The Wagner Cycles on the New York Times best-of list (December 2024)

The Dresden Music Festival’s project “The Wagner Cycles” has been included on the New York Times Best Of list: the concert performance of Richard Wagner’s “Die Walküre” with the Dresden Festival Orchestra and Concerto Köln under the direction of Kent Nagano was included on the list of the world’s best performances in 2024. On March 16, 2024 at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the opera was performed in concert and on original instruments.

 

“We live in a moment with no shortage of opportunities to hear Wagner’s “Ring”; new productions are being rolled out in London, Munich, Milan, Brussels and Paris, with New York to follow in a few years. The freshest take on this four-opera epic, however, is the conductor Kent Nagano’s enormous project to research, rehearse, perform and record a version based on a historically informed approach. I caught thesecond installment, “Die Walküre,” at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and the sound was often wonderfully shocking: There is less vibrato, singers declaim their lines, historical timbres shade the score anew, and, above all, the music has the clarity of spoken drama.”, the New York Times article reads.

You can find more information on the large-scale, multi-year project to perform Wagner’s Ring in its entirety historically informed and in concertante performances by 2026 on the Dresden Music Festival website: musikfestspiele.com