater Academy.
And it was easy to talk: around the turn of the millennium, the legendary theater enabler, as artistic director of the Stuttgart Opera, had presented what was perhaps the last innovation worth mentioning for Richard Wagner's "Ring des Nibelungen".
Each of the four operas staged by a different director, that was a crescendo furioso from Joachim Schlömer (“Rheingold”) to Christof Nel (“Valkyrie”) and Jossi Wieler/Sergio Morabito (“Siegfried”) to Peter Konwitschny (“Götterdämmerung” ).
But Zehelein remained a lonely desert caller.
Pinning the “ring” to one's lapel as a feat of one's own era, this artistic director's disease continues to be rampant.
With the well-known consequences of the desperate search for new ways of interpretation (which often turn out to be dead ends) to the overloading of the house.
An opera system in the "Ring" cramp - especially since there is not only a lack of ideas, but also of adequate vocal powers.
Berlin, Dortmund, of course Bayreuth, even the Landestheater Niederbayern, these would be the current efforts, soon to be followed by the Bavarian State Opera (with director Tobias scratches) and Scala.
A different directing team for each “Ring” opera
A totem pole, pillars à la Forum Romanum, the altar of a church from the 1950s including neon tube chandeliers, the arena of a parliament, in between people in antique togas and above all a proliferating bundle of wood as the remainder of the world ash tree: the crumbling of quotations on the current Stuttgart stage fits the situation perfectly on the "ring" front.
The “Twilight of the Gods” as a rest ramp, as a cauldron of myth.
This saga, as suggested by Demian Wohler's scenery, has come to an end.
In the final, you suspect it after a few minutes of play, everything will be disposed of.
Also the pictures by Sascha Schneider (1870-1927) with their sultry, sultry gods and heroes, which were once intended to illustrate Karl May books.
As is well known, the current Stuttgart "Ring" idea boils up Zehelein's soup.
Each part a different directorial approach (including the revival of Wieler's "Siegfried"), in the "Valkyrie" even a different team was allowed to work per act, the latter with particularly unfortunate consequences.
What was intended as a liberation, as a search for new perspectives without the burden of having to shoulder the entire 15 hours, only works to a limited extent in the Swabian feat.
The apocalyptic game that director Marco Štorman has now conceived for “Götterdämmerung” becomes more concise with every minute of play.
The characters move through the disparate world like quotations from themselves.
One can laugh about the exhilarated Siegfried, who seems to have sprung from a GDR television show.
Brünnhilde also strives for humor as a drop to later pathos.
But what really interests me is the villain.
Hagen is a case for the psycho couch with Štorman.
Not a demon, but a cool, comfortable Mephisto, who thinks of himself as his own father Alberich in his bad moments - and at the beginning of the second act, an exciting moment, sings both roles at the same time.
The great Patrick Zielke succeeds in singing the most three-dimensional figure.
Hagen almost becomes a figurehead and in the last few seconds of the opera is buried under the descending world ash tree.
Brünnhilde and Siegfried survive
As disparate as the symbolism of this performance is, so openly and not thought through to the end, some of the characters also remain.
Štorman didn't come up with an awful lot for Brünnhilde.
Christiane Libor doesn't bring an overly present soprano voice with her, she never sings forced, and she also risks lyrisms.
Siegfried remains lively jumping ball, not a hero to be taken seriously - which Daniel Kirch obviously enjoys.
In terms of condition, he gets through well, his covered tenor is a matter of taste.
It gets serious and black when the hero and his new blood brother Gunther (Shigeo Ishino) in dark pink Mao suits drive the betrayed Brünnhilde into a corner.
Again and again these are scenic concentrations that only carry the whole evening to a limited extent.
With General Music Director Cornelius Meister you can feel the close contact with his own Stuttgart State Orchestra - last summer there was also resentment for his Bayreuth conducting of the "Ring".
You can hear that he thinks a lot about details and transitions.
This is not necessarily stringent and is often felt to be purely symphonic: singers are fighting a losing battle and become a vocal accompaniment.
As sound-conscious and powerful as much is developed, the ending of all things remains musically pale.
Brünnhilde jumps onto a unicorn that has come in to Siegfried in order to survive as a myth of her own.
A subtle punch line.
But when children with flashlights discover the ominous ring in the last few bars, throw it away and look for a way out, it tastes stale again: Everything has been there before.
So Wagner's "Ring" told out?
Possibly the only solution that remains is the concert solution, so that everyone exposes themselves to their own personal flood of images.
As could be the case in Bayreuth in 2026, on the 150th anniversary of the festival, for financial reasons.
But that's another, a bad story.
