Boos and whistles after the “Ring” production: the Bayreuth audience cannot warm up to the use of AI

However, the displeasure from the audience did not apply to the entire performance: soloists, choir and especially the musical director, Christian Thielemann, were cheered and applauded vigorously.

In its anniversary year, the festival once again broke new ground with the AI ​​“Ring” and relied on new technology. The images thrown onto the stage by projectors partly showed scenes from earlier “Ring” productions and partly historical motifs. The images overlapped, became alienated and distorted. In some cases they also took a look at the singers, who were largely static on the stage.

Audience puzzles

The AI used an image preselection made by Lobbes, the director of the Academy for Theater and Digitality in Dortmund, and his team. However, what the technology brought to the stage was a mystery to the audience. In addition to a photo with former Chancellor Helmut Kohl, the Twin Towers in New York smoking after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 and a special postage stamp for German reunification also appeared.

The AI ​​had a better hand when it projected dramatic color plays onto the stage – so the viewer was less puzzled about the content and raison d’être of the image. During the breaks, the AI ​​production was the big topic of conversation: there was talk of “a salad of pictures” and the lack of direction was criticized.

Harald Schmidt misses the prop and the game

Entertainer and neo-Wagnerian Harald Schmidt was also among the visitors. The long-time TV presenter wasn’t quite as harsh on the AI ​​“ring”. In his opinion, the sequence of images in “Twilight of the Gods” was quieter than in “Rheingold”. The AI ​​is probably learning, he told the German Press Agency and added: “But I also miss a bit of props. A sword would be nice, a spear, an anvil, some form of invisibility cloak.” It’s an experiment, said Schmidt. “But I think you’ll be happy when it’s a real production again, when it’s played.”

Given the somewhat random images, the highly dramatic music had an even stronger effect. Klaus Florian Vogt as Siegfried, Mika Kares as Hagen and Camilla Nylund as Brünnhilde were particularly celebrated. Together with the choir, the other soloists and the orchestra led by Thielemann, they made the apocalyptic finale of Richard Wagner’s “Ring” a musical delight.