Zürich Ring – Die Walküre

Continuing on from Das Rheingold we come to Die Walküre.  There’s a lot of continuity with the earlier work.  It’s basically the same rotating set though in some scenes one of the “rooms” becomes a forest.  Another thing we see is characters who aren’t canonically “there” appearing in scenes.  So right at the beginning, when Siegmund and Sieglinde meet, Wotan is lurking and doing things like handing drinks to Sieglinde.  We’ll see more of this with Hunding’s henchmen appearing in various places, Wotan and the henchmen appearing when Sieglinde is describing her wedding and the Valkyries showing up at the start of Act 2.

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Artsong reGENERATION

The Academy Program is an important part of the Toronto Summer Music Festival.  It allows selected young artists; singers, collaborative pianists and chamber/orchestral musicians, to work with experienced professionals in an intensive series of coachings, masterclasses etc culminating in a concert series.  This year the mentors for the vocal/collaborative piano component were pianist Craig Rutenberg, who has worked everywhere and with everybody, and mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke; a last minute replacement for an indisposed Anne Schwannewilms.  I didn’t make it to any of the masterclasses, though word on the street is that they were exceptional, but I did make it to yesterday’s lunchtime concert in Walter Hall.

regen

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