Anja-Rosa Thöming, Academic Research meets Theatrical Practice: The Historically Informed Performance of the ‘Ring’ cycle at the Dresden Music Festival

November 2024, Volume 18, Number 3, 56–62.

‘The Wagner Cycles’, a ‘period’ or historically informed concert performance of the Ring cycle at the Dresden Music Festival, is a multi-year undertaking, projected to run from 2023 to 2026. After the successful premiere of Das Rheingold in Dresden in 2023, followed by a tour to Cologne, Ravello and Lucerne, the focus in 2024 is on Die Walküre. The venture is a collaboration between the cellist and artistic director of the Dresden Music Festival, Jan Vogler, and the conductor Kent Nagano. The Dresden Festival Orchestra has partnered with Concerto Köln, a period-instrument orchestra, which since 1985 has been one of the leading ensembles for historically informed performance practice. The singers and musicians are working on one part of the tetralogy each year and presenting it in European cities such as Hamburg, Cologne, Prague, Lucerne, Amsterdam and Dresden.