RING Festival 2026

The Ring of the Nibelung Festival makes its grand return to the Paris Opera

THE EVENT RING 2026

An event bringing together an exceptional cast of performers in a production by Calixto Bieito and under the musical direction of Pablo Heras-Casado.

Alongside this vast musical and theatrical odyssey of four operas, an exhibition dedicated to the Ring and a series of talks with the artistic teams and leading specialists are being offered—an invitation to discover or rediscover this mythological universe that so powerfully resonates with our own time.

Talks

The Ring: A Challenge in Performance

with Isabelle Moindrot, Professor of Theater Studies and Richard Peduzzi, Set Designer

A monumental work in four parts spanning over sixteen hours, The Ring of the Nibelung takes us on a journey through a series of worlds shaped by profound moral questions, where humans, gods, and fantastical beings intertwine.

Its staging represents a true artistic challenge.

Wagner: A Cinematic Universe at the Goethe Institut

with Laurent Guido, Professeur en histoire du cinéma et Jacques Martineau, cinéaste

For his tetralogy, Richard Wagner conceived a theatre of his own — the Bayreuth Festspielhaus — offering staging conditions strikingly close to those of cinema, long before the invention of the seventh art.

Ever since, the film world has continually referenced the composer, revealing the dramatic potential of his music.

Next Talks

The Revolutions of the Ring

at the Maison Heinrich Heine

Wednesday 18 November
at 6:30 pm
with Jean-François Candoni, Professor of Germanic Studies and Patrick Lang, Professor (HDR) in Philosophy and Music

When Wagner began conceiving his tetralogy, he took part in the revolutionary uprisings in Dresden alongside the anarchist thinker Mikhail Bakunin.

Inspired by the social and philosophical debates of the early nineteenth century, the composer went on to revolutionize opera, creating a dramatic form unlike any other.

^{In French and English
Available for replay the next day}

The Ring: A Visual Music

at the Amphithéâtre Olivier Messiaen

Friday 20 November
at 6:30 pm
with Pablo Heras-Casado, Conductor

The four scores of The Ring of the Nibelung contain around a hundred leitmotifs — thematic cells that give musical identity to characters, objects, and emotions.

These motifs and their variations contribute, alongside the libretto itself, to the development of the narrative and to its strikingly visual dimension.

^{In French and English
Available for replay the next day}

Exhibition - Richard Wagner, The Ring Revolutions

from 27 October 2026 to 20 February 2027 inclusive

As part of the new production of Richard Wagner’s Ring cycle at the Opéra Bastille, the Paris Opera is joining forces with the Bibliothèque nationale de France for an exhibition devoted to Wagner’s monumental tetralogy — a unique theatrical and musical creation, revolutionary in many respects, that continues to captivate a wide audience.

Bringing together works from the BnF’s collections, as well as from museum institutions and private collections, the exhibition explores the cultural and political context in which the Ring took root, its formal characteristics, the challenges it poses in performance, and its enduring legacy in the arts.