ABSTRACT
Between 2011 and 2014, Opera North (the national opera company for the north of England) produced its first Ring cycle at home in Leeds, also touring to several northern venues. This chapter takes an ethnographic approach, observing some of the work done by the company in and around the production. Opera North prepared its audience for a Ring cycle, but also worked to create and enhance audience demand for a Ring in Leeds, and to ensure the production's success by setting appropriate audience expectations during the processes of audience preparation. These expectations would be fulfilled by the bespoke production. For a Ring spread over four years (with a full cycle also planned for 2016), this creation and fulfilment of expectation and demand essentially became a cyclical process. It should be noted at the outset that an audience for any production is made up of various demographics. There is a Wagner audience that will travel nationally and internationally for a reception experience, and Opera North is, of course, aware of this element. In a private interview, Head of Music Martin Pickard acknowledged to me an audience of ‘Wagnerites’. 1 Opera North Technical Manager Peter Restall also anticipated an ‘audience of aficionados’. 2 However, the Opera North Ring was heavily marketed to an audience of Wagner (and certainly Ring cycle) beginners. This may seem incongruous; however, as Pickard indicated to me, the seasoned Wagner followers will attend regardless of marketing focus or measures to familiarize audiences with Wagner's music. It remains sensible then for the company to cater, in terms of access and marketing, for those more locally that might otherwise not experience a Ring. When I asked Pickard why the focus on an audience new to the Ring was so important, his answer was largely geographical: because Opera North had not produced a Ring, its core audience had not been specifically provided with one and could not necessarily have been expected to see one elsewhere. Opera North has, in Leeds, a particularly loyal andfixed audience base. 3 These local operagoers reside hundreds of miles away from any other comparable company, thus it might be reasonable to assume their direct experience of live Wagner productions to be limited. The years approaching the bicentenary of Wagner's birth (2013) have produced a comparative spate of Ring productions, but prior to this there is a sense in which Ring cycles have been few and far between within the boundaries of our lifetimes and physical locations. For many audience members, taking into account issues of geography and finance, this Ring cycle could, in real terms, be a singular opportunity, and so, in this context, a Ring for beginners does not seem to be an unreasonable starting point.
