This week, top Wagnerians Christopher Ventris and Stephen Millingreturn to Bayreuther Festspiele as Siegmund and Hagen respectively in Frank Castorf’s production of Der Ring des Nibelungen. Conducted by Marek Janowski, the three Cycles open on 26 July.
A seasoned Siegmund with performances of the role around the world including for Washington National Opera and Semperoper Dresden last season, Christopher returns to it this coming autumn in Tokyo as part of a Wiener Staatsoper tour. Elsewhere this season, Christopher joins Dutch National Opera as Parsifal, Opernhaus Zürich as Max (Der Freischütz) and Wiener Staatsoper as Andrey Khovansky in Mussorgsky’s Khovanshchina.
Hailed as “The highlight, an all-round outstanding Hagen” by Stuttgarter Zeitung when he debuted in Bayreuth last season, Stephen Milling has an impressive season ahead including a return to the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden as Pogner (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg) under Sir Antonio Pappano, Gurnemanz (Parsifal) for Deutsche Oper Berlin under Donald Runnicles and Das Rheingold both with Alan Gilbert conducting the New York Philharmonic and Christian Thielemann conducting Staatskapelle Dresden.
