Uninvited Guests: Mark Berry finds that more is less in the Weimar ‘Ring’

A glance at the cast-lists for these two recordings attests to intensification of Michael Schulz’s strange obsession with introducing extra characters into der ring in weimar. Of the multifarious accusations hurled at the Ring, a paucity of characters is new to me. Before the music begins, we see the boy Hagen sitting under a table, playing with a sword and reading a book, presumably the story so far. There is also a male ‘Voice of the Norns’. During the Prelude, Fafner appears and celebrates his hoard. At least – this is a rare thing – that is consonant with the music and might even help explain it to newcomers. Fafner is not strictly an ‘extra’, since he is scheduled to appear later, though we see him again before the second act anyway.