In May 2024, Cecilia Bartoli announced a new production at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo: Das Rheingold, with Gianluca Capuano conducting Les Musiciens du Prince. This show marked an exceptional moment: the world premiere of this opera in a staged version played on period instruments. A major challenge that immersed the orchestra in this work’s rich history and sound, while exploring new dimensions of Wagner’s music.
By performing Das Rheingold on period instruments, the orchestra renews an age-old practice, highlighting the dramatic depth of the score. This season, our adventure continues with Die Walküre, the second part of Wagner’s Tetralogy.
The challenge continues, as does the work of perfecting the historically informed representation of this monumental music in our time.
Principal Conductor Gianluca Capuano invites us to dive into the world of Wagner, where music and philosophy merge into a total art form. It is a unique opportunity to rediscover that master of Romanticism in his purest form.
Interview with Gianluca Capuano, principal conductor of Les Musiciens du Prince
Let’s take a look back at Das Rheingold, played on period instruments: it was a world premiere in a staged version. What challenges did you face in preparing it?
This work had already been performed in concert on period instruments, but in our case it was indeed a staged premiere. It was a great source of pride for all of us, as it was also a first in our career. We’d never performed Wagner before. It required a lot of hard work and musicological research on everyone’s part! For me, it was the culmination of a long story, as I’ve been listening to Wagner since I was a child. It had long been my goal to conduct this composer one day.
What does the term “period instruments” really mean?
This means that we use precisely the instruments of the composer’s era. Here, we’re talking about the period when Wagner premiered his first Ring (1876 in Bayreuth*). We have a lot of information about the instruments he used at the time, including their construction and the way they were played. […] For stringed instruments, we mainly use gut strings, not the metal strings used by modern orchestras. As for wind instruments, during performances of Das Rheingold, we used, almost exclusively, original instruments dating from the second half of the 19th century.
The Opéra de Monte-Carlo’s current complete pres-entation of Wagner’s Tetralogy continues this season with Die Walküre. What do you think makes these operas so fundamental and timeless?
The creation of the Ring represents a key moment in the history of music. Wagner is a “cosmopoet” (as the ancient Greeks would say), a true creator of worlds. In my opinion, only Bach before him had the same incredible creative force. In Wagner’s music, we feel a force and a power that gushes forth like an inexhaustible source of his music. Wagner was the most philosophical of composers. In his youth, he loved the philosophy of Feuerbach, but it was his encounter with the philosophy of Schopenhauer, and later with that of Nietzsche, that would be decisive for his creative development. In 1854, Wagner read Schopenhauer’s seminal work, The World as Will and Representation (1819), and was electrified by it. From then on, his mission was to set Schopenhauer’s philosophy to music. […] The most important thing for Wagner was to recreate Greek tragedy - it was the very purpose of his work! Wagner drew inspiration from the form of tragedy to develop what he called “Wort-Ton-Drama”, a profound union between word, sound and action. In this way, he achieved what he called the Gesamtkunstwerk, the total work of art, a fusion of all the arts in his operas.
*Das Rheingold was first performed in Munich in 1869, a production that was not acknowledged by Wagner, who felt that times were not yet ripe for his project.
This adventure is also about unique instruments, and who better to tell us about them than the musicians themselves? Ulrich Hübner (Wagner tuba), Hélène Escriva (bass trumpet) and Bernard Röthlisberger (bass clarinet), members of Les Musiciens du Prince, invite us to explore the subtleties of Wagner's sound world. Through their persona testimonies, they reveal how each instrument, each nuance, contributes to creating an atmosphere that is both profound and majestic, which render the work all its power.
Ulrich Hübner,
Wagner Tuba
Wagner in Monaco – wow! After some experiences with Wagner in my “previous life” as a musician in the modern orchestra world, I had the chance to explore music by contemporaries of Wagner on historical instruments. […] Our Wagner instruments in F, like the world-famous Viennese Horn in F known from the Vienna Philharmonic, are a bit more dangerous to play, but give a much more interesting variety of colours, from the softest pianissimo to a most dramatic fortissimo. Until the last performance it was incredibly fascinating to explore the different, distinct colours of each group of woodwind and brass instruments.
Hélène Escriva
Bass trumpet
I play the bass trumpet, a rare and little-known member of the brass family that Richard Wagner was particularly fond of. Thanks to its lyrical and heroic sonorities, the composer gave the bass trumpet a leading role, assigning it magnificent leitmotifs throughout the Ring (such as the “Gold” in Das Rheingold, or the famous “Ride of the Valkyries!” in Die Walküre). […] The Ring is a physical and mental challenge! The length is such that concentration and endurance become a challenge in their own right. At the end of Richard Wagner’s operas, it’s always a collective and joint celebration for the brass family!
Bernhard Röthlisberger
Bass clarinet
The bass clarinet only found its way into the opera orchestra in the middle of the 19th century. Wagner and Verdi are considered pioneers. They used this instrument specifically for particularly mysterious moments. Richard Wagner wrote one of the greatest scenes for the bass clarinet ever in the second act of Tristan und Isolde, and there are also several moments in Die Walküre where the bass clarinet can be heard prominently.
