Anti-Romantic ‘Ring’ Bears Fruit in Orange County: Katherine Syer, drawing on a conversation with Achim Freyer, introduces the new Los Angeles cycle, while Simon Williams reviews the first two instalments

Achim Freyer’s artistic roots in modernist aesthetics spawned in the early 20th century are strong. His production of the Ring draws us into a tensional relationship between modernism and Romanticism that explores ideas arguably central to Wagner in a rigorously and self-consciously theatrical way. The following remarks contextualise Freyer’s own commentary on Wagner’s Ring, drawing on an interview following the end of the opening run of Das Rheingold, as staging rehearsals for Die Walküre were under way.