Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Götterdämmerung

Marcus Lobbes’ AI Ring is drawing to a close. The tension between musical excellence and the underwhelming production is clearly palpable.

With superb singing, inspired orchestral playing and imaginative staging, Atlanta Opera crowns its monumental Wagner undertaking.

Under Alexander Soddy’s powerful conducting and Sir David McVicar’s dark, evocative staging, the Ring finds a searing conclusion, anchored by a powerful Brünnhilde from Camilla Nylund, as the world burns.

A star-is-born performance from the young American bass David Leigh anchors a thrilling performance of the Ring cycle's dramatic conclusion.

Vladimir Jurowski's six-year Ring with the LPO closes as the cycle began: a gleaming, golden ring with a black hole at its core. 

An icy Götterdämmerung brings Opera Australia's Ring Cycle to a successful conclusion, with standout performances from Lise Lindstrom as Brünnhilde and Andrea Silvestrelli as Hagen.

With Iréne Theorin's Brünnhilde rejuvenated, the Ring receives a worthy finale at the Budapest Wagner Days.

Longborough's Ring Cycle reaches completion in the Cotswold's, effectively staged by Amy Lane. 

Melbourne Opera maintains the high standard of its all-Australian endeavour to the very end in a triumphant Götterdämmerung.

Despite many perceptive details, Bayreuth's new Ring culminates in a rather damp squib of an ending.

Using Jonathan Dove and Graham Vick's distillations of Siegfried and Götterdämmerung, the company concluded its miniature Ring cycle in under five hours, without sacrificing musical or dramatic tension.

Irene Théorin and Andreas Schager lead a stunning musical performance, as Guy Cassiers vision of The Ring becomes clear.  

The EIF’s cycle comes to a fabulous end with RSNO and Andrew Davis leading a luxury cast, Christine Goerke’s emotionally powerful Brünnhilde a highlight. 

A Ring cycle of sustained excellence closes with telling contributions from Foster, Vinke and Pesendorfer in the three lead roles.

A standout performance from Stephen Milling complements all-round excellence of cast to provide a satisfying end to the Covent Garden Ring.

The world is gloriously redeemed in the gripping final installment of San Francisco Opera's Ring cycle.

With a plethora of theatre seats, stools and benches it was as if Willy Decker and Wolfgang Gussman had been elected ‘Chair-men of the bored”.

The final instalment of the Hong Kong Philharmonic's Ring cycle merits the orchestra joining the international big league. 

An exceptional musical performance was enhanced by a streamlined but ultimately moving staging in an evening of near perfection in Dresden.

Despite some weakness in the main singers, the overall level of musical performances was consistently high in Leipzig, with a stark and effective production.

Ragnarök: the Swedish title for Götterdämmerung resonates with Old Norse folk memories of universal inundation and overthow of the order of the gods.

Powerful performances in Götz Friedrich's Deutsche Oper production. 

The final instalment of the Melbourne Ring is vividly brought to life by excellent singing, an adaptable set, and committed playing from the pit.

Frank Castorf's controversial but supremely well-cast Ring cycle is provocative to the last.

Frankfurt Opera's 2012 production of Götterdämmerung with its emphasis on the contemporary human issues was a successful conclusion of the revived Ring.

Crowning this cycle came a truly magnificent performance of Götterdämmerung, centred very much on Richard Farnes and his orchestra.

Staatsoper Berlin's Götterdämmerung featured memorable vocal performances from Iréne Theorin and Andreas Schager, with Daniel Barenboim and his orchestra providing the rest of the drama.

Musical charm and mighty images of this Götterdämmerung leave the audience mesmerised.

Tonight’s Götterdämmerung brought the cycle to a fitting – and wholly American – conclusion. 

A new work by Anthony Cheung based on the Orpheus legend and thrilling excerpts from Wagner’s Götterdämmerung rounded out this week’s program.

At the end, there was a profusion of boos and applause for the creative team: Castorf and co had given us a Ring cycle that was by turns infuriatingly indulgent, interestingly provocative, visually beautiful, puzzling and rewarding.

"under Inkinen the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra has set a standard that is rarely surpassed even internationally"

Sir Simon Rattle concludes the Ring Cycle in Vienna with a detailed and intricate reading of the opera with an excellent cast.

With Götterdämmerung the Linz Ring came to a controversial conclusion with a graphic depiction of Siegfried violently raping a defenceless Brünnhilde, and Hagen entertaining his father Alberich, and his mother.

The Bayerische Staatsoper's Ring cycle has been full of ups and downs. It ended on an up, thanks to Petrenko's brilliant conducting, a strong cast, and a fun staging.

Valery Gergiev brings George Tsypin's Ring staging to a spectacular close with Götterdämmerung in Birmingham.

Attila Jun's outstanding Hagen and Catherine Foster's sublime Brünnhilde light up the last episode of Frank Castorf's puzzling Ring.

Mona Somm delivers as a fiery Brünnhilde in a most satisfying performance of Götterdämerung, supported by a strong cast and orchestra.

Iréne Théorin provides a spellbinding immolation scene, while Adam Fischer conjures a flawless orchestral performance to conclude Budapest's Der Ring des Nibelungen.

A brilliantly successful performance of Götterdämmerung by Opera North to bring its four-year Ring to a fiery close. 

Nina Stemmes' glorious Brünnhilde crowns a towering performance of Götterdämmerung at the Vienna State Opera. 

Ben Woodward, in his superb musical act of reduction with Fulham Opera at St John's Church, Fulham, has brought us a Ring of eyewatering clarity, raw beauty and visceral power. Cancel everything, and go. 

As the year of Wagner’s bicentennial approaches its end, De Nederlandse Opera concludes its latest revival of Pierre Audi’s Ring cycle with his 1998 production of Götterdämmerung.

There are times a tarnhelm would come in useful. Limited to more conventional means of transport, this reviewer found that it took a ridiculous hour and a half to drive from Soho to Fulham, as a result of which I’m afraid I missed the opening scene of Fulham Opera’s Götterdämmerung.

Presenting Das Rheingold and Die Walküre in a single evening is audacious enough. To put on a Ring cycle in a week-end, you have to follow this by doing the same with Siegfried and Götterdämmerung, which requires something even more radical. Opéra de Dijon’s director Laurent Joyeux and dramaturg Stephen Sazio set themselves the task of cutting eight hours of music down to five.

Wagner famously idealized the concept of the “Gesamtkunstwerk”, a total work of art that incorporates many artistic media into a single piece. He would have appreciated Seattle Opera’s production of Götterdämmerung.

The world ended again last night. It ends fairly frequently in performances and in recordings, and that schedule tends to innoculate us against Richard Wagner’s political and philosophical messages. If ever there were to be a performance to transcend that, it would come at the Proms, at the conclusion of its first full performance of Der Ring des Nibelungen.

The word Götterdämmerung contextually translated becomes “twilight of the gods”, and Thursday night’s story at the Met was indeed full of endings: the conclusion of the saga of the ring and the end of several lives, human and god alike.

Monumental in scale and scope, Götterdämmerung is a work to which it is hard to be indifferent. For many, the idea of an evening of fantasy opera lasting nearly seven hours is unimaginable, so uncongenial is the subject material and so great the attention span demanded.

Read our review of Robert Lepage's production of Wagner's Götterdämmerung in its 2012 broadcast from the Met Opera in New York.