Wagner: Die Walküre

• Opera

Richard Wagner’s opera »Die Walküre« is a passionate exploration of big themes such as love and betrayal, loyalty and rebellion. The god Wotan wanted to rule through contracts rather than violence but, as a result of broken promises, becomes increasingly entangled in problems until blood begins to flow. Finding no solutions, Wotan finally cries: »One thing alone do I want: the end!« But his daughter Brünnhilde thwarts his plans… At the Hamburg International Music Festival, there is an opportunity to experience the opera in historical original sound for the first time under conductor Kent Nagano.

At the festival, Kent Nagano is not conducting »his« orchestra, the Hamburg State Opera, but rather the Dresdner Festspielorchester, Concerto Köln and a top-class cast of soloists, who explore the playing and singing techniques of the 19th century. »More intimate tone colours, a more multi-layered and transparent sound, freed from the ballast of the centuries,« say the performers about the project, which seems to have been tailor-made for the transparent acoustics of the Elbphilharmonie Grand Hall. One of Wagner’s most famous pieces, the »Ride of the Valkyries« – famously used by director Francis Ford Coppola as background music to a helicopter attack in the anti-war film »Apocalypse Now« – thus sounds altogether different.

PERFORMERS

Dresdner Festspielorchester orchestra

Concerto Köln ensemble

Derek Welton bass baritone

Asa Jäger soprano

Sarah Wegener soprano

Maximilian Schmitt tenor

Patrick Zielke bass

Claude Eichenberger mezzo-soprano

Natalie Karl soprano

Chelsea Zurflüh soprano

Karola Schmid soprano

Ulrike Malotta alto

Ida Aldrian mezzo-soprano

Marie-Luise Dreßen mezzo-soprano

Eva Vogel alto

Jasmin Etminan alto

Kent Nagano conductor

PROGRAM

Richard Wagner
Die Walküre

Concert performance in German