Wagner, Richard (1813-1883) | Siegfried |
Ádám Fischer | Conductor | |
Hartmut Schörghofer | Director, Set Designer | |
Corinna Crome | Costume Designer | |
Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra | ||
Stefan Vinke | Tenor | Siegfried |
Gerhard Siegel | Tenor | Mime |
Tomasz Konieczny | Bass | Der Wanderer |
Peter Kálmán | Baritone | Alberich |
Erika Gál | Mezzo-soprano | Erda |
Allison Oakes | Soprano | Brünnhilde |
Eszter Zemlényi | Soprano | Waldvogel (the woodbird) |
Walter Fink | Bass | Fafner |
Discussing the thinking behind his concept for Müpa Budapest's production of The Ring of the Nibelung in a 2008 interview, director Hartmut Schörghofer said, "When Ádám Fischer approached me, my stomach went into a knot, because the Ring is full of the familiar leitmotifs that evoke some kind of special, individual image in everyone - and I didn't really wish to overlay these images with my own. I tried to give Wagner a reading such that I wasn't tying it tightly to something - I didn't want it to take place in a petrol station or in the branch of a bank. And I didn't want it to speak only to professionals or the cognoscenti, but for it to have something to say to the proverbial man on the street who has never approached this before. It wasn't for Wagnerians that I wanted to direct. […] I consciously wanted to avoid projecting a single big ‘message'. It was more important for me to inspire associations in people so that they could take over in lots of different directions. If the central idea appeared the same to everyone, then I was doing something wrong. From here, everyone is going to take something different home.”
Siegfried, the third piece of the tetralogy, has the greatest element of playfulness and humour and the strongest fairy-tale quality. As if everything that turns out for the worse and presages catastrophe later in Götterdämmerung is still gazing amiably at the audience. The hero without fear, the paradigm of German mythology, sets off on his path in life with unsuspecting good cheer, slays the dragon and finds his mate.
In the title role will be German tenor and triumphant Bayreuth veteran Stefan Vinke, who made his début at the Budapest Wagner Days in 2015 as Siegmund in Die Walküre.
A music drama in three acts (German-language performance, with projected surtitles in Hungarian).