Die Walküre: Riga Opera Festival

Over het evenement

The Riga Opera Festival presents Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen. Die Walküre is the second opera of the cycle: a powerful story about greed, love, lust and intrigue.

The young Siegmund doesn’t even realise that he is the one who could save the gods from destruction. But his father Wotan, ruler of the gods, has given in to the desires of his jealous wife and sentences his son to death. Wotan’s daughter interferes unexpectedly – the courageous Valkyrie Brünnhilde, whose heart has been overcome with compassion. However, the price to be paid for disobedience is high…

“In his passionate musical drama Die Walküre, Wagner confronts issues such as adultery, incest, betrayal and murder. Almost all of these, however, are motivated by love. In his production, Viestur Kairish focuses on the existential conflict between love and politics. The battle is fought, won and lost in the privacy of Hunding’s house as much as it is publically in an arena. It’s a timeless conflict, as old as mankind itself, wrapped in the hypnotic beauty of Wagner’s music,” says dramaturge of the LNO production Jochen Breiholz.

The Riga Opera Festival, founded in 1998 as the first festival of its size and scale in Eastern Europe, has already become a valuable tradition. The festival is highly anticipated by both Latvian audiences and opera‐lovers from abroad who form the biggest part of all Riga Opera Festival’s visitors. Every summer, the festival marks the end of the Latvian National Opera’s performance season with an overview of the best moments of the previous year, offering fans a chance to relive their favourite scenes or see what they’ve missed.

Production
Conductor: Cornelius Meister
Director : Viestur Kairish
Dramaturg: Jochen Breiholz
Dramaturgical Collaboration: Margarita Zieda
Set and Costume Designer : Ilmārs Blumbergs
Lighting Designer : Kevin Wyn‐Jones
Choreographer: Agris Daņiļēvičs

Performed in German with Latvian and English surtitles.