Der Ring des Nibelungen, WWV 86, is a cycle of four German-language epic music dramas composed by Richard Wagner. The works are based loosely on characters from Germanic heroic legend, namely Norse legendary sagas and the Nibelungenlied. The composer termed the cycle a "Bühnenfestspiel", structured in three days preceded by a Vorabend. It is often referred to as the Ring cycle, Wagner's Ring, or simply The Ring.
Pierre Louis Joseph Boulez was a French composer, conductor and writer, and the founder of several musical institutions. He was one of the dominant figures of post-war Western classical music.
The Bayreuth Festival is a music festival held annually in Bayreuth, Germany, at which performances of operas by the 19th-century German composer Richard Wagner are presented. Wagner himself conceived and promoted the idea of a special festival to showcase his own works, in particular his monumental cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen and Parsifal.
Robert Lepage is a Canadian playwright, actor, film director, and stage director.
La Reine Margot is a 1994 historical romantic drama film directed by Patrice Chéreau, from a screenplay he co-wrote with Danièle Thompson, based on the 1845 historical novel of the same name by Alexandre Dumas. The film stars Isabelle Adjani, Daniel Auteuil, Jean-Hugues Anglade, Vincent Perez and Virna Lisi. An abridged version of the film was released as Queen Margot in North America, and in the United Kingdom under its original French title.
Patrice Chéreau was a French opera and theatre director, filmmaker, actor and producer. In France he is best known for his work for the theatre, internationally for his films La Reine Margot and Intimacy, and for his staging of the Jahrhundertring, the centenary Ring Cycle at the Bayreuth Festival in 1976. Winner of almost twenty movie awards, including the Cannes Jury Prize and the Golden Berlin Bear, Chéreau served as president of the jury at the 2003 Cannes festival.
Regietheater is the modern practice of allowing a director freedom in devising the way a given opera or play is staged so that the creator's original, specific intentions or stage directions can be changed, together with major elements of geographical location, chronological situation, casting and plot. Typically such changes may be made to point a particular political point or modern parallels which may be remote from traditional interpretations.
Esclarmonde is an opéra in four acts and eight tableaux, with prologue and epilogue, by Jules Massenet, to a French libretto by Alfred Blau and Louis Ferdinand de Gramont. It was first performed at the Exposition Universelle on 15 May 1889 by the Opéra-Comique at the Théâtre Lyrique on the Place du Châtelet in Paris.
The Molière Award recognises achievement in live French theatre and is the national theatre award of France. The Molière Awards are considered the highest French theatre honour. The awards are presented and decided by the Association professionnelle et artistique du théâtre (APAT) and supported by the Ministry of Culture at an annual ceremony, called the Nuit des Molières in Paris. The awards are given for French productions and performances.
The 20th César Awards ceremony, presented by the Académie des Arts et Techniques du Cinéma, honoured the best French films of 1994 and took place on 25 February 1995 at the Palais des Congrès in Paris. The ceremony was chaired by Alain Delon and hosted by Jean-Claude Brialy and Pierre Tchernia. Wild Reeds won the award for Best Film.
Eva Wagner-Pasquier is a German opera manager. She is the daughter of Wolfgang Wagner and Ellen Drexel. She was born by candlelight in her grandmother Winifred's cottage in the Fichtel Mountains.
Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train is a 1998 French drama film directed by Patrice Chéreau and written by Chéreau, Danièle Thompson and Pierre Trividic. It stars Pascal Greggory, Vincent Perez, Charles Berling and Dominique Blanc.
The Jahrhundertring was the production of Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle, Der Ring des Nibelungen, at the Bayreuth Festival in 1976, celebrating the centenary of both the festival and the first performance of the complete cycle. The festival was directed by Wolfgang Wagner and the production was created by the French team of conductor Pierre Boulez, stage director Patrice Chéreau, stage designer Richard Peduzzi, costume designer Jacques Schmidt and lighting designer André Diot. The cycle was shown first in 1976, then in the following years until 1980. It was filmed for television in 1979 and 1980. While the first performance caused "a near-riot" for its brash modernity, the staging established a standard, termed Regietheater, for later productions.
Jacques Schmidt was a French costume designer, who collaborated regularly with stage directors Antoine Bourseiller, Patrice Chéreau and Roger Planchon.
André Diot is a cinematographer and lighting designer of French theatre and film, who played an important role in the emergence of the profession in France. In a long career, he designed the lighting for the 1976 Bayreuth Jahrhundertring, staged by Patrice Chéreau, the opening and closing ceremony of the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, and in 2013 Così fan tutte at the Paris Opera.
The Théâtre Nanterre-Amandiers, also Théâtre des Amandiers, is a theatre in Nanterre and a known theatre outside of Paris. The present building opened in 1976. The company is a Centre dramatique national, a national public theatre. Artistic directors included Patrice Chéreau and Catherine Tasca (1982), Jean-Pierre Vincent (1990) and Jean-Louis Martinelli (2002). The theatre runs a film studio and an acting school which is connected to theatre studies at the Paris West University Nanterre La Défense.
Evelyn Herlitzius is a German opera singer, a dramatic soprano. She is known for performing major roles in works by Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss, such as Brünnhilde, Isolde and Elektra, at the Semperoper, the Bayreuth Festival and leading European opera houses.
Ilse Gramatzki is a German operatic mezzo-soprano and contralto who performed at major European opera houses. A member of both the Cologne Opera and the Frankfurt Opera she is known for singing parts by Mozart, contemporary opera and parts by Wagner at the Bayreuth Festival including the Jahrhundertring.
Nicolas Joel or Joël was a French opera director and administrator of opera houses. He was general manager of the Théâtre du Capitole de Toulouse from 1990 to 2009 and of the Paris Opera from 2009 to 2014. He directed operas internationally.
Joachim Herz was a German Opera director and manager. He learned at the Komische Oper Berlin as an assistant to Walter Felsenstein. His major stations were the Leipzig Opera where he opened the new house with Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Komische Oper and Semperoper in Dresden, where he opened the restored house with Weber's Der Freischütz in 1985. He staged many world premieres, and worked internationally. Herz was the first director to apply Felsenstein's concepts to Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, staged in Leipzig from 1973 to 1976.
