Die Walküre
Music Drama in Three Acts
4th May 2025
Royal Opera House, London, United Kingdom
Composer Richard Wagner
Libretto Richard Wagner
Director Barrie Kosky
Orchestra Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
Conductor Antonio Pappano
Cast list at the bottom of post.
Let's talk about incest. For a long time I have wondered why this is a major theme in one of the most important operas in history. Seeing "Die Walkürie" live at the ROH forced me to pay close attention to the libretto, then I realised how it is a crucial plot device to show the conflict of morals, the struggles of defining the "free" hero (will), how even the gods reek of, and rule by, hypocrisy and fear, and the perennial fight between the love of power and the power of love. One needs to process the Ring cycle like a deep neural network - forward propagation gives you the story, backward propagation explains the philosophy - and we are currently processing the weights into and out of the second layer. Having read Nietzsche is incredibly important and useful at this point as all the themes can be cross-referenced. The Yggdrasil fragment from "Das Rheingold" returned in Act 2 as a backdrop for the deadly duel. Now blood flowed out from the same source where gold used to flow, again perpetually looked on by Erda - providing continuity from two years ago and setting up the theme of decay for the next two operas. It was also an artistic statement to highlight the destruction of Nature both in context and as a reflection of our current world. Costume choice was specific too - the ill-fated and backstabbed Siegmund, victim of multiple levels of toxic masculinity, was dressed in the colour of the Ukrainian flag. The Valkyries dressed as zombies trolleying out (literally) heaps of ash remains of fallen heroes was definitely a bold modern artistic take. Singing - sensational all round, Sieglinge and Siegmund in particular, very moving exchanges in Act 1; powerful father-daughter struggles between Brünnhilde and Wotan in Act 3. Antonio Pappano's musical direction was pure perfection - supporting the voices at the right level, dramatic when needed, layers and leitmotifs always transparent - for me it was a winning realisation of Wagner's vision of the total integration of music and drama. If you want to understand the appeal of Wagner, this was as good a live experience as it could get. Standing for 5.5 h was totally worth it.
Wotan - Christopher Maltman
Brünnhilde - Elisabet Strid
Sieglinde - Natalya Romaniw (replaces Lise Davidsen)
Siegmund - Stanislas de Barbeyrac
Fricka - Marina Prudenskaya
Hunding - Soloman Howard
Helmwige - Maida Hundeling
Ortlinde - Katie Lowe
Gerhilde - Lee Bisset
Waltraute - Claire Barnett-Jones
Siegrune - Catherine Carby
Rossweisse - Alison Kettlewell
Grimgerde - Monika-Evelin Liiv
Schwertleite - Rhonda Browne
Erda - Clare Almond
Concert Master - Magnus Johnston
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