More Than the Sum of Its Parts: The first instalments of a new multi-director ‘Ring’ prove that the lack of an overriding vision is no bar to success, suggests Matthew Rye

Reviews of Das Rheingold, directed Hermann, conducted Brown, Karlsruhe, 2016; Die Walküre, directed Sharon, conducted Brown, Karlsruhe, 2016.

March 2017, Volume 11, Number 1, 68–71.

One of the intentions of farming out the four parts of the Ring to different directors must be to create productions that can be revived individually, rather than the company feeling obliged to bring out the whole cycle in order to keep the works in its repertoire. It’s an experiment first tried, if memory serves, by Oper Stuttgart in the early 2000s and subsequently taken up by the Aalto Theatre in Essen. Now the Badisches Staatstheater in Karlsruhe has taken up the challenge, inviting four young directors to share the cycle, and enabling it to mount the four works from scratch in as little as sixteen months from start to finish.