It is rare for there to be new developments in “Ring” cycle staging without dipping into the trashy, cynical, or ironic; in other words, without making the saga’s characters worse than they already are. The trend over the last ten years has been to embrace rather than ameliorate the weaknesses in Wagner’s text and, by extension, the weaknesses of his little universe of people. The results have been mixed, in part because these edgy stagings envision themselves as being a certain kind of righteous by way of popping the pimples of the canon. Nowhere is this more true than at Bayreuth, whether in the form of Frank Castorf’s irony poisoned, oil-themed staging, or its successor in Valentin Schwarz’s (better sung if more confusing) faux-“Succession” trauma porn rendition. Times are bad and Wagner is even worse, and so why not make the “Ring” about how evil prevails over good? Whither eurotrash!!!
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