Designer Johan Engels Has Died But Lyric Opera S Ring Cycle Creative Team Soldiers On

• Deanna Isaacs
• Lyric Opera’s Ring team: Rob Kearley, Denni Sayers, David Pountney, Marie-Jeanne Lecca, and Matthew Rees

Set designer Johan Engels was a nearly palpable presence at Lyric Opera’s press briefing with its very subdued Ring cycle creative team on Tuesday.

And Rees’s models for the Ring sets, built to Engel’s specifications and embodying his vision, were in the room—hidden behind blackout curtains.

But this much was clear: we won’t be seeing any revisionist spins on the Germanic myth making that (along with his anti-Semitism) made Wagner a Nazi-era favorite. Wagner was a musical genius, Pountney said, and he worked on the Ring cycle over a 20-year period: “To narrow the vision that yielded is incredibly stupid.” Poutney is simply going to “tell the story,” and it’ll be the audience’s job to decide for themselves what it means.

“What we’re here to do is to preserve Johan’s amazing work,” Pountney said, but freezing it “would not be in his service.” Another set designer will be hired.