Simon Bailey (Wotan), Christiane Libor (Brünnhilde)

While Bayreuth's runners and riders fail to get out of their traps, it’s been business as usual in Erl where the Tiroler Festspiele’s new Ring continues to grow apace. It’s not only the cycle that’s new here – the artistic and management team presented only their second festival season this month after rising to the challenge of launching this new cycle in the difficult summer of 2021. Erl’s reputation has been built around staging Wagner’s operas in this extraordinarily beautiful alpine setting and in the most physically challenging of circumstances – a basic concrete and wood auditorium built in the 1950s to house the local Passionspiele staged by the villagers every six years, which has been running since the 1600s.

New Intendant Bernd Loebe, comes from the metropolitan world of opera, and he continues to run one of the busiest houses in Germany: Frankfurt. How would adjusting to Erl’s down-to-earth facilities be coped with? The answer appears to be by using equally simple adaptations to bring the performing space more into line with a conventional theatre setting. A sort-of proscenium has been constructed, and two towering panels either side of the stage apron now serve as rudimentary wings. The forestage has a built-over platform now allowing sections of it to rise and traps to be used. The orchestra continues to play in a high-raked arrangement behind the main stage thrust.

Engaging Brigitte Fassbaender to direct the Ring was certainly a smart move. Having served as Intendantin of the near-neighbour Landestheater, Innsbruck for many years, one may assume she was well aware of Erl’s unique qualities: an idyllic setting and a perfect acoustic and of its restrictions: no orchestra pit, wings or fly tower. In a setting simultaneously contemporary and timeless, Fassbaender told Wagner’s tale in a fluent, straightforward manner – no outré notions or bizarre extraneous elements, no lofty concept imposed here. With a nod to the nearby aqua-phenomenon, Das Blaue Quelle, a cleansing pool of blue water is used by the Walküren to purify dead heroes at the beginning of the 3rd Act; rising platforms stand in for equine mounts for the impossible-to-stage Ride of the Warrior Maidens; the physical presence of Loge: eavesdropping on the long Wotan/Brünnhilde exchange that culminates in a notably passionate embrace, summoning bursts of airborne fire at the ecstatic conclusion, these were all striking, stand-out ideas. Aided by atmospheric projections: rock formations, cloudscapes, flickering flames and basic props, design and costumes: Kasper Glarner, lighting: Jan Hartman, Fassbaender focused on Walküre’s characters and their relationships to each other.

Irina Simm's Sieglinde, was fresh, radiant and superbly sung, offering a more proactive individual than usual. A splendidly inky tone from Anthony Robin Schneider: a Hunding more hurt, confused and outraged than the traditional psychotic thug. An attitude of the board-room CEO from this production’s Wotan, vigorous, elegant, and tireless sung by Simon Bailey – together with Simms the real find here in a cast of voices new to Ring-habitués. Clay Hilley, the exception, a lusty Siegmund, a familiar regular on the Wagner stage. Only Christiane Libor’s Brünnhilde appeared to miss out in character focus – perhaps her subdued presence may yet be explained as the cycle continues.

Erl’s principal asset, besides the beauty of its location, is the wonderful orchestra. The potentially tricky relationship with this Ring’s new conductor was more than ably forged by Erik Nielsen. In this generous acoustic, the long periods where orchestral playing is to the forefront were exquisitely detailed – radiant string tone, warm winds and burnished brass. Quite appropriate then, that Nielsen and his marvellous players were accorded first curtain call.

Across the opera-world Rings are now two-a-penny, two cycles currently running in Berlin alone, but with so many focusing on often dubious re-evaluations at the expense genuine of storytelling, Erl remains the place to dwell on Wagner’s musical values.

The Ring in Erl continues in 2023 with both Siegfried and Götterdämmerung. Full cycles in the summer of 2024.