Göteborgs Konserthus Wagner The Ring Without Words

Richard Wagner (1813–1883) Wesendonck Lieder Fünf Gedichte von Mathilde Wesendonk Der Engel · Stehe still · Im Treibhaus · Schmerzen · Träume Richard Wagner only composed around twenty songs, including a handful in 1839–1842, when he tried in vain to win the hearts of Parisians. The next step was in 1857–1858: in political asylum in Zürich during his most revolutionary period, he simultaneously became involved in a passionate romance with Mathilde Wesendonck, the wife of a wealthy Swiss silk merchant. Wagner and his wife had a cottage on the family’s estate in the countryside. One thing is for certain: as a revolutionary, Wagner was guided more by artistic dreams than political convictions. He worked on Tristan und Isolde and read his libretto for the opera to his lover. She was delighted and responded with her own poetry, which was infused with the same spirit. Wagner was captivated by her poems and set them to music. He composed Der Engel, Schmerzen and Träume in the winter of 1857. They were completed the following May. In the first poem, she presents Wagner as the savior of art. He himself wrote on the sheet music for the sketches of the first act of Tristan: “To the angel who lifted me so high.” Love may have enchanted them, but in concrete terms, the work on Mathilde’s five poems contributed inspiration to Tristan. Material from Im Treibhaus (In the Greenhouse) was incorporated into the introduction to the third act. Schmerzen (Pain) begins with the same chord that also begins the second act, and Träume (Dreams) can be seen as an early version of the love duet in the same act.

Richard Wagner (1813-1883) Der Ring ohne Worte, arr Lorin Maazel Das Rheingold: In The Greenish Twilight Of The Rhine - Entrance Of The Gods Into Valhalla - Hammering dwarfs Smithying Away - Ride Donner’s Thunderbolt Die Walküre: Siegmund and Sieglinde - Their Flight - Wotan’s Rage - Ride Of The Valkyries - Wotan’s Farewell Siegfried: Mime’s Fright - Siegfried’s Forging of The Magic Sword - Forest Murmurs - His Slaying Of The Dragon - Dragon’s Lament Götterdämmerung: Day Breaking ’Round Siegfried’s And Brünnhilde’s Passion - Siegfried’s Rhine Journey - Hagen’s Call to his Clans - Siegfried And The Rhinemaidens - Siegfried’s Death And Funeral Music - Immolation Scene The American conductor Lorin Maazel took it upon himself to arrange Wagner's mammoth operas in a symphonic version. The goal was to recreate the same mythological story without the singers' text, with the same components as Wagner's original. The background was Maazel's meeting with Wagner's grandson, the theater director Wieland Wagner, who pointed out that the orchestra is the very source: "In the orchestra - that's where the essence lies - it's the text under the text, it's the universal subconscious that connects Wagner's characters with each other," he was to have said. At the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Ring cycle had not been performed since before the Second World War. When Lorin Maazel took over the opera in 1965, he was fascinated by the challenge: could it be possible to reveal the essential components of the Ring's sound code through a symphonic synthesis? Lorin Maazel himself says: “So we begin in the green twilight of the Rhine, drift upstream to the castle of the gods, sink down to the blacksmith dwarfs, swing with the thunder hammer, crawl with the thirsty Siegmund to the temporary hearth.... In the sound code we also literally see Siegmund’s ‘sympathetic gaze’ at Sieglinde, their escape, Wotan’s terrible rage, Brünnhilde’s sisters’ Valkyrie ride, Wotan’s painful farewell to his beloved daughter. We see Siegfried forging the magic sword, slaying the dragon, hearing Fafner’s weak lament. ... and finally - the end of the gods in the firelight. Although I have not consciously tried to include all the ring motifs, most of them appear in one form or another.” Lorin Maazel recorded the work in 1987 with Berliner Philharmoniker and conducted the concert premiere in 1990.

