'For me, the world of Wotan equals the world of Putin.' Christopher Ruping, director of Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen to be shown in Amsterdam in June, makes no bones about it: 'Siegfried [central character of Wagner's monster production, ws] is a very problematic character. He kills the dragon without asking questions. We give the dragon his own story.'
'Theatre is too slow for everyday reality'
'Our Ring is precisely about the world we live in today, about how power is distributed. Wagner reflects the genome, the code, the DNA of this world, in which Putin can invade another country. I would hate to then suddenly plant a flag somewhere in our performance, because that's a Lippenbekenntnis, as they say in German. It's what you say to make you feel better. As artists, we shouldn't interfere with everyday reality because theatre is too slow for that. We would rather look at the DNA of the world to change something there. We are not going to wrap a corpse in a Ukrainian flag.'
'Had we made this three years ago, everyone would have recognised Trump. Our Wotan is the prototype of the man in power who feels attacked by everything that is not defined by him. They cannot deal with a world on which they have not drawn the boundaries themselves. This performance shows that, without thinking of a single person. So we will never give Wotan a Russian flag. That would be so superficial.'
Talpa, anyone?
As in other productions at this Holland Festival, Schauspielhaus Zürich's current performance of Der Ring des Nibelungen is one that has its feet firmly planted in current affairs. After all, this play, which claims to be not only a commentary on German composer and theatre innovator Richard Wagner, but even a correction to it, falls seamlessly into the zeitgeist that rightly questions cultural matters that until recently we considered 'inconvenient, we wouldn't do it that way now, but it's history'. (Talpa, anyone?)
'Wagner's reactionary diary prose'
For the people the in 'woke' sum up everything that is the end of the world as we know it, it is only a matter of time before Wagner is thus going to get cancelled. Which, like all those other supposedly cancelled (mostly) men, will do him no favours. Or, to put it with the NRC reviewer saying, who saw a checkout exhibition on Wagner at the German Historical Museum in Berlin: 'By the end of the exhibition, you wonder why Wagner wasn't actually cancelled a long time ago. Of course, the music. But that plays a secondary role at the German Historical Museum, that may not be what the curators care about, but with so little regard for his compositions, his immense ambition and innovativeness, the lust to read Wagner's reactionary diary prose gradually wears off.'
Just three notes Wagner
So Wagner was quite 'wrong', but before the war, not ín the war, as Henri Drost once explained on this site (Knevel calls Wagner Hitler's court composer. And no one says anything.). And so his music, which - apparently - makes up for a lot. So perhaps that is why there are only three notes of Wagner in the Ring to be experienced at this year's Holland Festival. Responsible for this - perhaps necessary - 'attack' on German cultural heritage are author Necati Öziri and director Christopher Ruping.
I spoke to the director in Zurich shortly after attending the performance there at the Pfauen, the main auditorium of the Zurich City Theatre. The performance was introduced by the author himself. Öziri, formerly artistic director of the Maksim Gorki Theatre in Berlin, proves to have a great talent for stand-up comedy when he explains how, with as little knowledge of Wagner's work as possible, he went out into the world to tackle myth. This leads to a smooth performance, which in three hours covers all the roles of characters who have little or no say in Wagner's Ring.
A correction in the form of monologues
Rüping on that preparation: 'Necati did talk to all the actors beforehand about their roles and their vision of Wagner. The first idea from me and Necati was that we would make a correction to the Ring, and that would happen in a series of monologues. Only then did we delve deeper into it, but the text has largely stayed with what Necati wrote.'
A line of more or less tragic characters pass by, sometimes technically exquisite, sometimes extremely recognisable in their earthly struggles, and they all address the audience. We, in the audience, are the gods, speaking to the dämmeren are in semi-darkness, the characters for whom all this earthly stuff with Rhine gold and dragon slayers is meant. Rüping: 'The evening is all about people standing up for 'the other'. People who are considered 'different' by the society we live in. These get to speak now and try to find their own voice to make their case. They try to get that which Wagner did not give them: their own story, their own conflict, their own background. And they address the audience in the hall as the gods they address.'
Wotan as an angry white man
The role of chief god Wotan is also beautifully crafted. He holds, at the end, an angry monologue, from the audience, as an angry white man fed up with being held responsible for everything. The anger falls exceptionally well with the audience in the hall, so I ask Rüping: 'Was this one specifically designed to win over the angry white part of the audience?'
'I wouldn't say that. We always thought it would be a nice idea if someone would stand up and start trying to defend himself. It's very unusual nowadays that a real spectator would do that, so that's why we decided to make that Wotan. He personifies white male fragility, it's about class, about age, about gender. He listened to the whole play. He sits among the audience from the very beginning, listening for three and a half hours to people telling him how bad the world he made is. Then he starts talking. He had to be taken seriously, but in the end you also have to see the ridiculousness of it. That's why he spins at the end.'
Sometimes there is much applause for Wotan's wrong words
That flipping through at the end (which you really need to see) puts things in a context of contemporary politicians at long tables in unapproachable palaces, as much as chief wappies on a makeshift stage. Thus, Rüping plays with the viewer's sympathy: 'It is important, though, that he brings in things that a large part of the audience agrees with. Not because they are like that themselves, but because they have friends who are like that, or people they don't like. So it had to be in there for us, but it varies from night to night whether the audience recognises it, or opposes it. That is also up to the audience. They have to take a stand.'
Sometimes that goes wrong, he says: "It happened once at a matinee, that people clapped for a few lines by Wotan, which are really too bad for words. If people do that while they have been sitting in the auditorium all this time, they have taken it all in. If they are then happy about a few extreme statements by Wotan, that's their feeling, which I hope we will subvert with the remainder of the performance.'
'Those who know Wagner couldn't look at it more freshly'
Remains, whether such commentary on Wagner, or even a correction of his untouchable masterpiece, is not a bit high-minded. Rüping thinks not: 'Some reviewers are angry about the way we handle Wagner. Those think the texts are terrible. Even the positive reviews do not question Wagner's sanctity. Reviewers often say you have to be a Wagnerian to criticise him. I find that absolute bullshit. If you already know Wagner through and through, you are already part of that so-called Wagner circle anyway. Then you can no longer look at it freshly.'
And fresh it is, especially since only three notes of Wagner sound in all those three hours, a slightly recognisable 'run' in the soundtrack by DJ Back Cracker from Berlin. Rüping: 'Black Cracker asked eight musicians, mostly from Berlin, to contribute to this Ring des Nibelungen. Some really delved into the material, sampling some things, others wanted nothing to do with Wagner at all. They said Wagner should be forgotten, and contributed 8 minutes of their own music, which has nothing to do with Wagner. To me, that's the best way to talk about Wagner without putting him on a throne. If I am a Wagnerian, I will not be able to knock him off his throne.'
'I would love to bring this performance to Bayreuth'
So far, a riot over this production has failed to materialise. According to Rüping, this is explainable: 'That is because we are not performing this in an opera house, but in a theatre. Nobody expects an opera here. I would therefore love to bring this production to Bayreuth. That would be fantastic. People would then get really angry. They come in expecting us to carefully construct and deconstruct Wagner's megalomaniacal super-important texts and narratives and then do this. For contemporary theatre, this is not so surprising because we are not all Wagner fans. Now people who don't feel like commenting on Wagner don't show up either.'
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