It is indeed a great blessing for singers to have a conductor who cradles their singing in the palm of his hand as if it were part of the orchestra. Christian Thielemann is just such a conductor. The first act of Die Walküre, an intimate chamber drama between three characters, also calls for an equally intimate conducting style. At the Bayreuth Festival, Thielemann wove a rich tapestry of sound for the ensemble, against which his singers could allow their voices to breathe with confidence and support, to fully express themselves.
In any case, his conducting this evening was far from showy; rather, it was geared towards the delicate unfolding of Wagner’s Romantic music. In doing so, he shaped leitmotifs with remarkable clarity, without ever losing sight of the overarching arc of tension. Even during orchestral crescendos, every detail remained audible; each instrumental section was given its own space without the overall sound falling apart.
The Ride of the Valkyries at the start of Act 3 was also restrained, as if Thielemann was reluctant to give in to the desire for the full force of this glorifying music. Instead, he built up almost imperceptibly towards the Magic Fire Music, delaying the great climax until the very last bars, only to finally allow the orchestra to burst forth with full force. It is precisely this controlled dramatic structure that lent the work’s conclusion special impact: the focus was never on superficial effect, but on the emotional and narrative coherence inherent in Wagner’s music.
Thanks to Michael Volle’s authentic interpretation, Wotan’s farewell became the zenith of this Ring cycle. Like no other, he conveys the inner conflict and turmoil of his character, lending him psychological depth and elevating the farewell to an emotional climax. Volle combined textual precision with extraordinary stage presence. His Wotan never came across as merely powerful, but vulnerable too – a ruler who is broken by his own laws. It was precisely in the quieter moments that his voice, in its recitative style, reveals a touching intimacy.
Elza van den Heever’s Sieglinde captivated with her emotional maturity and radiant timbre. She possesses a highly developed technique, ensuring that every note is delivered with precision and full of intention. Her soprano voice not only radiated brilliance but also boasted a warm middle register, which created particularly intense moments, especially in the first act.
Camilla Nylund, a highly experienced Wagnerian soprano, shone as Brünnhilde with lyrical warmth and elegant high notes that revealed her great musicality. Following Klaus Florian Vogt’s debut as Loge, the tenor was now able to shine in one of his tried-and-tested roles. As a lyric hero, he combined his characteristically bright, almost weightless timbre with astonishing power. His Siegmund shifted between elegant nobility and heroic force, lending the love scenes in Act 1 a special quality.
As a dignified, dramatic Fricka, Anna Kissjudit portrayed a goddess whose moral arguments ultimately seemed as convincing as they were relentless. She stood up to Wotan with a rich, voluminous mezzo. Mika Kares endowed Hunding with a harsh-toned, authoritative bass that established the character’s menacing nature from his very first notes. Without resorting to exaggerated demonisation, this created a sober – and all the more oppressive – character portrait.
Meanwhile, the AI image carousel keeps turning. The deluge of images from Das Rheingold has already been forgotten, and tonight’s visualisations will also soon fade into oblivion. Blessed are those who can forget. It is striking, however, that the associations generated by the AI are entirely interchangeable. No matter which part of The Ring is being performed, the accompanying images provide no insight whatsoever into the action or the music. They neither illustrate nor comment on it, nor do they productively contradict it. Rather, they exist as an endless sequence of arbitrary visual ideas that neither develop their own meaningful aesthetic nor reveal any interpretative perspective.
AI is only ever as good as the information it has at its disposal. If a prompt doesn’t produce the desired result, you have to keep feeding it until it gets it right. But how do you explain the fact that, in Die Walküre, AI produces taps, dystopian desert landscapes, Thomas Mann and bucketloads of Communist and Nazi aesthetics? Blimey. One makes absolutely no sense, while the rest is all stuff we’ve seen before. And that, unfortunately, highlights the problem with AI: a lack of true artistic creativity that moves beyond clichés and actually provokes thought.
Bayreuth, in particular, has always been at its strongest when directors’ interpretations have provoked, contradicted or dared to offer previously unseen interpretations – even at the risk of failure. AI was intended to create just such a disruption, but it is unaware of this risk and cannot contextualise the history of the festival and its Regietheater. It combines familiar elements without developing any ideas of its own, without creating any interpretative depth. As a result, one thing above all else remains from its deluge of images: arbitrariness.
This is all the more regrettable given that this musical interpretation claims to tell the story of The Ring in a nuanced, human and profound way, and to do justice to its 150th anniversary. While art emerges from the pit, everything on the screen remains artificial.
Translated from German by Mark Pullinger
