It is a finale that holds a new beginning: After four years and the highly praised productions of Die Walküre, Siegfried, and Götterdämmerung, Intendant Aron Stiehl and Chief Conductor Nicholas Milton will conclude the Klagenfurt Ring with Das Rheingold.
In the first part of his tetralogy, Richard Wagner tells of the mythical creation of nature and the gods, as well as the immediate corruption of the spirit through power and wealth. Alberich steals the Rhinegold from the Rhine Maidens and has his brother Mime forge the Ring of Power from it. He uses it to subjugate his people, the Nibelungs, and force them to mine gold for him. But as soon as the symbol of power exists, other inhabitants of the mythical world also covet it. The godfather Wotan, who is actually tasked with enforcing law and justice, steals gold and the ring from Mime to pay the giants Fasolt and Fafner for building the gods’ castle, Walhall. This, in Wagner’s conception of the work, is the Fall of Man, which sets off an epic cascade of events, the likes of which the Klagenfurt audience has already witnessed in Die Walküre, Siegfried, and Götterdämmerung.
The beginning as finale, the first part as end – this is the uniqueness of the Klagenfurt Ring, which not only clearly shows that Wagner conceived the plot of his gesamtkunstwerk as a circular structure musically. It also raises the question of whether a world ideally imagined as a peaceful coexistence without corruption is even possible.
