Das Reingold Music : Richard Wagner Libretto: Richard Wagner Director: Keith Warner Set designer: Stefanos Lazaridis Costume designer: Marie-Jeanne Lecca Lighting designer: Wolfgang Göbbel Original movement director: Claire Glaskin Video designers: Mic Pool and Dick Straker Associate set designer: Matthew Deely CAST: Conductor: Antonio Pappano Wotan: John Lundgren Alberich: Johannes Martin Kränzle Loge: Alan Oke Erda: Wiebke Lehmkuhl Fricka: Sarah Connolly Freia: Lise Davidsen Donner: Markus Eiche Froh: Andrew Staples Mime: Gerhard Siegel Fasolt: Günther Groissböck Fafner: Brindley Sherratt Woglinde: Lauren Fagan Wellgunde: Christina Bock Flosshilde: Angela Simkin Chorus: Royal Opera Chorus Orchestra: Orchestra of the Royal Opera House 2 hours 40 minutes. No pause. The Story The dwarf Alberich forsakes love so that he may steal the Rhine’s gold. A ring is crafted from that gold, invested with great power. When the ring is taken from Alberich, he places on it a terrible curse. The god Wotan is tempted by ownership of the ring – but heeds a dire warning from the goddess Erda. Instead, Wotan uses the ring to pay the giants Fafner and Fasolt for building his palace Valhalla. Alberich’s curse takes immediate effect: Fafner kills Fasolt so that he may keep the ring for himself. Background Das Rheingold is the ‘preliminary evening’ of Richard Wagner’s four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen. The shortest of the four, it introduces the characters that will drive this magnificent drama to its epic conclusion, and the musical themes that Wagner ingeniously develops through the cycle. Das Rheingold was first performed in 1869, along with the second opera, Die Walküre – but before the rest of the cycle was completed, and very much against Wagner’s wishes that the Ring be considered a unified whole. The cycle’s first complete performance in 1876 was a momentous event in opera history. Das Rheingold famously begins with a musical representation of the flowing river Rhine. In his 2004 production for The Royal Opera, Keith Warner sets this opening in complete darkness: as the textures of Wagner’s music gradually intensify, so this universe slowly comes into being. Much of the production draws on 20th-century imagery to depict a world at the beginning of its decline, with the nightmarish laboratories of the Nibelungs contrasting vividly with the gods’ moneyed indulgence. Performance Dates: Monday 24 September 2018, 7.30pm • Main Stage Tuesday 2 October 2018, 7.30pm • Main Stage Tuesday 16 October 2018, 7.30pm • Main Stage Friday 26 October 2018, 7.30pm • Main Stage Die Walküre Music : Richard Wagner Libretto: Richard Wagner Director: Keith Warner Set designer: Stefanos Lazaridis Costume designer: Marie-Jeanne Lecca Lighting designer: Wolfgang Göbbel Original movement director: Claire Glaskin Video designers: Mic Pool and Dick Straker Associate set designer: Matthew Deely CAST: Conductor: Antonio Pappano Siegmund: Stuart Skelton Sieglinde: Emily Magee Wotan: John Lundgren Brünnhilde: Nina Stemme Fricka: Sarah Connolly Hunding: Ain Anger Gerhilde: Alwyn Mellor Ortlinde: Lise Davidsen Waltraute: Kai Rüütel Schwertleite: Claudia Huckle Helmwig: Maida Hundeling Siegrune: Catherine Carby Grimgerde: TBC Rossweisse :Emma Carrington Orchestra: Orchestra of the Royal Opera House The Story Wotan craves the ring, but, bound by his own laws, he can’t retrieve it himself. With a mortal woman he has twins, Siegmund and Sieglinde. He hopes Siegmund will become the free agent he needs to take the ring. Separated at birth, the twins meet as adults and fall in love. Wotan’s wife Fricka points out that Siegmund can never be independent while he enjoys Wotan’s protection. Wotan bitterly concedes, and Siegmund dies in battle – but the Valkyrie Brünnhilde rescues the pregnant Sieglinde. In punishment for her defiance, Wotan incarcerates Brünnhilde on a rock, surrounded by a ring of fire. Background Die Walküre is the second work and ‘first evening’ of Richard Wagner’s four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen, following Das Rheingold. It has become the most performed opera of the cycle, loved and admired for its nuanced and intelligent exploration of complex family entanglements, expressed through music of astonishing power – perhaps nowhere more so than in the glorious music for the incestuous lovers Siegmund and Sieglinde. Wotan’s voyage of self-discovery and ultimate resignation are at the heart of Keith Warner’s production, created for The Royal Opera in 2005. His great Act II monologue is set in a disastrous ruin of the Valhalla we saw in Das Rheingold – a striking representation of Wotan’s own inner decline and the gods’ incipient twilight. Visual motifs reflect the structure of Wagner’s score, which shows the composer at his most radical and most