Avert your AIs
Bayreuth’s AI-powered “Ring 100010110” marred a first-rate cast and orchestra with nightmarish visuals and horrid dramaturgy.
Die Walküre
163 pieces since 2006 — at 8 companies, most often at Metropolitan Opera.
163
pieces
8
companies
21
years
Company Bayreuth Festival
Hoyoutubeho!
Scenes from the 1967 production of Die Walkuere from the Bayreuth Festival, stage direction by Wieland Wagner. Brunnhilde: Anja Silja; Siegmund: Jess Thomas; Sieglinde: Helga Dernesch; Wotan: Theo Adam. Thomas Schippers is the conductor.
Company Festival d'Aix-en-Provence
Hojotoho-kay
BelAir Classiques has released a DVD of a 2007 production of Die Walküre, filmed in HD at the Festival D’Aix en Provence, a co-production with Osterfestspiele Salzburg. While not an unwelcome addition to the numerous DVDs available of this work, it is certainly not an essential one. This production is just not bad enough to […]
Company Lyric Opera of Chicago
First action hero
Director David Pountney and his splendid designers have brought Lyric Opera of Chicago a visually spectacular Siegfried full of daring ideas.
Wow factor
The second installment of Lyric’s Ring Cycle proved an evening of glorious singing, moving drama, great conducting and orchestral playing.
Company Mariinsky Theatre
Ring à la russe
Wagner is becoming an important calling card for Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky Theatre.
Company Metropolitan Opera
For the first time
On this day in 1967 Herbert von Karajan bowed at the Metropolitan Opera in a new production of Die Walküre which he directed and conducted.
“A valiant if not completely successful attempt”
On this day in 1986, the Metropolitan Opera opened its season with a new production of Wagner’s Die Walküre.
Oh my goddess!
Die Walküre crystallizes the cycle’s questions, ideas, and stakes.
Give me a ‘Ring’ sometime
On this day in 1975 the Metropolitan Opera completed its first integral Ring cycle since 1962.
Dark shadows
On this day in 1967 Herbert von Karajan first appeared at the Metropolitan Opera conducting and directing Die Walküre.
For the birds
A “lone voice in the wilderness” booed Barbara Frittoli’s calamitous Nedda.
Lepage turner
“Near the end of Robert Lepage‘s production of Wagner’s Die Walküre, which opened at the Metropolitan Opera on Friday, there is a moment of arresting visual beauty. The raked stage slowly rises and, with the help of projections, turns into a looming, stark, snow-covered mountain. It’s a breathtaking transformation, one that encapsulates everything that’s wrong […]
Retirement of a thousand cuts continues
This just in from the Met press office: “On the advice of his doctors, James Levine will reduce his conducting dates at the Met for the rest of the current season while he continues to recover from recent procedures to alleviate back pain. His planned performances of Das Rheingold on March 30 and April 2 will […]
Company Opéra national de Paris
Get in the zone
Tamara Wilson and Stanislas de Barbeyrac are the standouts in Calixto Bieito’s underwhelming Die Walküre in Paris
Company Santa Fe Opera
Not in Kansas anymore
Christopher Corwin speaks to rising bass-baritone Le Bu about his journey from Yancheng, China to the Met (with a stop in Wichita) and what important roles await him.
Company Washington National Opera
That ’70s show
Washington National Opera followed up Monday’s lavishly praised Die Walküre with a Siegfried that, if not quite rising to the summit of the previous installment, delivered a musically committed and eminently watchable version of this complicated work.
Win a Free Ticket to Opening Night at the Met!
Quinn Kelsey and Lise Davidsen star in the Met's new Macbeth. We're giving away one ticket, so screw your courage to the sticking place and enter now!
I’ll take the fall
The days are getting shorter, but you can keep the prattle going this fall’s Talk of the Town! You will, you can, you must join in the discussion about: Great mezzo soprano performances (October),
Gained in translation (November), Teleport me back to… (December).
