I enjoyed the Minnesota Opera’s production immensely, but Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette (Romeo and Juliet) is not one of my favorite operas. Sitting in the front row of the Ordway on Sunday afternoon, October 2, 2016, I watched both actors and maestro have their respective moments of glory, of which Read more…
Since we’re looking at a Wagner opera – Das Rheingold – this month as our Opera of the Month, we need to discuss leitmotivs. By the end of this post, you should have a solid understanding of what a leitmotiv is, who used them, and why they’re useful. Opera Sense Read more…
I first met Laura Wilde during our sophomore year at St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN. At St. Olaf, it soon became obvious to everyone who listened to her that she was going to make something of herself in the notoriously competitive world of opera. Unsurprisingly, she’s done just that! Playing Freia in Lyric Opera of Chicago’s latest production of Wagner’s Das Rheingold, Wilde was gracious enough to answer a few questions about herself and the production for Opera Sense.
The libretto to Das Rheingold was the last one Richard Wagner wrote for Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung), but it was the first opera of the cycle that he composed music for. This opera serves as the prologue in his epic Ring tetralogy, with the next three operas being Die Walküre, Siegfried, and Götterdämmerung. Rheingold premiered in Munich in 1869, but it was not until 1876 that it was performed as part of the first complete cycle at the legendary Bayreuth Festspielhaus theater (a theater designed by Wagner and built specifically for the Ring) in Bayreuth, Germany. The annual Bayreuth festival continues to this day.
