"Very few people know what Richard knows" - Wagner Days Ring performance also available on DVD

This is the second year that the Wagner Days have taken place in a special form in Müpa. For us, the core audience, this is a real blow. It has become a celebration and already a ritual to be in June, despite the scorching heat, but through the performances, we can delve into the greatest conflicts of mankind, i.e. the gods. And long after the applause, I myself might think I can find answers to all the troubling questions.

I intentionally didn’t write “Wagner fan”. A fan is one who dreams of pop and rock bands, without quality criteria, only on an emotional basis. You can’t be a fan of Wagner, because whoever loves you always strives to have some very rational explanation for that emotion, a long line of reasons based on reason.

In the end, the dedicated spectator-listener (without enthusiasm) just comes to realize that what Richard knows, very few people know, can do that, so no one else. Within the thousand-color world of opera, his is a nuance that only he has blended, philosophy is present in music, music is given equal weight in philosophy. Though it is understandable at all levels, you don't need to be trained if the world of Wagner is sucked in, you don't let it go anymore, that's all.

Anyone who thinks of discovering some irony in the previous reasoning is not going astray. Let’s face it, opera is really ridiculous in many ways, even for those who love it, confusing librettos, heightened characters, absurd stories… always seem different because opera is mood-dependent. One touch and another laugh at the same area or scene.

But that’s exactly why one goes to watch opera because at the same time one is able to grasp the essence of human emotions and make the same ridiculous, or at least quoted. In the former, we feel, "I didn't know what love was, I know now," and at other times, "what are you whining about, you dark woman, once you've thrown your son into the fire, you can blow."

At Wagner, emotions are also based on principles, on ideas, on large-scale processes, behind which one is always there, but the drama never leads only to personal truth, but in a broad way. Of course, this big hug can be ridiculed, and many people ridicule it. And for that, everyone really feels a strong urge to do so, who can’t get out of their ears two weeks after the performance, how walkers ride.

I don’t like a who can’t laugh at himself who, behind his dazed adoration, doesn’t see the author holding the magic wand, a purple silkworm in his home maybe. If we are already taking the fatigue and going to experience the cousin of our intellectual existence during the Ring, we should also have the courage to smile at ourselves.

This smile is good, and now it can be part of listening to music at home because the release of the Müpa Ring DVD was filling a gap. The Wagner Days of Budapest are a world-famous series of events, the biggest singer-stars perform here every year, and the musical realization also moves at the highest levels thanks to Ádám Fischer and the Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. The stage of the Béla Bartók National Concert Hall serves as a perfect basis for the peculiar idea of ​​directing, a somewhat oratorio-like, but still large-scale visual world that cannot be seen anywhere else in the world.

By the way, Hartmut Schörghofer's directing focuses on the presentation of the main conflicts and the dramatic moments arising from the internal regularity of music, he cannot do anything else, since such are the endowments of Müpa. However, you have the opportunity to take advantage of the possibilities offered by multimedia. This is because the Ring is typically the stream of musical drama where solutions of this kind are needed, partly because such a visual world fits perfectly with Wagner’s music without seeming self-serving. On the other hand, it can nuance and illuminate for the viewers the complex system of motifs, without which we cannot even feel the series itself, we can understand it in its entirety.

However, not only were we able to enjoy the masterpiece of just 14 hours a day in DVD format, but now a series of Müpa Wagner Days is taking place, this time online. Because you need a sense of the present as well, especially if you really lack the real presence, the personal participation. The feeling at the end of the twilight of the gods is, "Please, start over!" There is a presence in the online spectacle, even if it is just an illusion.

In the meantime, the European Football Championship is also taking place, although there we are not waiting for answers to the big questions of the world. But the visual world is magic for the fan even if the match has no stakes or the outcome is predictable. The match is also a sacred event, the struggle itself, and beyond the fan world, is a topic of conversation that cannot be ignored.

Now, as I write these lines, the Italian-Welsh match is just going on. In parallel, the twilight of the gods. We’re still on time, we’re before the scourge, Siegfried hasn’t been corrupted yet. Obviously, I know where the story goes, that everyone is rushing to eternal destruction, but I’m pushing for it. Sure, I would try not to push, as it doesn’t fit the routine, but it can’t. Carry the music, the magic.

One eye on my laptop, the other on the television screen, the TV muted, the laptop set to loudest. Thus, two rituals affect me at once, which not only exclude but also reinforce each other. Especially if we take the courage to always approach things known to boredom from a newer and newer perspective.