The Ring

A celebratory summary of one of the greatest of operatic events at one of the greatest of world opera houses, this work charts the story of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen at the Royal Opera House from the first staging in 1892 - conducted by Gustav Mahler - through to the increasingly contraversial productions of the late 20th century. Each chapter is richly illustrated to evoke the character of the productions and their times. The pictorial record, drawn from the Archives at the Royal Opera House, includes many images never published before: costume and set designs, singers, posters, productions in performance. This 100-year history also highlights changing approaches to Wagner on stage: early naturalistic styles, pared-down in the 1950s and 60s, dramatically individual with more recent directors, concluding in this collection with Richard Jones's 'absurdist' approach in the mid-1990's. Giant names of the wagner world run through this Royal Opera story, both conductors and performers: from Marie Brema to Gwyneth Jones, from Bruno Walter to Bernrad Haitink. An appendix - more a roll call of the great Wagnerians - lists all the performers and their principal casting from 1892 on.