"Four operas, four directors." The response to this singular artistic idea is Wagner's Tetralogy produced in 2000 on the stage of the Stuttgart Opera under the direction of Austrian conductor Lothar Zagrosek and filmed in 2002-2003. The Rhinegold (the Prologue) was entrusted to Joachim Schlömer, The Valkyrie to Christof Nel, Siegfried to Jossi Wieler and Sergio Morabito, and lastly the last day of the Ring, the Twilight of the Gods to Peter Konwitschny, a German of Polish extraction, a regular performer of Wagnerian works who directed Tannhäuser, Lohengrin, Tristan and The Mastersingers of Nuremberg.
Iconoclastic and experimental, this Tetralogy created a sensation, until this Twilight of the Gods. Peter Konwitschny brings together characters in suits and ties and others in animal hides, which reveals the Wagnerian mythology from an ironic perspective. However, he does so to explore things in greater depth and to recapture the truth of the Wagnerian gesture and not out of gratuitous provocation. The fall of the gods and the decline of the order they embody are real, so is the emotion.
Musically the conductor and the orchestra performed perfectly, and vocally the cast represented a challenge. Peter Konwitschny raises his head with joy when applauded by an audience seduced in spite of being slightly shocked.
