Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen will follow the Royal Danish Opera to its new waterfront home, the Copenhagen Opera House                Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen is the greatest and most ambitious work for an opera house to undertake – a timeless musical drama which has been interpreted and discussed more than any other operatic work. Wagner’s 14-hour opera tetralogy on the dilemma of power and love has not been performed at the Royal Danish Theatre since 1912, so when plans to construct a new opera house in Copenhagen became reality, staging Der Ring des Nibelungen shortly after the inauguration was an obvious repertoire choice reflecting the high ambitions involved in building a new national opera. The Ring will without comparison be the greatest challenge the Royal Danish Theatre has embarked on in decades. Top   Print That Wagner’s The Ring should be associated with a new opera house is hardly news – Wagner shared this very notion. Not only do the four operas represent the longest and most demanding operatic work in history, they require their own opera house! It befell the small German town of Bayreuth to donate a site outside town, and the Festival Opera was inaugurated in 1876 with the world premiere of the entire circle of Der Ring des Nibelungen. To present the entire Ring during the summer of 2006, the Royal Danish Opera will commence production of the four operas at the Old Stage where two of the operas, Das Rheingold and Die Walküre, will premiere in a slightly downscaled version. These two productions will later be upscaled to be performed in full at the new Copenhagen Opera House. The two last operas in the cycle, Siegfried and Götterdämmerung, will be "born" at the new opera house where the entire Ring is later to be performed. The current schedule for the premiere of the individual operas: 2002/03: Die Walküre, premiere 8 April 2003 2003/04: Das Rheingold, premiere 20 December 2003 2004/05: Siegfried, premiere 7 May 2005 2005/06: Götterdämmerung premiere 19 February 2006 Entire cycle of Der Ring des Nibelungen, April/May 2006 Top   Print The production team behind the staging of Der Ring des Nibelungen at the Royal Danish Theatre is: Conductor: Michael Schønwandt Director: Kasper Bech Holten Set and costume designers: Marie í Dali and Steffen Aarfing Lighting designer: Jesper Kongshaug Dramaturg: Henrik Engelbrecht Musical director of the Royal Danish Theatre, Michael Schønwandt, is the first – and currently only – Danish conductor to have directed at the Wagner Mecca, Bayreuth. Along with the artistic director of the Royal Danish Opera, Kasper Bech Holten, who is currently one of the most talented Scandinavian directors, he has staged Tchaikovsky’s Pique Dame and most recently Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre at the Royal Danish Theatre. Kasper Bech Holten has for many years worked closely with set designers Marie í Dali and Steffen Aarfing on many productions along with lighting designer Jesper Kongshaug. This team was an obvious choice for the staging of The Copenhagen Ring at the Royal Danish Theatre. "It is the greatest dream and greatest challenge of any opera director to embark on The Ring" says Kasper Bech Holten." There are so many possibilities in this passionate and embracing drama on the existential choices we face throughout life: The choices we may later regret: the choices others made on our behalf; the unwitting choices you make without realising them before it is too late. And in the middle of it all, the perhaps most important choice: What is of importance for a human being? What is it we want our lives to be modelled on, what is it we want to be judged by when looking back? Top   Print The Music Read about the music; Instruments, singers, recordings etc. Articles about the music The four operas Read more about the four operas: Das Rheingold Die Walküre Siegfried Götterdämmerung Read more about The Ring - a small excerpt of the enormous literature available about The Ring: Lars Ole Bonde, ed.: Rundt om Ringen - veje til Wagners verdensteater. DR Multimedie, 1994 Articles in Danish by e.g. Danish author Villy Sørensen, published to coincide with the performances by the Danish National Opera. Rudolph Sabor: Der Ring des Nibelungen, 4 volumes. Phaidon Press, 1997 Outstanding introduction to The Ring with English translations of the entire libretto and analysis, etc. Deryck Cooke: I Saw the World End – A Study of Wagner’s Ring. Oxford University Press, 1979 One of the most accomplished analysis of Das Rheingold and Die Walküre. Unfortunately, Deryck Cooke passed away before competing chapters on the last two operas of The Ring. Robert Donington: Wagner’s "Ring" and its Symbols. Faber and Faber, 1963 Another classic of literature on The Ring. J.K. Holman: Wagner’s Ring – A Listener’s Companion & Concordance. Amadeus Press, 1996 Extensive and very useful reference book on the characters and terms pertaining to The Ring.