| Date and venue | Title |
|---|---|
| 18-Oct-2012 Royal Opera House, Covent Garden | Connolly and Terfel stand out in a thought-provoking Walküre at Covent Garden |
 If you've been brought up with the Judaeo-Christian ideal of an all-powerful, all-good God, Norse mythology can come as a bit of a shock. Wotan, the father of the gods, is philandering, deceitful, power-hungry, sentimental, violent and ultimately weak - the gamut of human frailties writ large. Combine all of those with a magic spear and the ability to control the weather and you know that things aren't going to end well.
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| 16-Jun-2012 Leeds Town Hall | Opera North: Die Walküre |
 Opera North’s concert staging of Wagner’s Ring Cycle continued last night with Die Walküre, the “first night” proper of the cycle after the “preliminary evening” of Das Rheingold. Following the godly power struggles that play out in Das Rheingold, there is a change of emphasis in Die Walküre, which takes us into an intense family drama – of the fourteen singers, one is Wotan himself, then there are his ten daughters, his son and his wife: only Hunding, Sieglinde’s wronged husband, is outside the clan.
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| 30-Jun-2011 Grange Park Opera, Northington | “Such dangerous fascinations” Tristan & Isolde at Grange Park Opera |
 History has cast a complex light on Wagner’s music and on Wagner the man. But Tristan & Isolde (Wagner’s enormous vision of erotic love) is an opera that can still resonate today. Nietzsche referred to its “dangerous fascinations”, “spine-tingling and blissful infinity“ and “voluptuousness”. This was Grange Park Opera’s first foray into Wagnerian opera. They are based in an award-winning built opera house tucked away behind the imposing bulk of The Grange, a partially ruined mansion in glorious Hampshire countryside.Read full review... | |
