The Stuttgart Ring on DVD: A Review Portfolio

• Das Rheingold

• Conductor: Lothar Zagrosek

• Directed for Stage by Joachim Schlömer

• Stage and Costume Design: Jens Kilian

• Directed for TV by János Darvas and Thorsten Fricke

• Wotan: Wolfgang Probst

• Donner: Motti Kastón

• Froh: Bernhard Schneider

• Loge: Robert Künzli

• Alberich: Esa Ruuttunen

• Die Walküre

• Conductor: Lothar Zagrosek

• Directed for Stage by Chistoph Nel

• Stage and Costume Design: Karl Kneidl

• Directed for TV by János Darvas and Thorsten Fricke

• Siegmund: Robert Gambill

• Hunding: Attila Jun

• Wotan: Jan-Hendrik Rootering

• Sieglinde: Angela Denoke

• Brünnhilde: Renate Behle

• Siegfried

• Conductor: Lothar Zagrosek

• Stage Direction and Dramaturgy: Jossi Wieler and Sergio Morabito

• Stage and Costume Design: Anna Viebrock

• Directed for TV by Hans Hulscher

• Siegfried: Jon Fredric West

• Mime: Heinz Göhrig

• Götterdämmerung

• Conductor: Lothar Zagrosek

• Directed for stage by Peter Konwitschny

• Stage and Costume Design: Bert Neumann

• Dramaturgy: Juliane Votteler

• Directed for TV by Hans Hulscher

• Mime: Eberhard Francesco Lorenz

• Fasolt: Roland Bracht

• Fafner: Phillip Ens

• Fricka: Michaela Schuster

• Freia: Helga Rós Indridadóttir

• Erda: Mette Ejsing

• Woglinde: Catriona Smith

• Wellgunde: Maria Theresa Ullrich

• Flosshilde: Margarete Joswig

• Fricka: Tichina Vaughn

• Gerhilde: Eva-Maria Westbroek

• Ortlinde: Wiebke Göetjes

• Waltraute: Stella Kleindienst

• Schwertleite: Helene Ranada

• Helmwige: Magdalena Schäfer

• Siegrune: Nidia Palacios

• Grimgerde: Maria Theresa Ullrich

• Rossweisse: Margit Diefenthal

• The Wanderer: Wolfgang Schöne

• Alberich: Björn Waag

• Fafner: Attila Jun

• Erda: Helene Ranada

• Brünnhilde: Lisa Gasteen

• Woodbird: Gabriela Herrera

• Siegfried: Albert Bonnema

• Gunther: Hernan Iturralde

• Alberich: Franz-Josef Kapellmann

• Hagen: Roland Bracht

• Brünnhilde: Luana DeVol

• Waltraute: Tichina Vaughn

• First Norn: Janet Collins

• Second Norn: Lani Poulson

• Third Norn: Sue Patchell

• Gutrune: Eva-Maria Westbroek

• Woglinde: Helga Rós Indridadóttir

• Wellgunde: Sarah Castle

• Flosshilde: Janet Collin

• Everyday Totalitarianism:Reflections on the Stuttgart Ring
• Andrew Moravcsik (bio)

By the standards of contemporary German opera, the recent Stuttgart production of Richard Wagner's Ring des Nibelungen has generated a great deal of hype. Critics hail it as an epochal "milestone in the history of Wagner production, akin to the Patrice Chéreau Bayreuth centenary Ring of 1976," and praise it for single-handedly disproving "widespread claims that opera is dead."¹ The most commonly cited virtue of the production is its use of a different director for each opera. Klaus Zehelein, Intendant of the Stuttgart Staatsoper from 1991 to 2006, a dramaturge by profession and the man who organized this Ring, offers unabashed self-praise: "Only because we arranged for a different team to direct each piece of the Ring will its moments of exposition finally realize those sublime theatrical forms that Wagner offers us."² The result is now available on DVD.

Why four directors and not one? Zehelein's most straightforward justification, the one that dominates press releases from Stuttgart and reviews in the German press, is that stage directors must be liberated. Any effort to impose a unified concept or meaning on the Ring cycle (Totalitätsanspruch), Zehelein argues, restricts the director's creative freedom and is thus "totalitarian."³ Holistic concepts encumber directors by constraining them to adopt interpretations of the Ring consistent with the overarching ideas, symbols, and musical leitmotifs in Wagner's text and music.⁴ By treating the Ring instead as a series of disconnected episodes, directors are free to respond to each dramatic moment without "prior assumptions" or "obligations."⁵ A modern audience should similarly perceive the Ring as a series of disconnected theatrical moments or "theatrical piecework."⁶ Having no big message to transmit and no one in charge enhances artistic freedom and releases creative energy.

Unbounded praise for individual artistic freedom and cultural diversity is, of course, a contemporary cliché—and as such, it obscures more than it illuminates. Is the Stuttgart Ring really more open-minded, creative, and diverse than other notable productions of Wagner's Ring? On the surface, to be sure, freedom seems to foster variety. The four productions appear stylistically dissimilar: Joachim Schlömer's Rheingold is elegant and balletic, Christoph Nel's Walküre is psychoanalytic and intellectual, Jossi Wieler and Sergio Morabito's Siegfried is concrete and banal, and Peter Konwitschny's...