The Gothenburg Symphony was formed in 1905 and today consists of 109 musicians. The orchestra's base is Gothenburg Concert Hall at Götaplatsen that has gathered music lovers since 1935. Since the 2019-2020 season, Barbara Hannigan is Principal guest conductor. We are also a proud partner of Barbara Hannigan's Equilibrium mentoring program focusing on young singers at the start of their careers. The title Principal Guest Conductor is shared by Pekka Kuusisto from 2025. Wilhelm Stenhammar was the orchestra's chief conductor from 1907 to 1922. He gave the orchestra a strong Nordic profile and invited colleagues Carl Nielsen and Jean Sibelius to the orchestra. Under the direction of conductor Neeme Järvi from 1982-2004, the orchestra made a series of international tours as well as a hundred disc recordings and established themselves among Europe's leading orchestras. In 1996, the Swedish Riksdag appointed the Gothenburg Symphony as Sweden's National Orchestra. In recent decades, the orchestra has had prominent chief conductors such as Santtu-Matias Rouvali, Mario Venzago and Gustavo Dudamel, following Kent Nagano as Principal Guest conductor. Anna-Karin Larsson is CEO and artistic director, Gustavo Dudamel honorary conductor and Neeme Järvi chief conductor emeritus. The orchestra's owner is the Västra Götaland Region. The Gothenburg Symphony works regularly with conductors such as Herbert Blomstedt, Joana Carneiro, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Christian Zacharias and Anja Bihlmaier.

Cornelius Meister has been General Music Director of the Staatsoper Stuttgart and the Staatsorchester Stuttgart since 2018. He was Principal Conductor and Artistic Director of the ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien from 2010 to 2018 as well as Principal Guest Conductor of the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra from 2017 to 2020. A passionate advocate for cultural participation, Cornelius Meister devotes himself to educational and outreach projects for audiences of all ages, which often introduce them to a symphony orchestra for the first time. In the 2025/26 season he conducts new productions of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg and Dialogues des Carmélites, as well as revivals of Don Giovanni and Madama Butterfly. He also completes the cycle of Mahler’s symphonies. Further engagements in this season include returns to the Wiener Staatsoper and the ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien. As a pianist, he has been invited to perform in the Wiener Philharmoniker's chamber music cycle. He continues to strengthen his relationships with orchestras in Valencia, Geneva, Strasbourg and Frankfurt, and makes his debuts in Bordeaux, Warsaw and with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London Since performing his first world premiere as a ten-year-old pianist, Cornelius Meister has been committed to contemporary composers; in 2004 he became Pierre Boulez’s assistant.His operatic career began at the age of 21 at the Hamburgische Staatsoper.

Season 2025-2026 Cornelia Beskow sings Berg's Sieben frühe Lieder with the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra and makes her debut as Elsa Lohengrin at the Vienna State Opera. She returns to Den Norske Opera & Ballet and to Roma Teatro dell'Opera in the title role in Jenufa, in Elektra, Die Walküre and Eugen Onegin, and to the Royal Swedish Opera in Jenufa. She also makes her debut at the Prague National Opera in the title role as Ariadne of Naxos. She has previously sung Ellen Orford in Britten's Peter Grimes in Warsaw, Katerina in Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, Senta in The Flying Dutchman at Opera Østfold in Fredriksten and Malmö Opera, Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni at the Royal Swedish Opera, Wellgunde in Das Rheingold at Dalhalla, as well as in Das Rosenkavalier and in Dead Man Walking at the Royal Danish Opera in Copenhagen. Cornelia Beskow is trained at the Opera Academy of Copenhagen and the Swedish Opera Academy. In addition to a thriving career on the opera stage, Cornelia Beskow regularly sings concerts, with repertoire ranging from Wagner, Mahler and Chausson to Strauss, Britten, Sibelius and Nyström. She won the Lauritz Melchior International Singing Competition in 2017 and was the recipient of the Birgit Nilsson Scholarship in 2022.