List of Bayreuth Festival productions of Der Ring des Nibelungen explained

This list provides details of all the performances of Richard Wagner's opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen produced at the Bayreuth Festival, from the festival's inception in 1876 up to 2022. For differing reasons, no festivals were held between 1877 and 1881, 1915 to 1923, and 1943 to 1950. There were a few other years when the festival was "rested", and some in which it was dedicated to other Wagner operas.

The Bayreuth Festival Orchestra has always been involved in these productions, and apart from some productions, the festival has since 1876 been under the overall control of a member of the Wagner family.

Since the revival of the festival after the Second World War, a general principle has been developed in which new productions are introduced to the festival at regular intervals, each such production being staged for five years followed by a "rest" year.

There have been 222 performances of the Ring cycle performed at Bayreuth from 1876 to 2017.

List of performances

^[1]

Year	Stage director	Conductor(s)	Notes
1876	Richard Wagner	Hans Richter	3 cycles of Wagner's original production were performed.
1896	Cosima Wagner	Felix Mottl Hans Richter Siegfried Wagner	29 cycles of this production were performed under Cosima and Siegfried Wagner.Cosima's involvement was largely symbolic after 1908.
1897		Hans Richter Siegfried Wagner
1899		Siegfried Wagner
1901	Cosima Wagner, Siegfried Wagner	Hans Richter Siegfried Wagner
1902
1904		Hans Richter Franz Beidler
1906		Hans Richter Siegfried Wagner
1908		Hans Richter
1909		Michael Balling
1911
1912
1914
1924	Siegfried Wagner		14 cycles of this production were performed under Siegfried Wagner.
1925
1927		Franz von Hoesslin
1928		Franz von Hoesslin Siegfried Wagner
1930		Karl Elmendorff
1931
1933	Heinz Tietjen		First Bayreuth Ring not directed by a Wagner family member18 cycles of this production were performed under Tietjen.
1934		Karl Elmendorff Heinz Tietjen
1936		Heinz Tietjen Wilhelm Furtwängler
1937		Wilhelm Furtwängler
1938		Heinz Tietjen
1939
1940		Franz von Hoesslin
1941		Heinz Tietjen
1942		Karl Elmendorff
1951	Wieland Wagner	Hans Knappertsbusch Herbert von Karajan	16 cycles of this production were performed under Wieland Wagner.
1952		Joseph Keilberth
1953		Joseph Keilberth Clemens Krauss
1954		Joseph Keilberth
1955
1956		Joseph Keilberth Hans Knappertsbusch
1957		Hans Knappertsbusch
1958
1960	Wolfgang Wagner	Rudolf Kempe	11 cycles of this production were performed under Wolfgang Wagner.
1961
1962
1963
1964		Berislav Klobučar
1965	Wieland Wagner	Karl Böhm	Wieland died in October 1966; his production continued under Wolfgang until 1969.12 cycles of this production were performed.
1966		Karl Böhm Otmar Suitner
1967	Wolfgang Wagner
1968		Lorin Maazel
1969
1970		Horst Stein	16 cycles of this production were performed under Wolfgang Wagner.
1971
1972
1973
1974
1975
1976	Patrice Chéreau	Pierre Boulez	Centenary Ring production16 cycles of this production were performed under Chéreau.
1977
1978
1979
1980
1983	Peter Hall	Georg Solti	12 cycles of this production were performed under Hall.
1984		Peter Schneider
1985
1986
1988	Harry Kupfer	Daniel Barenboim	15 cycles of this production were performed under Kupfer.
1989
1990
1991
1992
1994	Alfred Kirchner	James Levine	15 cycles of this production were performed under Kirchner.
1995
1996
1997
1998
2000	Jürgen Flimm	Giuseppe Sinopoli	15 cycles of this production were performed under Flimm.
2001		Ádám Fischer
2002
2003
2004
2006	Tankred Dorst	Christian Thielemann	15 cycles of this production were performed under Dorst.
2007
2008
2009
2010
2013	Frank Castorf	Kirill Petrenko	15 cycles of this production were performed under Castorf.
2014
2015
2016		Marek Janowski
2017
2018		Plácido Domingo	3 performances of Die Walküre, also directed by Castorf, were presented in 2018. This is the first time in the festival's history where it was performed apart from the rest of the cycle.^[2] ^[3]
2022	Valentin Schwarz	Pietari Inkinen	The production was originally scheduled for 2020 but was postponed to 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.^[4]
2023

Notes and References

1. Web site: Skramstad . Per-Erik . Der Ring des Nibelungen at the Bayreuth Festival - all the productions . 2023-10-22 . Wagneropera.net . en.
2. Web site: Bayreuth Festival: The 2018 Wagner celebration begins – DW – 07/25/2018 . 2023-10-22 . dw.com . en.
3. Web site: Performance Database . 2023-10-22 . Bayreuther Festspiele . en-US.
4. Web site: Herrmann . Hubertus . 2020-03-31 . Suspension Bayreuth Festival 2020 . 2023-10-22 . Bayreuther Festspiele . en-US.