Simone Young will become the first woman to conduct Richard Wagner’s Ring cycle in the Bayreuth opera festival’s 147-year history, and the first Australian conductor to perform at Germany’s annual celebration of the composer.
Young, 62, is one of three female conductors who will be taking part in this year’s festival, which has been held in Bavaria since 1876. The Ukrainian conductor Oksana Lyniv became the first woman ever to open the festival in 2021, after 145 years. She will return this year, along with the French conductor Nathalie Stutzmann, who was the second female conductor in Bayreuth’s history in 2023.
Young takes over from the conductor Philippe Jordan, who had to cancel due to “other commitments”, the festival said on Thursday. Young will conduct three cycles of the four-opera work from 28 July to 25 August.
Young is in her second season as chief conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, following positions as principal conductor of the Bergen Philharmonic from 1998-2002, artistic director of Opera Australia from 2001-03 and artistic director of the Hamburg State Opera and chief music director of the Hamburg Philharmonic from 2005-15.
She was also the first woman to conduct the Vienna State Opera, Paris Opera and Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, the first female conductor to record the complete Ring cycle and is regarded as one of the world’s leading interpreters of Wagner. She was the subject of a 2023 documentary, Knowing the Score.
“We are thrilled that Simone Young has been invited to conduct at the Bayreuth festival,” Craig Whitehead, the chief executive of Sydney Symphony Orchestra, said. He called the decision “a clear recognition of Simone’s status as one of the world’s great conductors of Wagner’s music”.
The Bayreuth festival was established by Wagner himself in 1876. It was at the inaugural event that Wagner gave the world premiere of the complete Ring cycle, which is made up of four operas – Das Rheingold; Die Walküre; Siegfried and Götterdämmerung – and regarded by many as the apex of the art form.
When Lyniv was appointed, Katharina Wagner, the great-granddaughter of Richard Wagner, said there had been few female conductors in the past to choose from, but a new generation “courageous enough” to learn to conduct was emerging.
Young’s performance at the Bayreuth festival will mean she will be replaced by conductors Jaime Martín and Pietari Inkinen for planned performances with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in July and August.
