Back in business with a bang! Making up for lost time, the festival founded by and dedicated to Richard Wagner unveils new productions of not only the four-evening epic Der Ring des Nibelungen but also Tristan und Isolde, that mammoth fantasia of love and death. Mounting the “Ring” cycle in one fell swoop (rather than in installments spaced out over months or even years) is a tour de force no institution but this one used to attempt and remains a rarity. Adding yet another huge and difficult work to the mix is tempting fate. Raising the stakes, the directors and conductors are all new to the celebrated “Green Hill.” Roland Schwab, a disciple of the late titan (and Bayreuth mainstay) Götz Friedrich, directs Tristan und Isolde, in partnership with Cornelius Meister on the invisible podium. As previously reported, the “Ring­”­—postponed from 2020—has been entrusted to the rising Austrian director Valentin Schwarz and the Finnish conductor Pietari Inkinen, neither a household name. The casts are dominated by Bayreuth regulars; the one everyone is talking about is the Norwegian phenomenon Lise Davidsen, on call for the war bride Sieglinde in the “Ring” cycle as well as for saintly Elisabeth in Tannhäuser. —Matthew Gurewitsch