Digital scenography and the mimetic aporia of Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle

Abstract

This article explores the visual friction between the concealment of technology and the need to stage mimetic scenes in Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen. The article relies on the critical reception of the Wagnerian Gesamtkunstwerk in musicology, as well as in media, performance, and theatre studies. Drawing on productions and commentaries critical of the iconic Gesamtkunstwerk's attempted retrieval of a lost natural state, the article examines correlations between phantasmagoria, special effects, movement detection technology, and the interactive devices of multimedia and digital scenography. These correlations are framed within a theoretical methodology of historical discourse and media archaeologies. Three specific productions of the Ring are discussed, namely the inaugural and centenary productions at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, as well as Robert Lepage's production for the Metropolitan Opera of New York in 2010–2012.