Los Angeles Philharmonic Die Walküre

Walt Disney Concert Hall

Photo by Lisa Hirsch

I don't usually do review round-ups for performances I haven't seen, but in this case, I will. A semi-staged Die Walküre was among Gustavo Dudamel's last performances as music director of the LA Phil. I had thought of going, but I thought I had no hope of getting press tickets; writers in Southern California had the assignments for SFCV and Parterre Box. But Michael Strickland got a press ticket for one act, so maybe I could have as well. (Of course, I would have missed last week's excitement if I'd been away.)

The opera was performed twice, both times one act per night, and yes, if you wanted to see the whole thing you needed three tickets, with prices going up to $350 per. (Ouch.) Jim Farber mentions the enormous overtime that two regular performances would have entailed; for S.F. Opera, my understanding is that performance overtime starts at five hours, which is shorter than Die Walküre typically runs.

Here are the reviews I've seen so far.

• Joshua Barone, N.Y. Times (gift link)
• Mark Swed, L.A. Times
• Michael Anthonio, Parterre Box
• Richard Ginell, SFCV
• Jim Farber, SFCV
• Harlow Robinson, Classical Voice North America
• Harvey Steiman, Seen and Heard International
• Matthew Richard Martinez, Bachtrack
• Michael Strickland, SF Civic Center
• David Bratman, Kalimac's Corner

Meanwhile....Joshua Kosman is in Berlin, seeing Donald Runnicles conducting Stephen Herheim's Ring at the Deutsch Oper Berlin. I might be just a little envious.

San Francisco Opera: Der Ring des Nibelungen Returns in 2028

 

Brandon Jovanovich (Siegmund) and Karita Mattila (Sieglinde)

Act 1, Die Walküre

June, 2018

Photo: Cory Weaver, courtesy of San Francisco Opera

Yesterday, San Francisco Opera announced the return of Francesco Zambello's production of Wagner's epic Der Ring des Nibelungen, for its third bring up. It'll be on stage at the War Memorial Opera House for three cycles in June, 2028, under the baton of music director Eun Sun Kim.

The company also announced casting for the three biggest roles:

• Baritone Brian Mulligan sings Wotan
• Soprano Tamara Wilson sings Brünnhilde
• Tenor Simon O'Neill sings Siegfried

Prior to 2028, there will be performances of Das Rheingold in the summer of 2027 and Die Walküre in fall, 2027. Those are subscription performances. There will also be single performances of Siegfried and Götterdämmerung in the late spring of 2028, just before the full stagings. Why? Well, at that point it will have been a decade since the previous production, and getting this monster on stage is complicated. There's been lots of turnover in the critical production crews (lighting, stagehands, costume, wig, makeup, etc.) and in the orchestra and chorus. The extra performances ensure that the full cycles will be at their best. 

Ticket prices haven't been announced yet. They'll go on sale to certain donor levels in October, 2026, then to other donor levels and the general public in 2027. 

Read all about the Ring at the San Francisco Opera web site.

Reporting:

• Joshua Kosman, S.F. Chronicle
• Lisa Hirsch, SFCV
• Patrick Vaz, The Reverberate Hills

Department of Speculation

Post, 2011 SFO Ring

San Francisco Opera hasn't announced when they're doing the Ring next, though since it's known that Eun Sun Kim will conduct, it'll be before her contract expires at the end of the 2030-31 season. Given the problematic financial environment for the arts just now, well, it could be a ways out. [Update: A couple of people have mentioned to me, and I have now seen with my own eyes, that Opera says it'll be in June, 2028. They're usually quite well informed.]

Still, as I wrote in my Santa Fe Die Walküre review, we're at a moment of generational change in Wagner singing. Let's take some time to speculate as to who might be in the next SFO Ring. I have absolutely no inside information on casting; these are strictly my hallucinations. Also, my lists are in alphabetical order, not the order in which I'd like to see these roles cast.

Wotan

• Nicholas Brownlee
• Ryan Speedo Green (singing his first this year, in Santa Fe and LA; apparently signed for the next Met Ring)
• Brian Mulligan (sang it in Europe, in concert, with YNS)

Fricka / Waltraute / Norn

• Jamie Barton
• Tanja Ariane Baumgartner
• Raehann Bryce-Davis
• Irene Roberts
• Sarah Saturnino
• Annika Schlicht

Alberich

• Tomas Konieczny
• Falk Struckmann

Brünnhilde

• Lise Davidsen (can SFO pay her fees?)
• Christine Goerke
• Anja Kampe (an impressive Isolde last year in SF)
• Camilla Nylund (an impressive Kaiserin in 2023 in SF)
• Tamara Wilson

Sieglinde

• Vida Miknevičiūtė
• Irene Roberts (I know, I know, she's a mezzo, but believe me she has the vocal chops for this)
• Elisabeth Strid
• Suggestions from Charles Bush, hoisted from the comments, with my own comments added:
• Jennifer Holloway
• Elza van den Heever. By the end of 2025-26, she'll have been back at SFO for three productions, which makes her a strong candidate to be included in the Ring.
• Rachel Willis-Sorensen. I hear that she is aiming away from Wagner, but yes, she'd be great. Such a beautiful voice.

