Artificial intelligence sparked boos at the 150th anniversary performance of Wagner\u2019s Ring Cycle<\/p>\n
BAYREUTH, Germany — Richard Wagner likely would have appreciated the cutting-edge technology, if not the reaction.<\/p>\n
Scenery selected by artificial intelligence sparked boos at the 150th anniversary performance of Wagner\u2019s Ring Cycle from an audience frustrated that software could integrate images but not drama.<\/p>\n
Called \u201c10010110\u201d \u2014 the number 150 in written in binary \u2014 the staging is subtitled \u201cFrom Myth to Code" and was intended to portray the history of \u201cDer Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung)," a series of four operas about the destruction of gods by humans, giants and dwarfs. It was timed to coincide with the anniversary of the full cycle's premiere from Aug. 13-17, 1876, at the Festspielhaus theater built to Wagner's specifications atop a Bavarian hill.<\/p>\n
Curator Marcus Lobbes developed the concept with Nils Corte and dramaturge Andri Hardmeier, feeding computers about 1,000 images culled from the 15 prior Bayreuth Ring productions. They did not intend to produce a cohesive drama and suggested minimal blocking.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe always communicated that it\u2019s an experiment, it\u2019s not stage-directed,\u201d Lobbes said.<\/p>\n
Disgruntled by 19th century standards, Wagner demanded his own theater of innovation. Bayreuth's 239th Ring Cycle was an encyclopedia of interpretations rather than a new one.<\/p>\n
Singers stood between two 20-by-60 meter (33-by-66 foot) screens, often not moving, for 14 1\/2 hours over four nights. About a dozen AI models were combined and Stable Diffusion was used to start each act with 1876 scenery designed by Gotthold Br\u00fcckner and Max Br\u00fcckner from sketches by Josef Hoffmann, then select images based on text and music.<\/p>\n
After Saturday night's concluding \u201cG\u00f6tterd\u00e4mmerung,\u201d conductor Christian Thielemann and the cast were greeted with a 17-minute ovation that wrapped around 30 seconds of boos and whistles when the production team joined for their bows.<\/p>\n
Many Bayreuth productions are initially jeered, such as Patrice Ch\u00e9reau's centennial staging in 1976 that moved the action to the Industrial Revolution, then cheered years later. That production's final appearance in 1980 ignited a 45-minute ovation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know the ritual,\u201d said Lobbes, director of the Academy for Theatre and Digitality in Dortmund.<\/p>\n
He was approached in February 2023 to stage an AI Ring for the sesquicentennial by Katharina Wagner, a great-granddaughter of the composer and current festival director.<\/p>\n
Wagner composed the Ring over 26 years. Coders divided it into about 250 scenes of two to six minutes and loaded images from past performances and topical moments to a pair of custom-built Tower PCs with NVIDIA RTX 5090 graphics cards.<\/p>\n
Singers led by Michael Volle (Wotan), Camilla Nylund (Br\u00fcnnhilde) and Klaus Florian Vogt (Siegfried) wore birdlike costumes of wire mesh with black backing and laser voile designed by Pia Maria Mackert, Lobbes' wife. The outfits shimmered in brilliant colors depending on the lighting, with gold and red most prominent.<\/p>\n
As the narrative moved forward, so did AI's projections.<\/p>\n