“Ring” project in historically informed performance practice (December 2022)
The year 2023 marks the beginning of a major musical and scientific project in Dresden to research and perform Richard Wagner’s “Der Ring des Nibelungen” in historical performance practice. With the opening concert and premiere of “Rheingold” in Dresden on 14 June 2023, the Dresden Festival Orchestra together with Concerto Köln under the artistic direction of Kent Nagano will perform Richard Wagner’s “Ring” in a historically informed perspective.
Continuing the “Wagner Readings” initiated in 2016 by Kent Nagano, Concerto Köln and the Kunststiftung NRW, a relaunch of the project will take place together with the Dresden Festival Orchestra as part of the Dresden Music Festival. With the new location in Dresden – the city where Wagner spent his childhood and youth, the premiere site of three operas and the starting point of the conceptual history of the “Ring” – groundbreaking impulses can be expected in the development and implementation of this performance workshop. A unique feature is the scientifically based reconstruction of the instrumental, vocal, linguistic and stage practice of Wagner’s time, for which renowned musicians and scholars from various disciplines are working closely together.
This coming Sunday, 20 March, Kent Nagano will present his book “10 lessons of my Life – Was wirklich zählt” (Berlin Verlag, 2021) at the lit.COLOGNE.