Ring 10010110

The Ring in Motion – an Experiment. An Invitation.

In the summer of 2026, a new chapter of Der Ring des Nibelungen will open in Bayreuth. A monumental tetralogy, a world of power, love, betrayal and doom – and at the same time a place of constant transformation. For 150 years, the Ring has been rethought, seen and heard again and again in Bayreuth. But what happens when the stage itself begins to think?

For the 150th anniversary of Bayreuth Festival, the audience can expect an experiment of visionary power: a “staging” that not only performs Richard Wagner’s music drama, but also focuses on its reception history – through a visual level that is constantly changing, expanding, reassembling and contradicting itself. For the first time in the history of the festival, artificial intelligence will be on stage – not as a character, but as an imaging force.

Between Presence and Projection

The singers are at the center of the performance, in a calm, almost sculptural presence. Their bodies become the fixed point in a visually seething cosmos of light, texture, history and association, in the midst of projections that break open, shift permanently, and merge with each other. What remains real, what is illusion? Where does memory begin, where does interpretation end? The projections are more than just stage sets – they are a reflective surface of a 150-year discourse. The AI that generates them has learned from countless images, voices, documents and productions. It does not show the one Ring, but many: the national myth, the socio-political upheaval, the artistic explosiveness, the romantic utopia, the deconstructed shadow. Each performance will be unique – because the images and associations do not stand still either.

The Ring as a Resonance Chamber

The project understands the Ring as an open resonance chamber, as a work that always wants to be told anew – not despite, but because of its history. The AI becomes a mirror of collective memory, but also a projection surface for our questions today: Who tells history? Who creates images? And who do they belong to? In this way, Richard Wagner’s eternally valid merges with the transience of digital transformation. Sound meets code, myth meets machine, festivals meet the future. The stage becomes a laboratory of perception, a place where musical theater is not only performed, but explored. This Ring challenges, invites contemplation, overextension, curiosity. It is a Ring of questions, not answers. And it is a Ring that is intended to bathe Bayreuth – this place full of history and projection – in a new light.

Experience a musical theater that is both past and future, a Ring des Nibelungen that questions itself. And perhaps us too.