Wim Wenders to direct The Ring in Bayreuth 2013

After so much talk and speculation on who will direct the bicentenary Ring in Bayreuth 2013, we just learned that the famous film director --author of Wings of desire-- Wim Wenders  accepted this difficult but passionate job.

 Good luck!

I should remind you that the conductor name has been known for quite a while -- Kirill Petrenko.

What to do between two Rheingold shows?

If you are Marcel Reijans, you can for example tour with your pals in Holland and be cool in a way complementary to your coolly sung & acted Froh at Opéra Bastille. We like the attitude! :)

 

The Paris Ring: Das Rheingold

 Opéra Bastille, March 4, 2010

PHILIPPE JORDAN Conductor

GÜNTER KRÄMER Director

FALK STRUCKMANN  Wotan

SAMUEL YOUN Donner

MARCEL REIJANS Froh

KIM BEGLEY Loge

PETER SIDHOM Alberich

WOLFGANG ABLINGER-SPERRHACKE Mime

IAIN PATERSON Fasolt

GÜNTHER GROISSBÖCK Fafner

SOPHIE KOCH Fricka

ANN PETERSEN Freia

QIU LIN ZHANG Erda

CAROLINE STEIN Woglinde

DANIELA SINDRAM Wellgunde

NICOLE PICCOLOMINI Flosshilde

The Paris Ring: Rhein-ball [dress rehearsal]

I attended the final dress rehearsal last night. In this post I share some points about the production without talking about the vocal qualities of the singers nor about the orchestra -- as this show still carried a tag "rehearsal".

Das Rheingold (L'Or du Rhin) will be premiered coming Thursday, March 4, and Yours Truly has the ticket :)

So what's the Krämer's Ring about?

The Paris Ring - Countdown

The Paris Ring will officially start with the premiere of Das Rheingold on March 4, 2010. There will be 8 shows of the prologue-opera in March, followed by 9 shows of Die Walküre, which will open on May 30. The two remaining operas will be presented in 2011.

This better be a success because this season at the Paris Opera was quite bad so far -- with an exception of the wonderfully sung Werther. There were several excellent shows in Paris but they were all presented either at the Opéra Comique, or Châtelet or even at Théâtre des Champs Elysées, but not at the main Opera Houses (Bastille and Garnier). 

It is of course hard to predict anything about this Ring, but on the paper it looks very good to me: the cast is strong enough, the conductor is extremely good, Philippe Jordan, and hopefully the director Günter Krämer will come up with an interesting concept.

In a relatively long interview --published in the Paris Opera magazine "En Scène!"-- he [G. Krämer] gives a few hints...