Nuremberg State Theatre is to introduce Richard Wagner's monumental four-opera epic Der Ring des Nibelungen to music lovers at the Eighth Beijing Music Festival.

The famed Berlin Philharmonic under the baton of Simon Rattle will provide the accompaniment for the Ring Cycle, which starts on October 23 at the Poly Theatre. The other three shows are scheduled for October 26 and 29, and November 1.

Wagner's 18-hour masterpiece has gripped every generation since its 1876 premiere at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus.

The Ring Cycle has only been performed once before in Asia when it was staged in Japan.

The tremendous preparations needed to stage the four-night Ring Cycle and the great technical challenge for performers has prevented many European opera houses from including the work in its repertoire.

Although the Bayreuth Festspielhaus presents the Ring Cycle once a year, fans have to book a ticket two or three years in advance.

Yu Long, artistic director of the Beijing Music Festival, said: "This is a historic moment for Asia."

Yu is proud to be able to present the masterwork at the eighth festival. Never before has a Wagner opera been staged in Beijing.

Four years ago, two leading orchestras presented small segments of the epic in the capital. In April 2001, Tang Muhai, then the artistic director of the National Symphony Orchestra of China, conducted the orchestra as it played Wagner's opera arias featuring the British soprano Gwyneth Jones. In November of that year, Yu's China Philharmonic Orchestra played the first act of Die Walkre featuring Cheryl Studer.

Since those enlightening concerts, local fans have heard rum ours that the two ambitious conductors would eventually attempt the full-length Ring Cycle.

Challenges

The festival management faces several obstacles. Opera, as a Western classical form, has a limited following in China, let alone this 18-hour piece about unfamiliar European myths. Some critics doubt many people will be able to bear to sit through the four nights, even if they are Wagner fans.

The Nuremberg State Theatre took up the challenge of reviving its repertoire only two years ago.

"It's such a rare opportunity that I don't think it will return in 50 years. Even though I am not a Wagner fan, I feel excited and have started to do homework," said Li Chen, classical music critic at the Beijing Morning Post.

"In the past seven years, the festival has maintained its artistic level and improved it every year. While preparing the programs living up to veteran fans' expectations, we guide new concertgoers step by step.

"And now, it's time for the 'Ring'," said Yu.

Actually, Yu and his programming team directed by Zeng Wei have been planning to stage the Ring Cycle at the Beijing Music Festival for more than two years and the Nuremberg State Theatre was signed up last year.

According to Zeng, apart from planning details such as the 240-strong performing and production personnel, one of the most challenging steps is co-coordinating staging technicalities with the Poly Theatre, a multipurpose 1,230-seat theatre that is the hub of the Beijing Music Festival.

"The local presenters once thought that it would be great to bring the Three Tenors to China or to present Turandot at the Forbidden City. Now they have to acknowledge that staging the Ring Cycle in Beijing is something really incredible," said the veteran classical critic Chen Li.

"I do not only mean that bringing Beijing the Ring Cycle demands tremendous work, the epic itself contains much greater cultural significance than any other commercial shows," Chen added.

Many insiders agree with Chen and believe that little in art created by a single mind compares to the sheer size and scope of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen.

"Wagner is not only an influential composer, but music theorist and essayist, primarily known for his groundbreaking opera," said Chen Zhiyin, editor-in-chief of the Beijing-based professional journal Music Weekly.

"Wagner's compositions are notable for their continuous contrapuntal texture, rich harmonies and orchestration and elaborate use of leitmotifs which are themes associated with specific characters or situations," said Liu Shirong, veteran opera expert and former vice-president of China Central Opera Theatre.

"His chromatic language prefigured later developments in European classical music, including extreme chromaticism and atonality. He transformed musical thought through his idea of Gesamtkunstwerk (total art-work), epitomized by this monumental Ring Cycle," Liu added.

In Yu's opinion, Wagner's Ring embodies German music, literature, drama, and philosophy.

Yu spent almost eight years in Germany, where he completed his professional musical training after graduating from Shanghai Conservatory of Music.

"We want to present the Ring Cycle, because by understanding the culture, Chinese people will also understand more about the German people, and appreciate more what German industry has become," Yu said.

"You could doze off during the performance and I allow you to take a nap. This is part of your treasured memory of the first experience of the Ring Cycle."

(China Daily October 11, 2005)