This January 29, the Paris Opera unveils its much-anticipated new production of Wagner’s Ring cycle, a project initially slated for 2020 but postponed due to the pandemic.
The ambitious endeavour is helmed by two Spanish artists: conductor Pablo Heras-Casado and director Calixto Bieito. Initially conceived as a single-season presentation of the entire tetralogy, the plan has since evolved. The prologue, Das Rheingold, will premiere this year, with the subsequent operas being revealed annually.
Both Heras-Casado and Bieito are no strangers to Wagner’s universe. Heras-Casado made a striking impression in 2023 with his Parsifal at the Bayreuth Festival, where he is slated to return in 2028 to conduct a new production of Wagner’s Ring. He also conducted The Ring of the Nibelung at Madrid’s Teatro Real between 2019 and 2022.
For Bieito, this marks his first encounter with Wagner’s monumental cycle, though he has directed several other operas by the composer. Reflecting on the Ring, Bieito remarked:
“These four operas have something to do with a chamber piece—a huge, enormous family, showing how the family could destroy the world while simultaneously creating a new one that is destroying itself. We are in a kind of circle all the time.”
The cast for Das Rheingold includes Ian Paterson as Wotan, Simon O’Neill as Loge, Gerhard Siegel as Mime, Brian Mulligan as Alberich, Mika Kares as Fafner, Marie-Nicole Lemieux as Erda, Eve-Maud Hubeaux as Fricka, Kwangchul Youn as Fasolt, Florent Mbia as Donner, Matthew Cairns as Froh, and Eliza Boom as Freia.
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