Mariinsky Theatre

Richard Wagner, libretto

Valery Gergiev, musical director
Valery Gergiev, George Tsypin, production concept
George Tsypin, production design
Tatiana Noginova, costume designer
Gleb Filshtinsky, lighting designer

Two monumental music dramas by German opera revolutionary Richard Wagner – Siegfried and Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods) – receive their first staging in Slovenia. Wagner revived the idea of the unity of music and drama, elevated the importance of the visual impact of staging and direction, and replaced period-based musical structures with a kind of “musical prose” growing from a sequence and network of leitmotifs into “eternal melody”. The summit of Wagner’s oeuvre is the Ring of the Nibelung – a cycle of four music dramas: The Rhinegold, The Valkyrie, Siegfried and Twilight of the Gods. Wagner’s operatic works are “total works of art” (Gesamtkunstwerk) of great scenic complexity that make enormous demands on the singers in the lead roles and require a vast orchestra. For this reason performances of Wagner’s works are the province of top opera companies and the most splendid venues. Among the leading opera ensembles in the world is the orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg, led since 1988 by the famed conductor Valery Gergiev, its musical director, who since 1996 has also been the artistic director and general director of the Mariinsky Theatre. It was at Gergiev’s instigation that the Mariinsky Theatre once again began staging Wagner’s works after an interval of many years: Parsifal in 1997, Lohengrin in 1999 and, since 2003, the entire Ring cycle. To mark the bicentenary of Wagner’s birth the Mariinsky Theatre and Gergiev brought the first two parts of the tetralogy to the Ljubljana Festival. This year they return with what promise to be magnificent stagings of the third and fourth parts.

* Tickets for the performances on 29th and 30th August: 114, 99, 81, 56 €

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