‘Das Rheingold’ at Teatro Real de Madrid

Dec 17, 2018

Pablo Heras-Casado leads his first-ever complete Ring Cycle at the Teatro Real de Madrid, where he is Principal Guest Conductor. Heras-Casado will conduct Wagner’s colossal tetralogy over the course of four consecutive seasons, beginning in 2019 with Robert Carsen’s renowned production of Das Rheingold.

Running from January 17 to February 1, this production marks the first Ring Cycle at the Teatro Real since 1997. With set and costume designs by Patrick Kinmonth, the prologue of the Ring Cycle is set “in the desolation of our polluted world, the scene where the characters in this grandiose conflict will continue to be portrayed during the coming seasons.”

Heras-Casado conducts a cast including Greer Grimsley as Wotan, Alexander Tsymbalyuk as Fafner, Joseph Kaiser as Loge, Sophie Bevan as Freia, Sarah Connolly as Fricka, and Samuel Youn as Alberich. He previously led performances of Wagner’s Der fliegende Holländer at the Teatro Real de Madrid in 2016, which was released on DVD by harmonia mundi in 2017. The DVD is available for purchase via Pablo’s Recordings.

Critical acclaim from Der fliegende Holländer:

“A taut, thrilling Wagner debut from Heras-Casado coupled with a truly spectacular production by the Catalan director Àlex Ollé, who makes stunning use of video-projections and sets the opera in contemporary Chittagong, where the central themes of arranged marriage and ‘ghost’-ships play out rather more convincingly than it might sound on paper…” (Presto Classical)