Opera Online

WAGNER Die Walküre: Act I, arranged by Francis Griffin

One of the most exciting new elements planned for MahlerFest XXXIII was Opera Underground : Wagner Live from the Twenty Ninth Street Parking Garage.

Twenty Ninth Street is happy to have us next season so we can all experience this unique setting together in May 2021!

Stacey Rishoi – Sieglinde

Mahler was greatly influenced by Wagner. Both wrote for huge orchestras with a lot of brass instruments. They both also tried to work within the confines of tonal music while stretching those boundaries as far as they could go and perhaps past the breaking point. Mahler saw Wagner once in Vienna, the second time Wagner conducted his Lohengrin. Mahler was 16 and already admired Wagner but did not have the courage to introduce himself. As a conductor, Mahler performed Wagner often. His debut with the New York Metropolitan Opera on New Year’s Day 1908 was a performance of Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde.

“I saw the world end.” Richard Wagner

Inspired by a vision of the fall of the gods, Wagner embarked on writing of one of music’s most gigantic and powerful creations, the four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen. Die Walküre is the second opera in the cycle. In Wagner’s version of the story, the Volsung twins Sieglinde and Siegmund, separated in childhood, meet and fall in love. This union angers the gods who demand that Siegmund must die. Sieglinde and the couple’s unborn child are saved by the defiant actions of Wotan’s daughter, the title character, Valkyrie Brünnhilde, who as a result faces the gods’ retribution.

This version, arranged for chamber orchestra by Francis Griffin, was recorded by the English Symphony Orchestra under the baton of our own, Kenneth Woods and features the cast who would have reunited for our Opera Undergound performance: Stacey Rishoi as Sieglinde, Brennen Guillory as Siegmund, and Matthew Sharp as Hunding.

See Kenneth Woods‘s blog post, “Wagner’s Walküre – Who are these people and how did they get here?”

To be released on Saturday, May 16, 2020 at 3:30 PM MDT.

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