'Rienzi': Why This Wagner Opera is So Relevant Today
Bayreuth’s opera "Rienzi" premiered under a cloud of controversy — and the arguments haven’t stopped since opening night.
Bayreuth’s opera "Rienzi" premiered under a cloud of controversy — and the arguments haven’t stopped since opening night. Meanwhile, the festival’s AI-powered Ring Cycle provokes a fresh wave of criticism.Even before opening night, expectations of how the themes of Richard Wagner's "Rienzi" would be handled were running high — not least because the opera had never been staged at the Bayreuth Festival. Now it has opened the festival's 150th anniversary. One aspect that fueled the debate: The close relationship between Wagner's descendants and Adolf Hitler — "Rienzi" was one of Hitler's favorite operas.
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"It's a piece that's highly contaminated," director Alexandra Szemerédy told DW. "When Katharina Wagner [the festival's director] first approached us, my initial excitement was definitely a bit dampened." Nonetheless, the production received enthusiastic applause at its premiere — conductor Nathalie Stutzmann and the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra were given standing ovations, and Hungarian directors Alexandra Szemerédy and Magdolna Parditka were warmly celebrated for their interpretation of the work.
The directors tell the tale of the rise and fall of the 14th-century Roman tribune Rienzi in the present day. Rienzi, who initially seeks to free the people of Rome from aristocratic rule, is ultimately consumed by power and becomes a dictator himself.
The production opens with a stark landscape of identical concrete apartment blocks that later break off into individual units. Through the windows, neighbors watch each other's lives unfold. Every apartment contains screens broadcasting the same news. Whatever can't be seen through the windows is shared through smartphones, social media and omnipresent screens.
From utopia to dystopia
In this new production, Rienzi initially doesn't defeat the aristocracy with violence. He calls for democratic elections — and wins. Afterward, he lavishly celebrates with the elites. But that changes when the same aristocrats attempt to assassinate him. Rienzi survives, imposes a military dictatorship and begins executing his enemies in the streets. Increasingly consumed by paranoia and delusion, he loses his grip on power and ultimately dies.
The directors said they were particularly interested in how someone can inspire the masses and, fueled by populism, become an authoritarian ruler. "He's considered a reference figure in the study of populism because of this first major citizens' uprising in Rome," Szemerédy said. The charisma of the real historical figure Cola di Rienzo, who lived in the 14th century, had also fascinated Adolf Hitler.
A controversial choice
Musicologist and theater scholar Anno Mungen criticized the decision to stage "Rienzi" for the first time during the Bayreuth Festival's 150th anniversary, calling it "historically tone-deaf." Wagner himself chose not to include "Rienzi" in the repertoire of his new Festspielhaus in Bayreuth, citing musical considerations.
In his book on the intersections between the festival and the Holocaust, Mungen writes about the deportations from Bayreuth to Auschwitz, which included Jewish members of the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra. "When we look at 'Rienzi,' it would have been both meaningful and necessary to place the production within the context of a major academic conference," Mungen said. "The University of Bayreuth would have been very willing to participate."
From 1940 to 1944, in what are now known as the "Wartime Festivals," Bayreuth kept running thanks to Hitler's financial support. Performances were held for selected audiences only, including wounded soldiers and workers from the arms industry. History students are currently exploring that period in an exhibition at the Steingraeber piano factory in Bayreuth. "These wartime festivals became a cultural showcase, intended to project the message that 'things aren't really so bad in Germany'," Mungen said. He chose not to attend the "Rienzi" premiere because the subject remains too personal.
The opera's dramaturge Markus Kiesel also believes it's essential to confront the controvery surrounding the piece. "Not performing the opera — or even banning it — would achieve nothing," Kiesel said. "On the contrary, we need to face these issues openly, creatively and honestly, and discuss them critically. If not in Bayreuth, then where?" Szemerédy added: "We have to build a bridge from the past to the future, especially at a time when right-wing populism is once again gaining strength and becoming a threat. That's exactly why this work needs to be performed today."
At the end of the opera, Rienzi dies, new elections are held, and two candidates emerge victorious.
Throughout Richard Wagner's operas, power, greed, cruelty, love until death and the destruction of the world are recurring themes. His 16-hour cycle "The Ring of the Nibelung," written for the Bayreuth Festspielhaus that he built specifically for it, explores these human impulses. The Rhine gold guarded by the Rhinemaidens becomes an object of universal desire — and ultimately brings catastrophe.
The piece has been reinterpreted in Bayreuth many times. Patrice Chéreau's landmark 1976 production presented "The Ring" as a parable about greed and the decline of capitalism. Frank Castorf later replaced the symbolism of gold with oil as the true source of capitalist power.
An AI reinvention
The festival's interpretation curated by Marcus Lobbes, has no stage director. Instead, Lobbes and his team developed a new AI-based imaging system in which the singers perform inside a holographic three-dimensional environment. "What appears on stage is a unified audiovisual image," Lobbes explained. "We create a visual landscape for both the singers and the orchestral performance." To generate the projections, the team trained the AI using archival material from previous Ring productions spanning from 1876 to 2024.
In "Das Rheingold," the first installment of the cycle, viewers see Rhinemaidens in bathtubs, lakes and streams, along with forests of trees, vines and vegetation alternating with wood and metal structures, creating shifting worlds between nature and industrial romanticism. Images crack apart, dissolve into one another and morph continuously. At times, the visuals are mesmerizing; at others, human faces become distorted beyond recognition.
Whether the technology can sustain audience interest over the entire 16-hour cycle remains to be seen. While the imagery is constantly in motion, the singers often stand almost motionless so as not to disrupt the projections. "The singers' positions are predetermined, but they can still interact with one another," Lobbes said. After the performance, one audience member joked that perhaps Siegfried and Sieglinde would eventually be blowing kisses at each other. Musically, however, the production boasts an outstanding cast, including Klaus Florian Vogt, Jochen Schmeckenbecher and Evelin Novak, with Christian Thielemann conducting. As one audience member put it: "If the AI becomes too much for me, I'll simply close my eyes and enjoy the music."
This article was originally written in German and edited by Tenzin Sekhon.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jul 30, 2026 02:50 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).
