Katie Lowe

Gathered at the foot of the rock where Siegfried and Brünnhilde have come together, three Norns weave the fate of the world. Past, present and future are interwoven in their rope; when it breaks unexpectedly, the fates still have one oracle: the twilight of the gods is imminent! Götterdämmerung has more than one ending: Siegfried falls victim to intrigue and to his own innocence, Valhalla goes up in flames, Brünnhilde sacrifices herself to return the ring to the Rhinemaidens. Alliances are forged and immediately broken again, magical potions and helmets create painful confusions, and generational traumas result in general destruction. Everything familiar to humans and gods collapses.

Siegmund and Sieglinde find themselves drawn together during a storm. Unbeknown to them their father is Wotan, chief of the gods, who through Siegmund hopes to retrieve a ring of ultimate power. Following Longborough Festival Opera’s critically acclaimed Das Rheingold, Wagner’s epic tale of Der Ring des Nibelungen continues with Die Walküre, conducted by Longborough’s Music Director Anthony Negus, ‘who probably knows The Ring better than any other living British conductor’ (The Times) and semi-staged by Amy Lane. The predominantly British cast shows several generations of great Wagnerian singers at their best.

If in ‘Das Rheingold’ the curtain fell with the hegemony of the gods in Valhalla, the second part of ‘Der Ring des Nibelungen’ opens with a mortal who, alone on Earth, faces a raging storm. Siegmund is called the hunted warrior, and when he briefly finds peace in a concealed hut, he meets the beautiful but equally hapless Sieglinde. An ardent and natural passion blossoms, but at the same time a hidden past surfaces that will seal their fate.