Pietari Inkinen to Conduct Wagner's "Der Ring des Nibelungen" at the 2020 Bayreuth Festival!
*In response to the COVID-19 issue, the new production of "Ring" is scheduled to be postponed until after 2022.
We have just received some surprising and very welcome news from Bayreuth, the holy land of Wagner's music.
We have received news that our Principal Conductor, Pietari Inkinen, has been entrusted with conducting the entire epic "The Ring of the Nibelung" (a new production, no less!) at the Bayreuth Festival.
Bayreuth is a prestigious orchestra where only historically renowned masters such as Furtwängler, Knappertsbusch, Boehm, Karajan, Sawallisch, Maazel, Kleiber, etc. have been allowed to conduct, and even today, Barenboim, Janowski, Thielemann, and Petrenko are still active, making it the true home of Wagner.
Fascinated by Wagner and having steadily built up a track record of performing his works, Inkinen finds conducting in Bayreuth an incredibly exciting and humbling experience.
You can sense his joy from his comments, which are unusually excited for the usually cool-headed Inkinen.
The Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, which has performed with Inkinen on numerous occasions and has walked alongside him, would like to warmly congratulate him on his embarkation into new territory.
Pietari Inkinen at the 2020 Bayreuth Festival Selected to conduct Wagner's "The Ring of the Nibelung"
Yesterday, July 24th, the Bayreuth Festival announced that Pietari Inkinen (from Finland) will be conducting the 2020 Wagner: Ring Cycle tetralogy (directed by Valentin Schwarz).
Inkinen is well known to Japanese music fans for his roles as Principal Conductor of the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra and his tours of Japan with the Prague Symphony Orchestra. He has also been actively involved with Wagner, performing his first Wagner work in concert format in Japan in 2013 with the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra in "Die Walküre Act 1" alongside Bayreuth singers. At his inaugural concert as Principal Conductor, he performed excerpts from "Siegfried" and "Twilight of the Gods," and finally, in 2017, he performed the complete "Das Rheingold" in concert format. Being selected to make his debut at the Bayreuth Festival's "Ring Cycle," which holds special meaning for a conductor, is a major challenge for Inkinen, and it will undoubtedly be an important stage.
Pietari Inkinen: Comment
"I am deeply honored to be able to add my name to the long list of legendary conductors who have had the honor of conducting this ultimate masterpiece of musical theatre in the unique environment of the Bayreuth Festival Theatre. Like many of the performers and audience, I too was afflicted early in life with the incurable disease of Wagner fever. To be able to immerse myself in Wagner and share the stage with so many highly talented and deeply experienced musicians in the special atmosphere of the festival will undoubtedly be a highlight of my musical career, both on and off the stage."
[Pietari Inkinen: Profile]
Throughout his career, Inkinen has had a deep and special connection with Wagner's music.
In 2013, he conducted Opera Australia's first Ring Cycle (directed by Neil Armfield) to critical acclaim, earning him the Helpmann Award for Best Music Direction in 2014. In 2016, he returned to Melbourne to conduct a revival of the same work, for which he was named the Green Room Award for Best Conductor in an Opera. In 2018, he conducted Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (directed by Kaspar Holten) at the same venue. He has previously conducted Graham Vick's productions of Die Walküre and Das Rheingold at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo, winning the Franco Abbiati Award for Best Show from the Italian National Association of Music Critics for Das Rheingold.
He has also conducted Wagner's operas in many concerts, and will be conducting his first Tristan und Isolde with Opera Queensland in 2020. The title role will be played by Simon O'Neill, a long-time collaborator with Inkinen, who also performed with him on the acclaimed recording of Wagner arias with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, released by EMI in 2010.
In September 2017, he became Principal Conductor of the Deutsche Radio Philharmonic Orchestra Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern. He also served as Principal Guest Conductor of the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra for seven years, before taking up the position in the 2016-17 season. Since 2015, he has also served as Principal Conductor of the Prague Symphony Orchestra. From 2008 to 2016, he served as Music Director of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, and is currently the orchestra's Honorary Conductor. From 2014 to 2019, he served as Principal Conductor of the Ludwigsburg Festival.
As a guest conductor, he has appeared with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, SWR Symphony Orchestra, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Staatskapelle Dresden, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Orchestra of the Academy of Fine Arts Santa Cecilia, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.He has also conducted opera at the Dresden State Opera, Finnish National Opera, Théâtre de la Monnaie, Berlin State Opera, and Bavarian State Opera.
Inkinen is currently recording the complete Dvořák and Prokofiev symphonies with the Deutsche Radio Philharmonic Orchestra Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern, which will be released by SWR Music. His first CD of Wagner works as the orchestra's principal conductor is scheduled for release on August 9, 2019. This first CD will include excerpts from Wagner's "Siegfried," featuring acclaimed Wagner singers Lise Lindström (Brünnhilde) and Stefan Finke (Siegfried), who have previously collaborated with Inkinen in Wagner works.