lyrical. Performance Dates: Wednesday 26 September 2018, 4.30pm • Main Stage Thursday 4 October 2018, 4.30pm • Main Stage Thursday 18 October 2018, 4.30pm • Main Stage Sunday 28 October 2018, 4pm • Main Stage Sigfried Music : Richard Wagner Libretto: Richard Wagner Director: Keith Warner Set designer: Stefanos Lazaridis Costume designer: Marie-Jeanne Lecca Lighting designer: Wolfgang Göbbel Original movement director: Claire Glaskin Video designers: Mic Pool and Dick Straker Associate set designer: Matthew Deely CAST: Conductor Antonio Pappano Siegfried: Stefan Vinke Brünnhilde: Nina Stemme Mime: Gerhard Siegel Wanderer: John Lundgren Alberich: Johannes Martin Kränzle Fafner: Brindley Sherratt Erda: Wiebke Lehmkuhl Woodbird: Sophie Bevan Orchestra: Orchestra of the Royal Opera House The Story Siegfried, the child of Siegmund and Sieglinde, has been raised by Alberich’s brother Mime. Mime plans to use Siegfried to take back the ring from Fafner. But, as he grows up, Siegfried rebels against his dubious guardian. Siegfried kills both Fafner and Mime, and retrieves the ring. A woodbird tells him of a woman surrounded by fire. Siegfried discovers Brünnhilde and the two fall in love. Background Siegfried is the ‘second evening’ and third opera in Richard Wagner’s four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen. Wagner broke off composition at the end of Act II of Siegfriedto write Tristan und Isolde and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, returning to Siegfriedseven years later. Elements of these two operas feed into Siegfried: it features the Ringcycle’s most light-hearted music, in its depiction of the ebullient young Siegfried, and also its most ecstatic love duet, as Brünnhilde and Siegfried discover each other. Added to these is a wondrous celebration of the natural world. Keith Warner’s 2005 production for The Royal Opera securely positions Siegfried within the cycle’s over-arching narrative of the decline of the gods. Siegfried and Mime’s forge is set against a crashed aeroplane, evocation of Wotan’s failed ambitions. As with the other operas of the cycle, recurring images that suggest the DNA helix spiral through Siegfried– representatives of an ongoing life force whose strength will outlast the gods’. Performance Dates: Saturday 29 September 2018, 3pm • Main Stage Sunday 7 October 2018, 3pm • Main Stage Sunday 21 October 2018, 3pm • Main Stage Wednesday 31 October 2018, 4.30pm • Main Stage Götterdämmerung Music : Richard Wagner Libretto: Richard Wagner Director: Keith Warner Set designer: Stefanos Lazaridis Costume designer: Marie-Jeanne Lecca Lighting designer: Wolfgang Göbbel Original movement director: Claire Glaskin Video designers: Mic Pool and Dick Straker Associate set designer: Matthew Deely CAST Conductor: Antonio Pappano Siegfried: Stefan Vinke Brünnhilde: Nina Stemme Gunther: Markus Butter Hagen: Stephen Milling Gutrune: Emily Magee Waltraute: Karen Cargill Alberich: Johannes Martin Kränzle First Norn: Claudia Huckle Second Norn: Irmgard Vilsmaier Third Norn: Lise Davidsen Woglinde: Lauren Fagan Wellgunde: Christina Bock Flosshilde: Angela Simkin Chorus: Royal Opera Chorus Orchestra: Orchestra of the Royal Opera House The Story Alberich’s son Hagen wants the ring. Siegfried has given it to Brünnhilde as a token of his love. Hagen gives Siegfried a potion that makes him forget Brünnhilde, and convinces Siegfried to win Brünnhilde on behalf of Hagen’s half-brother Gunther. Siegfried gives Brünnhilde to Gunther and takes the ring for himself. Brünnhilde conspires with Hagen and Gunther to take her revenge on Siegfried. Hagen kills Siegfried, and then kills Gunther so that he may keep the ring. Realizing how Siegfried was deceived, Brünnhilde lights a great funeral pyre for the hero, and rides into the flames with the ring. The Rhine bursts its banks and reclaims its gold. Valhalla, the palace of the gods, catches fire and the gods burn in the blaze. Background Götterdämmerung is the fourth and final work of Richard Wagner’s opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen. Though sequentially it comes last, it was in fact Wagner’s starting point: Siegfried’s death was his first inspiration, the three previous operas leading to that climactic event. It took Wagner 26 years to complete Götterdämmerung and it had its premiere in 1876, at the first performance of the complete cycle at the inaugural Bayreuth Festival. It closes the Ring with music of great power and complexity. Götterdämmerung moves from the mythical landscape of the previous operas to a world more akin to our own, as Siegfried journeys down the Rhine to the deceitful world of the Gibichungs. In Keith Warner’s 2006 production for The Royal Opera, the impending fall of the gods is reflected in the blackened, apocalyptic landscape of Act III. By the opera’s end,