Jaclyn Grossman as Freia in Das Rheingold (Edmonton Opera, 2023/24)
Richard Wagner is surely the best-known name in the history of opera, and his operas are certainly among “the biggest” in the repertory. The great German composer’s works are unparalleled in their scope and scale, relating epic tales of cosmological struggles between gods and their progeny, offering metaphysical accounts of the conflict between the scared and the profane, and exploring the eternal nature of love through heart-rending accounts of ill-fated lovers who expire from pure longing (with magic potions, giants, enchanted swords, and rings of power all thrown in for good measure). These stories are so big, Wagner required new categories of singers, new and bigger instruments and his own theatre to stage—indeed, to contain—his epochal Romantic vision of opera-as-drama, as the “total work of art.”
Yet, for all of their grandiosity, Wagner’s operas are also concerned fundamentally with the human condition: the experience of the widest range of feelings, from deepest love, reverence and piety to jealousy, fear and rage; what it means to be part of a family; and the search to find one’s identity and place in the world. In this way, these operas can be “small”—ultimately, they are about people, relationships, moral struggles, and emotional truth. To this end, Wagner eschewed the traditions of opera—aria and recitative as closed numbers—and developed an entirely new musical aesthetic, one that aims for naturalness of expression as it supports the unfolding of the drama, and that uses Leitmotifs—dedicated musical themes for specific emotions, concepts, and objects—to enhance the storytelling but to also open a window into the emotional and psychological depths of the characters.
Edmonton Opera’s upcoming production of Wagner’s Die Walküre (The Valkyrie)—the second work in his four-opera, Norse mythology-inspired Ring Cycle—faces the paradox of Wagnerian opera head on. Die Walküre is a “big” opera, to be sure. It features a pantheon of Norse and Germanic gods, demigods and humans locked in a multi-generational struggle to possess a powerful magical ring (a struggle that will culminate—spoiler alert—in the apocalyptic destruction of Valhalla, the home of the gods, in the fourth and final opera of the Ring Cycle). But Walküre, among the most emotionally compelling of Wagner’s operas, also offers an intimate perspective on what is essentially a family romance, in which a husband and wife argue anxiously about their children, and the children find themselves caught between filial loyalty and romantic love. Much of the story of Walküre unfolds not through action sequences, but through scenes of intense dialogue and lush, Leitmotif-driven music that allow us to recognize Wagner’s characters as complex, vulnerable, and often deeply flawed human beings.
Edmonton Opera’s artistic director Joel Ivany avers that Die Walküre is his “favourite opera”: an “edge-of –your-seat” music drama that “looks into the depths of our soul.” In staging an alternative version of Walküre, with cuts and a reduced orchestra of just eighteen players, Ivany is aware of Wagner’s looming presence—“I feel the pressure”—and honours Wagner’s insistence upon opera as a pure synthesis of the musical and the theatrical, remaining true to the score while embracing the intimacy of the venue and the staging, providing audiences with the opportunity to experience a truly powerful and monumental work at close range.
Andy Moro, scene designer for Die Walküre, describes the production as “austere, clean, elemental,” drawing on the symbolism of circles and rings as it relates a “universal” if sometimes difficult story that blends folktale, mythology, and spirituality as it runs the gamut from “glorious to grody.” With its chamber orchestra, thrust stage, and spare design, this incarnation of Walküre places the “grandest expression into and immediate relationship with the audience,” making it an accessible and intimate experience.
Soprano Jaclyn Grossman, a self-described “Wagner nerd,” plays Brunhilde, the opera’s eponymous Valkyrie. She echoes Moro’s description of Walküre’s accessibility, noting that audiences—who may be wary of Wagnerian opera—are in fact already primed for it, courtesy of familiar pop culture touchstones like Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones, which likewise combine mythology, magic, and epic family drama. But for Grossman, Walküre is really about “listening” to Wagner’s musical dialogue, and responding in a “human way” to the opera’s big questions: What is good and evil? What does it mean to have and to wield power? How do we know what is right and what is wrong? As a performer, Grossman welcomes the intimacy provided by the thrust stage, which provides the opportunity to be “right there,” surrounded by the audience while sharing an “electric energy.”
Edmonton Opera’s production of Die Walküre represents the first time the work has been staged in the city. Over the next two years, Edmonton Opera will stage the remaining two operas in the Ring Cycle, Siegfried and Götterdämmerung, offering Edmontonians even more chances to experience some of the greatest—and most challenging—works in the operatic canon, presented in new and exciting ways.
—Alexander Carpenter