Siegmund

• Clay Hilley
• Brian Jagde
• Brandon Jovanovich
• Jamez McCorkle
• Simon O'Neill
• Russell Thomas
• Suggestions from Charles Bush, hoisted from the comments, with my own comments added:
• John Matthew Myers. I've seen him twice, in Gurrelieder, jumping in for Jovanovich, and as Iopas in the truncated Seattle Les Troyens. He's very impressive.
• Michael Spyres. HELL YES.

Siegfried

• Daniel Brenna
• Clay Hilley
• Simon O'Neill?
• Andreas Schager
• Stefan Vinke
• Suggestions from Charles Bush, hoisted from the comments:
• Klaus Florian Vogt (?)
• Michael Spyres (!?!)
  

Loge / Mime

• Russell Thomas
• Brenton Ryan
• Suggestions from Charles Bush, hoisted from the comments, my own comment added:
• Sean Panikkar. Oh, I wonder if he's a plausible Siegmund? He was wonderful in the L.A. Satyagraha and more recently as Stravinsky's Oedipus at SFS.

Hunding / Hagen

• Peixin Chen
• Jongwon Han
• Soloman Howard

Who do you like?

Views of the New Bayreuth Ring

Valentin Schwarz directs, Cornelius Meister conducts.

• Zachary Woolfe, NY Times
• Mark Berry, Boulezian
• Das Rheingold
• Die Walküre
• Siegfried
• Götterdämmerung 
• Martin Kettle, The Guardian

San Francisco Opera Ring Festival

Ring Festival Trailer

Courtesy of San Francisco Opera

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, San Francisco Opera is streaming its 2018 Ring production on consecutive Saturdays this month, with each opera available until late the day after the stream starts. In addition, there is a fantastic lineup of interviews, panel discussions, and lectures. You can see the full schedule on the company's calendar.  The Festival kicks off at 1 p.m. today, with Ring director Francesca Zambello, conductor Donald Runnicles, bass-baritone Greer Grimsley and San Francisco Opera General Director Matthew Shilvock talking about the production; you can see Das Rheingold starting tomorrow.

The non-opera events are available live and on demand; you can see individual events for $15 or buy a Festival Pass ($99 for the general population; $69 for SFO donors at $75 or more). There are free passes for high school and college teachers and students as well. Details here.

I am generally opposed to music that starts as soon as you open a web page, but I do kinda wish I could have the Valhalla motive play when you view this post! Absent that, here's an excerpt from a 1951 Ring performance, which you can play or not. The video above is accompanied by....perhaps more generally familiar music from the Ring.

Goodbye, Robert Lepage, Hello, Richard Jones!

Interior of The Coliseum, London

November, 2019

Photo by Lisa Hirsch

The English National Opera is launching a new Ring production, directed by Richard Jones and conducted by Martyn Brabbins . We've seen a couple of Richard Jones stagings in SF, a superb and well traveled Hansel und Gretel and a somewhat less successful Queen of Spades. They're starting out this fall -- they hope -- with The Valkyrie, with Rheingold, Siegfried, and Twilight of the Gods to follow. 

There's going to be a new translation, by John Deathridge. The previous production, of which I saw The Valkyrie in 2004, used a Jeremy Sams translation that I didn't like one bit. I am puzzled at why this revival doesn't use Andrew Porter's magnificent singing translation from the 1970s, but whatever.

I don't see any casting details on the ENO web site, but let me quote from the announcement:

English National Opera (ENO) is to bring Wagner’s Ring Cycle to the London Coliseum, starting with The Valkyrie this Autumn, subject to any further lockdown restrictions. Directed by the award-winning Richard Jones, and marking the first time in more than 15 years since ENO last staged The Ring, all four parts of The Ring Cycle will be staged at the London Coliseum over five years. Rhinegold will premiere in 2022/23 followed by a reprise of The Valkyrie, and new productions of Siegfried and Twilight of the Gods in 2024 and 2025 consecutively. The Metropolitan Opera is co-producing.

Bayreuth Festival Cast Cast Change

In other Wagner news, Christine Goerke has withdrawn from her scheduled Bayreuth Festival debut, which was to be as the Götterdämmerung Brünnhilde this summer, when the role will be divided among three sopranos. She is not currently able to appear in productions in Europe with very long rehearsal periods. The Festival's announcement notes that Goerke will appear in 2023 as Isolde in their new production of Tristan und Isolde, and also says that they are sorry about her withdrawal but they understand the circumstances.

