The Bayreuth Audience Reacts to Chéreau's Ring (1976) [SUBS]
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- Опубліковано 5 лис 2021
- Report from TF1 News, presented by Yves Mourousi
(Broadcast by TF1 on 2nd August, 1976)
Public reactions, both hostile and laudatory, to Patrice Chéreau's production of Wagner's "Der Ring des Nibelungen", which marked the Centenary of the Bayreuth Festival. Featuring some short excerpts from "Götterdämmerung", curtain calls, and a brief interview with Patrice Chéreau.
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The stage designs for Chereau's production were by Richard Peduzzi. The cycle was conducted by Pierre Boulez. "Götterdämmerung" featured Gwyneth Jones as Brünnhilde, Jess Thomas as Siegfried, Jerker Arvidson as Gunther, and Karl Ridderbusch as Hagen.
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"Der Ring des Nibelungen" ("The Ring of the Nibelung") is a cycle of four operas by Richard Wagner, with German libretti by the composer. The four works are, in sequence: "Das Rheingold" ("The Rhinegold"), "Die Walküre" ("The Valkyrie"), "Siegfried", and "Götterdämmerung" ("Twilight of the Gods"). The complete cycle was first performed at the Bayreuth Festival Theatre in 1876.
In today’s view I would welcome this staging as opposed to the garbage presented now to adoring fans who travel from all over world to bask in the majesty of their favorite composer. I for one was appalled at what I saw on stage in 2019, my last visit there.
Amen
Oh the irony
I assume you saw the Castorff production. I saw it too and it was a pathetic misinterpretation. But Wagner was all about pushing the boundaries of his art and apparently the Festival wants to remain true to the composers philosophy so they always try something new even if it doesn't work,
Interesting document.
It remains one of the most interesting and cohesive readings, that in hindsight was never going to please the Bayreuth traditionalists. It stands the test of time and of course has Dame Gwyneth Jones unparalleled in the role at that time when she was at the peak of her considerable dramatic powers. If you haven't seen it then it is recommended. If the production still doesn't work for you, just listen to the Boulez interpretation which is majestic.
Una dei più grandi spettacoli del dopoguerra
très précieux et très intéressant
Lui même a dit a posteriori que sa vrai conception du Ring s’est mise en place seulement en 1977, l’année d’après. Mais il n’a jamais renié pour autant les expérimentations de cette première mouture.
Nowadays the booers would be happy watching it: it's a logical and beautiful scenario, adapted to the libretto. Compared to the mess we see today, this is pure gold.
Oh the irony
The problem with this famous staging is that it set the trend and the pattern for all subsequent stagings.
If this production appears to be good today, it is only because today's productions are the regurgitations of this production. The next stage director after Chereau that had to mount a new Ring production ate all this shit whole; and then proceeded to create something that was shittier. Then the next stage director down the line ate that newer, shittier production and then regurgitated his own, even shittier, one. And this cycle repeats itself endlessly.
Fast forward 50 years and you have something that makes Chereau look good. But that's because from shit can only come more shit. After so many regurgitations anything good and worthy has been taken out, just like with the food when passing through the bowels.
In this sense the Chereau production is the worst of them all and always has been. Because the original perpetrator of a crime is guiltier than all of those who are what they are as a consequences of the initial action.
Well, such stagings eventually resulted in what we see today. It's not about Chereau's production being good but it's about modern stagings being ridiculously bad.
La première chose qui étonne presque cinquante ans plus tard, c'est que le journal télévisé (si je ne m'abuse) de la première chaîne française parle du festival. Aujourd'hui, la télévision française n'aborde plus guère la "grande" culture, encore moins à l'étranger.
La deuxième chose, c'est que ce spectacle doit sans doute beaucoup de sa réputation au scandale qui l'a accompagné. Or si les huées s'adressaient majoritairement à la mise en scène, il faut aussi se rappeler que le chant wagnérien des années 70 à 90 n'était pas en très grande forme.
Quant à la mise en scène de Chéreau, elle semble aujourd'hui assez banale, tant les années 2010 ont vu les mises en scène s'éloigner des œuvres. Le travail de Chéreau et Peduzzi avait une cohérence dans l'intention et offrait même quelques belles images (le rocher de la Walkyrie, le Rhin qui scintille dans le Crépuscule des dieux), mais présentait aussi des anachronismes qui sont devenus depuis des tics et des clichés de la mise en scène d'opéras aujourd'hui. Cette production fait indéniablement date, par sa rupture avec le passé et par ce qu'elle inaugure. Résiste-t-elle au temps qui passe, est-elle encore intéressante, était-elle pertinente ? Ce sont des questions que l'on peut se poser.
nothing every changes does it, everyone always whinging about new productions but praising them decades later! 🤣
How much of this performance was captured on video?
Such a shame that Arvidson isn't a well known singer also I wish he performed at Bayreuth more.
It was necessary to upset some of the old guard back then, many who still were (hidden) Nazis who came there to get some nostalgia. Good that Chereau was there and provided such an intelligent and sensible reading of the piece, with incredible performances and real vulnerbility in the singers.
If they were "hidden", how do you know they were there...
Paranoid much?
Those hidden nazis must be inmortal because this BS continues with no end in sight.
Dislike
We've seen so much greater travesties since, especially at Bayreuth, that Chereau's "Ring" has come to be regarded as a ridiculously traditional production. History does, indeed, have a sense of humour, harshly sarcastic though it may be.
I never liked the Chéreau Ring not so much because of it's artistic liberties but for it's nonsensical meaning that it tries to convey. And this is coming from a marxist. I always loved the fairy tale landscapes of the Ring. And this is the reason why I absolutely adore Otto Schenk's Metropolitan Ring.
If I remember the circumstances correctly, this cycle was a partial fulfillment of the socialist Ring imagined by George Bernard Shaw. Of course, Shaw’s interpretations are fluid and perplexing to us today. William Archer wrote that Shaw, in the reading room of the British Library in 1885, had been reading Marx’s Das Kapital beside the orchestral score of Tristan und Isolde.
@ShaneyElderberry Indeed you are right.
People say, that was still better than the Eurotrash we see nowadays. Sure it’s getting worse and worse. Once a rock starts rolling down the hill, there’s only one direction.
Un desastre total!
based mr. boulez
Staging and orchestra were phenomenal. Sadly the Brunnhilde wasn’t and the subsequent singers have never come to par with even the most modest sopranos of the preceding period.
the production is way more interesting than the musical performance
See. This production was controversial. Some people liked it others didnt. Public was divided. Boulez says one needs to know the work very well. Now fast forward to 2022. Nothing controversial. The Schwarz production has been almost unanimously disliked. There is not one redeeming factor. It seems that the only redeeming factor is that "oh well, other productions were booed as well".
SOCIALIST VS Nazis !