Tickets On Sale Now for the Lyric's New RING CYCLE

Tickets for Lyric Opera of Chicago's enthralling new production of Richard Wagner's epic Der Ring des Nibelungen are now on sale.

Lyric's musically and theatrically unforgettable new staging of this four-part masterpiece can be seen in its entirety for the first time when the world-renowned opera company presents the Ring cycle three times in the spring of 2020. Go to lyricopera.org/RING or call 312-827-5600 to reserve before the cycles sell out.

"There is no greater challenge, and no greater opportunity, for an opera company than to undertake a new Ring cycle," says Anthony Freud, Lyric's general director, president & CEO. "The vocal, orchestral, visual, and technical requirements are extraordinary, and so are the rewards -- first and foremost for our audience, but also for the artists, the musicians, and everyone behind the scenes. It is truly a life-changing experience. "

Lyric's outstanding international cast stars Christine Goerke as Brünnhilde, Eric Owens as Wotan/Wanderer, Burkhard Fritz as Siegfried, Samuel Youn as Alberich,Tanja Ariane Baumgartner as Fricka/Waltraute, Elisabet Strid and Laura Wilde as Sieglinde, Brandon Jovanovich as Siegmund/Froh, Stephen Milling as Hunding/Hagen, Ronnita Miller as Erda/First Norn, Stefan Margita and Robert Brubaker as Loge, Matthias Klink as Mime, Soloman Howard as Fafner, and Henning von Schulman as Fasolt.

Das Rheingold opened Lyric's 2016/17 season, followed by Die Walküre in 2017/18 and Siegfried in 2018/19. Götterdämmerung, the final opera of the tetralogy, will have just two performances in early April 2020, before the three full cycles commence.

Directed by David Pountney, Lyric's Ring will be conducted by music director Sir Andrew Davis, who also led Lyric's 2005 cycle performances. It is the esteemed British director's first full Ring cycle and the first all-new North American Ring cycle since 2012. "When Sir Andrew and I first spoke to David about creating Lyric's new Ring, we told him we wanted to reclaim this masterpiece for the theater," Freud says. "David has set each opera within the framework of an old theater, yet within that structure, the worlds of each opera are quite different."

An incomparably revelatory, exhilarating, and immersive experience awaits Lyric's Ringticket-holders, who will travel to Chicago from around the world next spring. They will see and hear the four-part cycle in a communal journey over the course of a single week, as Wagner intended.

They can also participate in a full slate of ancillary activities (talks, tours, tastings, comedy, recitals, and more) during each cycle, to enhance and illuminate their Ringjourney.

There are just three weeks in 2020 in during which to experience Lyric's new Ring:

Cycle 1: April 13, 14, 16, 18

Cycle 2: April 20, 21, 23, 25

Cycle 3: April 27, 29, May 1, 3 (matinees)

Pountney's extraordinary creative team for Lyric's Ring includes original set designerJohan Engels (1952-2014), set designer Robert Innes Hopkins, costume designerMarie-Jeanne Lecca, lighting designer Fabrice Kebour, and choreographer Denni Sayers. (Engels, Lecca, and Kebour also collaborated with Pountney on the stunning production of Weinberg's The Passenger, seen at Lyric in the 2014/15 season.)

The Ring is a treasured pursuit for devotees of Wagner's majestic through-composed musical storytelling, inspired by multiple mythologies. "Ringheads" or "Ring nuts," as these enthusiasts sometimes call themselves, travel the world to experience as many different cycles as possible. When Lyric sold out its first and second full Ring cycles in 1996 and 2005, visitors came from every state and 20+ foreign countries. Groups from New York, Boston, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, Austria, Australia, New Zealand have already purchased tickets for Lyric's new Ring production.

Those who haven't yet embarked on the Ring journey can be assured that the storytelling is powerfully compelling and will quickly draw them in, with characters frequently providing backstories to keep the narrative strands clearly defined.

Savvy fans of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy, the Game of Thrones series, and theStar Wars movies are also drawn to Wagner's massive masterpiece, which inspired and influenced those works and many others. (Common elements include power struggles, greed, incest, supernatural creatures, disguises, and magical powers.) Those who have enjoyed giving themselves over to these absorbing series on large and small screens will be blown away by the power and intimacy of the live music and drama embodied by Wagner's Ring, and the singular experience of binge-watching these riveting live performances over the course of a single week.

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