When Richard Wagner dreamt of a festival setting to stage his operas, he wished to arouse his audience’s senses and capture their time without distractions from daily cares. To that extent, his dream was achieved when the purpose-built Bayreuth Festival Theatre, which he established and built, premiered Der Ring des Nibelungen at the inaugural festival in 1876.

One hundred and forty-six years later, this is the 16th new production of the epic four-part opus. Experiencing the enigma of the Ring and its 15 hours of music and drama over four performances during this year’s second cycle was, just as Wagner had intended it to be, like entering a meditative world where art inspires thought. And there was no shortage of thoughts to be had about Austrian director Valentin Schwarz’s fragmented concoction of ideas.

Egils Silins (Wotan), Attilio Glaser (Froh), Elisabeth Teige (Freia). Raimund Nolte (Donner), Daniel Kirch (Loge) and the chorus of the Bayreuther Festspiele. Photo © Bayreuther Festspiele / Enrico Nawrath

Key to Wagner‘s mystical universe and interconnected worlds of gods, demigods mortals, giants and dwarves — mostly sourced from Nordic and German legends but modified and reconstituted to tell...