Dresden Wagner project in the New York Times Best of

The Dresden "Ring" on period instruments as part of the Richard Wagner project of the Dresden Music Festival has made it onto a list of the best performances in the "New York Times". The newspaper put the concert performance of the opera "Die Walküre" with the Dresden Festival Orchestra and Concerto Köln conducted by Kent Nagano on March 16 in Amsterdam on its list of the world's best performances in 2024, calling it "the freshest version of this four-opera epic".

Music Festival Director Jan Vogler was delighted to be included in this best-of list. "For two years, my team and I have been working with great enthusiasm to bring this special Wagner sound from Dresden to the world," he said and spoke of an award "for this work and for Dresden as a city of music".

Project combines practice and science for the first time

With "The Wagner Cycles", the music festival is combining musical practice and science for the first time to create a new kind of sound experience. Performed on historical instruments and in the singing and speaking style of Wagner's time, the performance reveals unknown or long-forgotten facets of the music. Since 2023, one part of Wagner's famous Ring tetralogy has been prepared annually in historical performance practice and staged throughout Europe - after "Rheingold" and "Walküre", "Siegfried" will follow in 2025.