Rewriting the Plot: Mark Berry is left confused by some of Günter Krämer‘s directorial decisions in the concluding parts of his Paris ‘Ring’

If it would be an exaggeration to say that Günter Krämer straightforwardly sets his Siegfried in the 1960s, there are certainly elements of that era to the setting, which makes chronological sense in terms of the Speer-like designs for Valhalla at its height in Die Walküre. Mime appears to live in a relatively swish, if undeniably bad-taste, apartment. The plant growing there looks as though it might explain a good deal, including the bear’s exit through a lift: were both Siegfried and Mime hallucinating? The time- setting makes a good fit with Wagner’s conception, too, given that hopes for revolution were still in the air: a Junger Siegfried twinned with les événements is far from absurd, especially in Paris.