Irene Theorin, who was a wonderful Brünnhilde in the last SFO Ring, replaces Goerke.

Yes, I just might take a vacation in Germany in 2023.

Lyric Opera Ring Cast Change

And it's a big one: Eric Owens, scheduled to sing Wotan, has withdrawn from the Ring, which starts in mid-April, "to undergo treatment for ongoing health issues."

Replacing Owens:

Das Rheingold: Brian Mulligan (with another singer taking Donner, which Mulligan was to sing)

Die Walküre and Siegfried: Alan Held

Best wishes to Eric Owens; hoping for successful treatment and a full recovery.

The Secret Life of Scenic Elements

The 1998 Seattle production of Tristan und Isolde, by Francesca Zambello, had an astonishingly beautiful Act II, in which Jane Eaglen and Ben Heppner were set afloat in the night sky during the love duet. Here's a screen shot showing the set after King Marke and his men show up; Michelle De Young, who sang Brangäne, is on top of the glass hut:

This production was done once in Seattle and once in Chicago, also with Heppner and Eaglen, in maybe 2001. It was supposed to be staged by San Francisco Opera in 2006, but the company wound up using David Hockney's production instead. (My bet: the Seattle production would have cost too much to fit to the War Memorial Opera House stage, or maybe it was not in good enough condition. Seattle Opera used a different production for their most recent staging as well.)

Here's a screen shot I took from the promotional video for the upcoming Lyric Opera of Chicago Ring; the scenic element in the middle must be Valkyrie Rock and the scene must be Siegfried Act III:

(Yes, I am debating a trip to Chicago in the spring....)

O heilige Götter!

Closing scene of Die Walküre

Greer Grimsley (Wotan), Iréne Theorin (Brünnhilde)

Photo: Corey Weaver / San Francisco Opera

My review of San Francisco Opera's Der Ring des Nibelungen is now posted at San Francisco Classical Voice. I haven't re-read it yet; I did some editing this morning around 6 a.m. and, as always, I have doubts.

Covering four operas in one review is tough. I took a tack I usually don't, with some comparisons to the 2011 bring up. I think this is reasonable, especially since, overall, the company fielded a much better cast than in 2011. Still, I had to omit so much detail!

In addition, I have some thoughts that really aren't appropriate for a review, though they're fine for a blog post. For this cycle, I decided to sit in my subscription seats up the in Dress Circle, rather than in the Orchestra with the rest of the press corps. This had the advantage of giving me a great view of the stage and better sound than you get from the usual seats, where you can hear the echo off the audience-left wall and from which it is difficult to judge orchestral balances and orchestra/singer balances.

Those were the gains. The loss was in being pretty far from the action versus sitting in the orchestra. Even with binoculars, I felt somewhat removed from the drama, especially since the last time I saw the Ring, I was in about row 6 of the Festspielhaus in Bayreuth. That was intimate, and, yeah, I missed that.

That said, I'm pretty darned happy with what I saw and heard in the opera house. Donald Runnicles has the orchestra playing fabulously well, and there's a lot of terrific singing. I should really have managed an "Iréne Theorin saves the day" statement someplace in my review. It's amazing to me that she could come into this production on a month's notice, arriving after that, and learn the staging so fast, then give such a wonderful performance. San Francisco Opera is very, very lucky that she was available and willing to step in.

It's not too late to get tickets, although they will probably be expensive tickets; the less-expensive seats undoubtedly sold out a while ago. This is a good production, and it would be hard to assemble a better cast and conductor.

About that Sunday, June 24, SF Opera Götterdämmerung Performance

I'm looking at SFO's Ring Festival Guide, a handy brochure that's packed full of practical information about attending operas at the War Memorial Opera House.

The last two pages are taken up with "Getting to the Opera House," definitely useful if you're an out-of-towner. There is a tiny, tiny note as follows at the bottom of page 8:

Shuttle is not available for the Cycle 2 Götterdämmerung on Sunday, June 24.

Oh, dear.

The shuttle in question is the Chariot shuttle that does pickup at Civic Center BART and dropoff at the Opera House before performances, reversing that after performances.

The note is...incomplete. The reason the shuttle won't be available is that Civic Center Plaza and a couple of blocks around its circumference will be completely impassable on Sunday afternoon, June 24, because about a half-million people will be crammed in there celebrating GLBTIA Pride Day.

Everybody at SFO, gay or straight, is aware of this, because there is always a performance on Pride Sunday. Perhaps the mob scene should be discreetly noted on this page in the brochure? If you're on foot, you need to allow 20 extra minutes, maybe more, to get to the opera house.

