Katie Lowe

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.