Jahrhundertring
As the century ring the production of Richard Wagner's Ring of the Nibelung is called the 100- year anniversary of the Bayreuth Festival in 1976. The production was ( 1976-1980 ) showed five festival summer in 16 performances of the complete Ring cycle, and four additional performances of individual works in Bayreuth. In the second year, some changes and advancements have been made in the scenic area: So was the " Valkyrie Rock", which still looked like a Matterhorn of cardboard in 1976, its final form, which was modeled on the Isle of the Dead by Arnold Böcklin. Also in 1976 rather unsuccessful visual appearance of the gods Valhalla in 1977 significantly improved.
The musical direction of the Ring of the Nibelung to 100 - year anniversary of the Bayreuth Festival had the conductor and composer Pierre Boulez ( with his assistant Jeffrey Tate ). Directed by director Patrice Chéreau, the stage set designed Richard Peduzzi, the costumes created Jacques Schmidt, the lighting design was for Manfred Voss.
The Premiere shocked a large part of the audience and led to protests in the Bayreuth Festspielhaus on the Green Hill. It came to blows, petitions against this production were designed and distributed leaflets. Chéreau's laying the plot using the set designer Richard Peduzzi in the period of early industrialization then moved many Altwagnerianer to to form up to a citizens' initiative, which advocated a " forward-looking understanding of Wagner's work" and " work protection for Wotan " demanded. It came in the first performance year even vehement disruption of certain ideas that led to the demolition almost. Even members of the orchestra turned in the first year against the musical interpretation by Pierre Boulez. Der Spiegel wrote: " [ ... ] just for Jubilee [ ... ] the Conservatives had probably a kind of musical Burgtheater expected: worthy and boring. Now it was - apparently - disrespectful and certainly entertaining. The veterans went by hearing and seeing. " Conservative critics saw Wagner's Ring in the hands of a left Revoluzzers. The initial rejection at sections of the audience gave way, however, from year to year growing enthusiasm, this might also be the fact that the coverage of the premiere year, those who have a conventional performance hoped, prevented from attending the performance in the coming years. In 1980, after recent performances, the insight was of anger, at least for those who still attended the performances, seems to be largely given way to the high representational and Scenic intensity of this production and turned into joy with an applause of over ninety minutes in length and the impressive number of 101 curtains (both record highs in Bayreuth) was adopted in the production.
The production was in 1979 and 1980 recorded as video and audio document. The Valkyrie was aired as the first and only one of the first four parts on August 29, 1980 in ARD; a complete transmission occurred only in early 1983 on the occasion of the centenary of Wagner's death. At this time the recording was in New York to the cinema. Meanwhile, the complete recording on DVD is available.
In the book, the "Ring". Bayreuth 1976-1980 describe conductor and director's team their work.