Features

Michael Christie

Maestro Michael Christie on Minnesota Opera’s Das Rheingold

Maestro Michael Christie has been Music Director of the Minnesota Opera since the 2012 / 2013 season, and since that time he has helped shape the Minnesota Opera into the powerhouse it has become.

Maestro Michael Christie conducts

Maestro Michael Christie conducting

For the first time in its history, Minnesota Opera is putting on one of the four works from Richard Wagner’s epic Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung, or the Ring Cycle). Minnesota Opera patrons will have the privilege to hear Maestro Michael Christie conduct Das Rheingold (The Rhinegold), the prologue in the four-opera Cycle (the other three operas in the Cycle include Die Walküre, Siegfried, and Götterdämmerung), early next month.

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By Trevor Gillis, ago
Mario Antonio Marra

“The drama is very direct and true,” Mario Antonio Marra on Lyric Opera of Chicago’s Lucia di Lammermoor

With Lyric Opera of Chicago’s production of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor opening this weekend, we wanted to interview someone who is both intimately involved in the production and has a profound and personal connection with this bel canto masterpiece. Mario Antonio Marra, the pianist for the production, was gracious enough to answer a few of our questions.

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By Trevor Gillis, ago
Laura Wilde

“This production shows how the magic works,” Laura Wilde on Lyric Opera’s Das Rheingold

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.

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By Trevor Gillis, ago