Primitive Russia Stakes Its Claim On Wagner’s Ring

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.

Gergiev and Tsypin’s production is based primarily on the ancient Scythian culture originally located between a region of Asia and Southeastern Europe. The artistic partners have expressed that their focus for the Ring would be removed from the typical Nordic or Teutonic settings that frequent many productions. In the Orange County Register, the Sunday before the Mariinsky Ring opened at the Performing Arts Center, Timothy Mangan noted, “this…Ring is not a traditional production…but interpreted in the light of ‘world myth,’ not German.” And Gergiev and Tyspin specifically began their concept by looking at the ancient mythology of the Caucasus (Gergiev’s native land), and Gergiev, himself, added,”…in the entire “Ring”cycle there is never the word German…it doesn’t speak about Germany…it may speak about the Rhine, but it doesn’t say Germany. That’s why I thought that it’s a world epic.”

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Richard Wagner’s ‘Ring Cycle’ at the Mariinsky – a great opera company forsakes tradition

In October, 2006, the Kirov Opera and Ballet will come to the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa CA. Billed as the “Mariinsky Festival,” the company will play for three weeks, starting with the Kirov’s production of Richard Wagner’s “Der Ring des Nibelungen.” The following observations were recorded about the Valery Gergiev and Georgii Tsypin production on a visit to the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg in June 2004.

In June of 2004 the Mariinsky Theater, coming off a successful run of their new production of Wagner’s “Ring Cycle” just six months before in Baden-Baden, made a hurried decision to include all four operas of the Ring right in the middle of their annual White Nights Festival held at St. Petersburg. From June 8th to June 15th, opera enthusiasts, many from foreign lands, attended this production of the Ring which was vi sually framed by a primitive Scythian motif designed by Georgii Tsypin who filled the stage with gargantuan mythic figures complete with some beautiful and fascinating costumes by Tatiana Noginova. But in the end, artistic director Valery Gergiev managed to bring to the fore only a handful of bravura performances.

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