Richard Wagner called Die Walküre the “first evening” of the Ring of the Nibelung; he called Das Rheingold the prologue or Vorabend. Musically and dramatically, we are introduced to a radically new and different world when the opening bars of Die Walküre resound. A fully developed orchestral...
The support group for opera addicts is in session, and its participants perform Prokofiev's Betrothal in a Monastery. Rarely performed outside Russia, and consigned to oblivion by Andrei Zhdanov's anti-formalist policies after the Second World War, the work is transformed by Dmitri Tcherniakov's...
Spanish opera and theater director Calixto Bieito makes his debut with this grand romantic opera at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, guiding the audience through his powerful interpretation. Elsa von Brabant is accused of fratricide, but no one dares to prove her innocence in this inexplicable...
In Siegfried, the “Second Day” or third evening of the Ring Cycle, we meet the pivotal hero of the epic tale. The energetic drive from Die Walküre is pursued here while Siegfried finally recaptures the mighty ring from Fafner the Dragon and awakens Brünnhilde from her penal sleep on the great...
