A new Götterdämmerung to premiere at the Hungarian State Opera – PHOTOS

Directed by Géza M. Tóth, starring István Kovácsházi, Szilvia Rálik, Károly Szemerédy, Lilla Horti and Géza Gábor, and conducted by general music director Balázs Kocsár, the Hungarian State Opera presents the final episode of Wagner’s monumental Ring cycle on 15 May 2022.

Wagner spent over a quarter of a century perfecting his grandiose cycle of four operas, the deeply philosophical Der Ring des Nibelungen based on German and Norse mythology. Politically active during the 1848 revolutions, the composer developed his concept about Siegfried in reaction to those events − the image of a future hero who will destroy the society of gold and violence, predicting a new era governed by love.

The failure of the revolutions added a darker tone to the planned work, which was going to be titled Siegfrieds Tod (Siegfried’s Death).

It was also while he was working on the libretto that Wagner recognized the necessity of telling the story of the young Siegfried and showing the fall of Wotan, the god responsible for the sins of the old world, in order to realize his concept.

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So the starting point of the tetralogy is contained in Götterdämmerung, the episode is about to be premiered. The almighty ring forged from the gold stolen from the Rhinemaidens and then lost by Alberich has become a token of love between the hero Siegfried and the Valkyrie Brünnhilde, who sacrificed her divinity for love. It is now Alberich’s son, Hagen who does everything in his power to try to get back the cursed piece of jewelry, even taking advantage of his well-meaning half siblings, Gunther and Gutrune. The piece rich in musical and philosophical motives was first performed as part of the Ring tetralogy in 1876, in the Festspielhaus built for this purpose in Bayreuth.