A Ring Completed: Pablo Heras-Casado’s Paris Götterdämmerung
In October 2026, Pablo Heras-Casado conducted the premiere of Wagner’s Götterdämmerung at the Opéra national de Paris, in the house’s new production directed by Calixto Bieito and with the Orchestre de l’Opéra national de Paris. It completes a Ring that began in January 2025 with Das Rheingold. In May and June 2026, Heras-Casado had already conducted two complete cycles at the Vienna State Opera. The press response to the opening night was unanimously warm.
A Wagner of light and transparency
Critics singled out above all the clarity of his reading and his refusal of sheer volume.
The Süddeutsche Zeitung observed that nobody on stage has to force or bellow, because Heras-Casado never has weight and thunder in mind. His conducting, the paper wrote, reveals crumbling sonorities and a sound world shifting between operetta and free tonality: “His Wagner is already on the way to Mahler, Schoenberg and Berg.”
Oper! found that the conductor has his great moment here, describing how he layers the forces of nature with the orchestra before letting the love motif shine. The result, according to the magazine, is “a Wagner of maximum beauty of sound”, brisk in the Norns’ scene and nostalgically soft in the memory of Brünnhilde’s love. Conductor, cast and orchestra took their bravos at the end.
Concerti credited Heras-Casado and the Orchestre de l’Opéra de Paris with holding the long evening together, alongside the consistently excellent cast and the chorus prepared by Ching-Lien Wu, which the magazine called “vocally powerful and precise”.
Orpheus considered the cheers for the performers and for the Wagner-attuned orchestra entirely understandable, and concluded that, with a view to Bayreuth, Heras-Casado “proves that he is a very good choice”.
Looking ahead
The two complete Ring cycles at the Opéra national de Paris run from 6 to 13 and from 15 to 22 November 2026. In 2028, Pablo Heras-Casado conducts a new production of the Ring at the Bayreuth Festival.