Cast
Andreas Homoki — Producer
Christian Schmidt — Set and costume design
Florian Schaaf — Assistant artistic stage designer
Franck Evin — Lighting designer
Tieni Burkhalter — Video designer
Werner Hintze — Dramaturgy
Beate Breidenbach — Dramaturgy
Program notes
Discover The Ring—Wagner’s epic four-part opera saga—just as the composer intended! After being presented separately at the Zürich Opera House over the course of the past four years, Wagner’s monumental cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen is now being performed live in its entirety in a once-in-a-lifetime event Bachtrack describes as "dramatic music-making at its finest". In the hands of General Music Director Gianandrea Noseda and Stage Director Andreas Homoki, Wagner's myth is represented as "a dysfunctional family of gods" (The Independent) in a polished yet unpretentious production that underscores the humanity of the characters, who are performed by the same exceptional cast of singers across all four operas.
Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen draws inspiration from Norse mythology and Germanic legend. With this original cycle, he crafted a grand operatic universe filled with extraordinary tales about a powerful, cursed ring and its role in the conflict between gods and mortals. Siegfried is the third opera in the set and the narrative picks up several years after the events in Die Walküre. The titular Siegfried (son of the couple Brünnhilde assisted earlier in the cycle) is now being trained by his foster father Mime (another nibelung, brother of Alberich, who sets the entire narrative in motion) to retrieve the ring from its current guardian: a dragon. Siegfried succeeds in his quest and, using the powers of the ring, learns about Brünnhilde’s enchanted sleep atop a mountain. He finds her and it’s love at first sight: with a kiss, Siegfried awakens his future bride...
