One more time he returns to the Dutch National Opera: Pierre Audi's take on Die Walküre. The production that made me (almost 20 years ago) a lover of opera and a Wagner aficionado in particular.
With music that is firmly anchored in soundtracks and movies (Apocalypse Now and Bugs Bunny) is Die Walküre a piece of genre-transgressing theater. Just as you don't have to love pop music to like The Beatles and don't have to be a jazz cat to appreciate Miles Davis' Kind of Blue & Birth of the Cool-period from the 1950s, you don't have to be acquainted with opera to have a (very) satisfying night in the theater with Die Walküre.
A space with a central role for the orchestra, situated in the middle of the stage. It is a kind of reversed Bayreuth construction (where the orchestra is under the stage), but it works. As in Bayreuth, the sound of the instruments and the singers come together on stage before they are taken into the auditorium.
Compared to Hartmut Haenchen, Marc Albrecht, for example, conducts broader tempi. This demands something extra of the singers stamina. It seemed to give Iain Paterson - by moments - some trouble. The baritone of this Wotan suffered - especially in the third act - from a somewhat nausal vocal delivery. Paterson turned out not to be one hundred percent fit, a shortcoming that will be remedied with a few days of rest. Wotan's extramarital daughters, the Walküre sisters (fruits of fornication between the chief god and the goddess of the earth, Erda, at the end of Das Rheingold), formed in their interpretation and equipment with militant silver wings a combo in which the whole was greater than the sum of its parts.
Dates: 16 November until 8 December 2019
Conductor: Marc Albrecht
Netherlands Philharmonisch Orchestra
Stage direction: Pierre Audi
Decor: George Tsypin
Costumes: Eiko Ishioka, Robby Duiveman
Siegmund: Michael König
Hunding: Stephen Milling
Wotan: Iain Paterson
Sieglinde: Eva-Maria Westbroek
Brünnhilde: Martina Serafin
Fricka: Okka von der Damerau
Gerhilde: Dorothea Herbert
Ortlinde: An de Ridder
Waltraute: Kai Rüütel
Schwerleite: Julia Faylenbogen
Helmwige: Christiane Kohl
Siegrune: Bettina Ranch
Grimgerde: Eva Kroon
Rossweisse: Iris van Wijnen