NOSPR/Pons/Wagner's Ring Without Words

Before the concert, at 6.30 p.m., we invite you to the chamber hall for a meeting with editor Andrzej Sułek (Program 2 of Polish Radio), who will discuss the works performed that evening. Entrance to the lecture is free, to participate in the lecture is entitled to show a subscription card or a ticket to the concert. The lecture will also be broadcast live on YouTube.

Richard Wagner's immortal work — first performed in 1876, the musical drama The Ring of the Nibelung — consists of four separate parts and includes a total of more than a dozen hours of music. This is a very ambitious repertoire position, requiring great effort and masterful skills from the singers and orchestra, and requiring the listeners and spectators a special dose of concentration, patience and time. In our burgeoning modern times, this is very difficult, so only a group of ardent lovers is able to delight in this extraordinary achievement of Wagner's compositional genius.

However, the eminent American conductor Lorin Maazel decided to make the Ring more accessible and able to delight audiences not accustomed to long musical marathons. The orchestral version of Der Ring ohne Worte, which he compiled in 1988, can be described as a selection of those parts of the drama that seem most attractive in terms of symphonic scope and are able to create a kind of sound story summarizing the entire history of the Nibelungs and the Wotan family. The composition (or suite), lasting about 70-80 minutes, contains all the most important moments of sound action, and the abandonment of vocal parts gives the opportunity to present such a version of the work during a single evening at the Philharmonic.

Richard Daniel Golianek

Duration of the concert (including the break): approx. 100 minutes

More concerts as part of the S2 Symphony Concert Series.

Artists: NOSPR

Program: Richard Wagner — The Ring without Words (op. Lorin Maazel)