Living at the Opera

Richard Wagner, May 22, 1813 - February 13, 1883

If one of Valery Gergiev’s objectives has been to keep the Mariinsky Theater’s version of Wagner’s Ring in the minds of the operatic public, he certainly has accomplished his goal. The performance schedule that he and set designer, Georgy Tsypin, have followed since the production debuted in St. Petersburg, in 2002, has definitely been impressive on paper. Besides a couple of Ring Cycles presented in Baden-Baden, a repeat of it in St. Petersburg, in 2003, one in Korea, another in Japan and still another last winter in Moscow, the duo went ahead and booked a cycle in Cardiff in November and December, 2006, only a month after their 17-day Festival in Orange County. And in order to secure their place internationally, the Mariinsky Theater scheduled two Ring Cycles in July 2007, in New York City. It is not, however, the many cities or the number of cycles that will make a performance of Wagner’s Ring stand out, but the imaginative setting in which the highest musical and visual standards can flourish and that are so necessary if a production of Wagner’s Neibuligen Myth is to succeed. A closer look at the Ring performances, in Costa Mesa, CA, in October, 2006, will show whether the company was able to meet these standards.

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