Most audiences, however, are willing to cut the Volsung kids a bit of slack. Yes, there’s that little matter about the two being brother and sister.
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Once he meets Sieglinde, he senses that his life could be about to change. Siegmund is the Ring’s man of constant sorrow and his Volsung motif indicates a proud warrior who has had to fight for everything. Symphony orchestras around the world perform concert versions of Act One, and the 1935 Act One recording with Lauritz Melchior as Siegmund, Lotte Lehmann as Sieglinde, and Emmanuel List as Hunding, with Bruno Walter conducting the Vienna Philharmonic, is considered one of the greatest operatic performances ever put on disc. It is the shortest act in the Ring, lasting a bit more than an hour, with only three characters- all who are gone by early in Act Three. Walküre more than fills the gap, starting with the romance between the Volsung twins, Siegmund and Sieglinde in the opening act. Drama and power politics abound but other than Alberich’s grubby pursuit of the Rhinemaidens and the giant Fasolt’s high school-like crush on the goddess Freia, Rheingold provides little space for love or humanity.Īn audience of Wagner's time would have seen costumes like these in Die Walküre. Rheingold, despite its fast-moving action and musical glories, doesn’t register on the same personal level as Walküre. David Pountney, who is directing the four Ring productions for Lyric Opera of Chicago, sees elements of Ibsen, surely in advocacy of women’s rights and identity, spotlighted in his play A Doll’s House. Even Wotan, who came across as a bossy wheeler-dealer for much of Das Rheingold, the opening opera in the cycle, draws our sympathies by time the curtain falls. Yet audiences for nearly a century and a half have been more than willing to wait for the opera’s grand payoffs.īecause these are characters we care about, particularly Siegmund, Sieglinde and Brünnhilde. The music, often in minor keys, bespeaks strife, debate and anger. Much of the opera is foreboding and confrontational.
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It takes patience to mine Walküre’s treasures, musically and dramatically. Cosima was the daughter of Franz Liszt and the wife of maestro Hans von Bülow, who had conducted the world premieres of Tristan und Isolde and Die Meistersinger.īut Die Walküre’s appeal extends well beyond memorable music and an interesting back story. Wagner was about to marry Cosima von Bülow, with whom he already had produced three children. Minna often criticized Wagner’s wandering eye, most notably his relationship with Mathilde Wesendonck, the wife of a wealthy silk merchant who was a patron of Wagner’s.īy the time Walküre had its world premiere in Munich on J– featuring the real-life husband and wife duo of Henrich Vogel and Therese Vogel as Siegmund and Sieglinde – Minna had died.
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When Wagner composed Die Walküre between June 1854 and March 1856, his marriage to Minna Planer was disintegrating. Maud (1865-1903).Īnd considering that between the end of Das Rheingold and the opening of Walküre the god Wotan has sired at least eleven children (none with his wife, Fricka), there are noticeable biographical elements to the work, particularly Wagner’s less-thanfaithful relationship with his wife. “The Ride of the Valkyries,” painted by W.