Longborough Festival Opera has announced the appointment of Harry Sever as their first Ring Cycle Conducting Fellow. Sever will work alongside Music Director and leading Wagnerian Anthony Negus as the festival works toward the cycle in 2024. The appointment comes following an audition process which saw eight conductors work with Negus on the opening scene of “Siegfried.” The panel was {…}
The Bayreuth Festival has announced a cast change for its upcoming 2022 Ring Cycle. The festival management announced that John Lundgren will sing Wotan in “Die Walküre” and Wanderer in “Siegfried” in the new “Ring des Nibelungen” in 2022. Lundgren will take over for Austrian bass Günther Groissböck who also canceled this summer’s production of “Walküre.” In a statement, the {…}
Photo: photoholgic Opera Australia’s rush to move its production of Wagner’s “Ring Cycle” from Sydney to Brisbane to avoid border closures hit a snag when Brisbane implemented a snap lockdown last weekend, according to an August 1, 2021 report by Linda Morris published in The Sydney Morning Herald. Opera Australia (OA) has a 10-day window to get the production to {…}
(Credits: Stefan Vinke / Iona MacPherson / Vitalij Kowaljow official website) Opera Australia has announced new dates for its production of Richard Wagner’s Ring cycle. Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the opera house was forced to postpone the production for 2021. Wagner’s acclaimed masterwork was originally been scheduled for November 2020. Per the new schedule, the season will now {…}
Thirty years ago, in June 1990, opera lovers were glued to their television screens for four consecutive weekday evenings as they experienced what Richard Wagner always intended: a consecutive-evening presentation of “Der Ring des Nibelungen.” Of course, his wish for four nights in a row was not realistic for the stage, given the demands it would place on musicians and {…}
(Credit: Bonnie Perkinson) Never mind one week—how about one day? Listeners looking for a one-day immersion in Wagner’s “Der Ring des Nibelungen” are in for a treat when Los Angeles Opera streams all four music dramas on Saturday, July 25 beginning at 8 a.m. PDT/11 a.m. EDT. The webcast will be available at LAOpera.org/LAOatHome. The stream continues musical offerings the {…}
Opera Australia has announced its 2020 Melbourne program, which will include staged operas, concert performances, and musicals. Operas Graeme Murphy will direct an “innovative and visually stunning” new production of Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly.” It will showcase how “the digital screens can be used to enhance the storytelling and opera experience,” says Artistic Director Lyndon Terracini in the press release. Japanese soprano Hiromi Omura {…}
The Metropolitan Opera Guild launched its second online course, “The Ring: Music, Motifs, and Magic,” on May 7, 2019. This course was preceded by “Libretti and Librettists.” According to the Guild’s website, the four-part course uses “video lectures, supplemental readings, and score excerpts” to examine Wagner’s “Der Ring des Nibelungen.” Prof. Victoria Bond will “provide insight into the musical evolution {…}
German soprano Evelyn Herlitzius, scheduled to make her San Francisco Opera debut as Brünnhilde in Wagner’s “Der Ring des Nibelungen,” has withdrawn from the upcoming engagement due to health reasons. In a personal statement from her home in Dresden, Evelyn Herlitzius wrote, “I regret very much that due to unforeseen health reasons, I am forced to withdraw from my Ring {…}
Staging a new production of a Ring cycle is always daunting because of history; no other opera is held up in comparison to previous productions more than Wagner’s grand gesamtkunstwerk. How David Pountney’s new production, now halfway complete at Lyric Opera of Chicago, holds up to history remains to be seen after his “Die Walküre” opened Wednesday night in front {…}
The Bayerische Staatsoper has announced its 2017-18 season, which will feature a whopping six new productions and a total of 41 operas. The season opens in Japan in September with the “Così fan tutte” officially kicking things off in Munich at the end of the month. The New Productions The first new production of the year will be Mozart’s “Le {…}