Richard Wagner 1813-1883
The Ring - an orchestral adventure compiled by Henk de Vlieger

Beethoven Orchester Bonn
Antony Hermus, conductor

19:15 Introduction with Tilmann Böttcher on stage

Experience Die Götterdämmerung by Richard Wagner also at  Im Spiegel 2 on Febuary 9.

Richard Wagner probably had the opposite in mind for Bayreuth to what we are presenting to our audience in the 5. Freitagskonzert: Namely an opera without a (visible) orchestra. We play his music, on stage: The Ring – a symphonic adventure! Henk de Vlieger has condensed the 15 hours of this major musical-theatrical event into a breathtaking 70 minutes. But let’s return to Bayreuth, where the orchestral musicians are »tucked away« underground, neither seen by the audience nor able to see anything of the hall or stage themselves: Perhaps this evening we can give you a little insight into the perspective of the Bayreuth orchestral musicians, many of whom say that Wagner close to the orchestra, without the » distracting« singers, is the greatest thing imaginable! The Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, Marvel’s fantastic film and comic universe are all related in one way or another to Wagner’s sex-and-crime story about gods, superheroes and a fateful ring.

But Wagner’s musical theater work is much more: social revolutionary drama, utopian theater, biting social criticism! Above all: great, passionate, rousing music, from which many film music composers of our time have copied, and in which Wagner perfects one of his greatest inventions, the so-called leitmotif: Feelings, actions, characters, even things are given their own musical signet, a little theme or motif – a theme that we can sometimes trace from the beginning of the Ring to its end: for 15 hours, the leitmotifs fight and argue, love and quarrel, are lonely or in company. In our orchestral journey through the Ring, we experience its history as if in fast motion – but with the most important and best-known motifs, themes and pieces of music full of beauty! From the Ride of the Valkyries to the magic of fire, from Wotan’s farewell to Siegfried’s Rhine journey: » Hojotoho! Hojotoho! Heiaha! Heiaha! «