It is true that SFO does send out email a couple of days before Pride Sunday to known ticketholders, so that'll help, but I'm in favor of heavy documentation, so I'd put it in the brochure....and in the Siegfried program, as an insert. Yeah, half the audience will faint because they're worried that Irene Theorin or Daniel Brenna is sick, but they'll recover.

Whoa: Herlitzius Withdraws from SFO Ring; Theorin Steps In

Evelyn Herlitzius has withdrawn from the upcoming San Francisco Opera production of Der Ring des Nibelungen, owing to health reasons. Irene Theorin will replace her.

A note or two before the press release: SFO says that got the news from Herlitzius on Monday and she contacted them from her home in Dresden (she isn't in SF yet, in other words).

Today is Wednesday. Brünnhildes don't grow on trees and a lot of luck is involved with the company's ability to hire Theorin: she has a break between performances in April and performances in the fall. Nina Stemme is committed to a Parsifal that opens in late June; Christine Goerke is currently in rehearsals for Lohengrin in London; Catherine Foster might be available; can't tell from Operabase. (Foster sang the production in DC a couple of years ago.) The only other possibly available sopranos I can see are Lise Lindstrom and Linda Watson.

All that said, best wishes to Evelyn Herlitzius for a return to health; her withdrawal must be a huge disappointment to her, SFO, and her fans.

Single Tickets to SFO Ring Go On Sale May 1, 2018

From San Francisco Opera:

SAN FRANCISCO, CA (April 25, 2018) — Beginning Tuesday, May 1 at 10 a.m., tickets to individual performances within Richard Wagner’s four-opera cycle, Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung), will be available for purchase. Previously offered only as complete cycle packages, tickets for Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Siegfried and Götterdämmerung will go on sale for the first time.

Seats for all 12 performances in three full cycles of Wagner’s Ring presented by San Francisco Opera from June 12–July 1 may be purchased individually and in build-your-own cycles. Availability of tickets vary by section, date of performance and price with seats beginning at $100. 200 standing room tickets will be offered at 10 a.m. on the day of each performance; standing room tickets are $10 each, cash only, and limited to two tickets per person. Tickets to the Ring may be purchased online at sfopera.com/ring, by visiting the San Francisco Opera box office at 301 Van Ness Avenueand calling (415) 864-3330. Ticket pricing, except for standing room, subject to change.

San Francisco Opera Marketing Director Lisa Bullard said: “I’m pleased that after our successful 20-month Ring cycle subscription campaign, we are now able to offer all remaining tickets for each individual performance. Beginning May 1, music lovers can choose to attend one or more of the Ring operas. There are a limited number of great seats remaining for all 12 performances.”

During San Francisco Opera’s subscription campaign for the Ring, ticket sales have been robust and far-ranging. To date, audiences for the summer 2018 cycles hail from 48 states and 27 countries, including Australia, Brazil, Finland, Iceland, Mexico, Poland and Singapore.

San Francisco Opera presents Wagner’s Ring cycle—one of the most ambitious musical and theatrical works ever conceived—with an internationally-renowned cast of Wagnerian artists, featuring soprano Evelyn Herlitzius as Brünnhilde, bass-baritone Greer Grimsley as Wotan, tenor Daniel Brenna as Siegfried, soprano Karita Mattila as Sieglinde, tenor Brandon Jovanovich in the roles of Siegmund and Froh, mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton as Fricka and Waltraute, and many others, directed by Francesca Zambello and under the baton of leading Wagnerian interpreter Donald Runnicles. For complete cast and more information, visit sfopera.com/ring.

In anticipation of the Ring, San Francisco Opera presents an ongoing Ring Festival of lectures, film screenings, panel discussions and musical performances lasting through the end of the third cycle. One highlight among the many Festival offerings are a series of Wagner chorus concerts featuring the San Francisco Opera Chorus on each Thursday (June 14, 21 and 28) during the three cycles. For a complete schedule of Ring Festival events from now through July 1, visit sfopera.com/ringfestival.

San Francisco Ring Tickets Available for Cycle 1

A co-worker of mine won't be able to see the Ring this June after all, and he is trying to rehome them. They're for Cycle 1:

Das Rhengold, June 12 7:30 p.m.
Die Walküre, June 13 7 p.m.
Siegfried, June 15, 6 p.m.
Götterdämmerung, June 17, 1 p.m.

The seats are in Balcony 1, which is the frontmost section of the Balcony. The seats are D-115 and 117. Here's a seating chart. I am not sure how easy it is to see the OperaVision screens from there.

I can put you in touch with him. Email me at lhirsch@gmail.com or DM me on Twitter and I'll pass along his email address.