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| Location | Minden,North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany |
| Website | www |
Der Ring in Minden was a project to stage Richard Wagner's cycleDer Ring des Nibelungen at theStadttheater Minden, beginning in 2015 withDas Rheingold, followed by the other parts in the succeeding years, and culminating with the complete cycle performed twice in 2019. The stage director wasGerd Heinz, andFrank Beermann conducted theNordwestdeutsche Philharmonie, playing on the stage of the small theatre. The singers acted in front of the orchestra, making an intimate approach to the dramatic situations possible. The project received international recognition and was compared favourably to theBayreuth Festival.
In 1999, a project to show stage works byRichard Wagner was begun by theRichard-Wagner-Verband in Minden, theStadttheater Minden and theNordwestdeutsche Philharmonie.[1]Jutta Hering-Winckler, the president of the Richard-Wagner-Verband, was the driving force of the Wagner project, and particularly theRing in Minden.[2][3] The first work presented wasDer fliegende Holländer in 2002, followed byTannhäuser in 2005, staged byKeith Warner and conducted byFrank Beermann.[4] AfterLohengrin in 2009 andTristan und Isolde in 2012,[5] theRing project, aiming to present the completeDer Ring des Nibelungen, opened in 2015 withDas Rheingold. It was followed a year later byDie Walküre, in 2017 bySiegfried, and in 2018 byGötterdämmerung.[6] In 2019, the complete cycle was presented twice.[7]
In 2019, theRheingold production was presented in aconcert version as the opening of theKissinger Sommer festival supported by the state ofBavaria.[8]
As the pit of the theatre is too small for a Wagner opera, the orchestra was positioned at the back of the stage, separated by a gauze curtain from the singers acting in front.[7] Depending on the lighting, the orchestra and the conductor could be visible or hidden. The singers acted close to the audience as in a play, many of them playing several roles.[6][7]
Throughout the Wagner project, Frank Beermann conducted the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie, a symphony orchestra which normally plays no operas.[7] The stage and costumes were designed byFrank Philipp Schlößmann,[7] who was the stage director forTankred Dorst's presentation of the Ring Cycle at theBayreuth Festival from 2006 to 2010.[9] In Minden, he had designed the set forTristan und Isolde.[10]
Schlößmann designed a large ring, illuminated in different colours, as a portal to the stage, with a smaller ring appearing at times in the background. A spiral staircase on the left made the balcony accessible from the stage, and sparsely used elements such as stylized tree trunks suggested scenery.[10][6] The director of theRing wasGerd Heinz, who focused on the psychological relations between the characters.[7] He had the funeral march for Siegfried played without a background, as a symphonic poem on violence. In his version of the final music, all performers return to the stage, turning their back to the audience and listening to the music, which has the last word ("das letzte Wort"), leaving questions of resignation, end of the world or hope for renewal open.[3][6]
The performances were attended and reviewed internationally, including by the AustrianOnline Merker.[11] Reviews byEleonore Büning in theFrankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) compared the productions favourably with those of the Bayreuth Festival and noted that singers made their way to Bayreuth from Minden.[12] Reviews also appeared in theNeue Musikzeitung (NMZ)[13] and theOnline Musik Magazin (OMM),[14] among others.
The project was described as meeting Wagner's thought of the "birth of drama from the spirit of music" ("Geburt des Dramas aus dem Geist der Musik"), by singers who cultivate a "Germanbelcanto" with clear diction.[6] The project has been summarized as "Das Wunder Minden" (Minden Miracle).[6]
The following table shows the four parts of the tetralogyDer Ring and some singers of leading roles. Most were the same in the first performance and in the completeRing in 2019, but changes are shown in a second column, as listed on the project's website and in the summary reviews in theFAZ and theMerker.[7][15]
| Title | Singers | Alternative singer in 2019 | Reviews |
|---|---|---|---|
| Das Rheingold | Heiko Trinsinger (Alberich),Renatus Mészár (Wotan),Kathrin Göring (Fricka),Julia Bauer (Freia),Thomas Mohr (Loge),Tijl Faveyts (Fasolt) | Jeff Martin (Mime),Janina Baechle (Erda) | Merker,[2] OMM[14] |
| Die Walküre | Mohr (Siegmund),Magdalena Anna Hofmann (Sieglinde), Faveyts (Hunding),Dara Hobbs (Brünnhilde), Mészár (Wotan), Göring (Fricka, Waltraute) | FAZ[12] OMM[16] | |
| Siegfried | Dan Karlström (Mime), Mohr (Siegfried), Mészár (Wanderer), Bauer (Waldvogel), Baechle (Erda), Hobbs (Brünnhilde) | Martin (Mime) | Merker[11] |
| Götterdämmerung | Bauer (Third Norn / Woglinde), Mohr (Siegfried), Hobbs (Brünnhilde), Mészár (Gunter), Hofmann (Gutrune),Andreas Hörl (Hagen), Göring (Waltraute) | NMZ[13] OMM[3] Schott[6] |