Zurich presents counterrevolutionary staging of Wagner's Ring Cycle under Noseda and Homoki

ZURICH (AP) — In an age of radical reinterpretations, conductor Gianandrea Noseda and director Andreas Homoki created a counterrevolutionary version of Wagner’s four-night, 15-hour Ring Cycle that sparked 13 minutes of applause at the Zurich Opera House.

Noseda, conducting Wagner’s epic for the first time just after his 60th birthday, was drenched in sweat as if emerging from a swimming pool when he invited the entire Philharmonic Zurich on stage to join the cast for curtain calls on Thursday night.

Wagner has been dominated by regietheater since Patrice Chéreau’s seminal staging for the 1976 Bayreuth Festival recast the story of gods, humans, giants and dwarfs through the lens of the Industrial Revolution. While avoiding a strict adherence to Wagner’s original instructions, Homoki used relatively minimal if dull scenery to allow a psychological focus without distraction. His Wotan is a self-loathing head god who collapses, his entire body shaking, realizing the disasters are of his own doing.