Lyric Opera News

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by Magda Krance
TRIUMPHANT DAS RHEINGOLD
LAUNCHES LYRIC’S NEW RING CYCLE
The journey has finally begun!
After years of dreaming, planning, casting,
fundraising, designing, building, sewing,
rehearsing, fitting, and fine-tuning, Lyric’s new
Ring cycle is off to a splendid start. The brilliant
and inventive new production of Das Rheingold
had audiences cheering like ecstatic Cubs fans and
critics from across the country and beyond making
the pilgrimage to Chicago’s own Valhalla. (Wotan
himself, bass-baritone Eric Owens, thrilled the
closing-night audience with a booming “GO CUBS
GO!” during the final curtain call, signaling the
historic National League pennant win and trip to
the World Series – woot!)
It’s a journey of many firsts:
• Lyric has never before opened a season with an
opera by Richard Wagner in its 62 years.
• It’s the first Ring cycle for director David
Pountney, scenery designer Robert Innes Hopkins
(who calls himself a “Ring virgin”), lighting
designer Fabrice Kebour, and for Anthony Freud,
Lyric’s general director, president & CEO.
• It’s Eric Owens’s role debut as Wotan, the deeply
flawed chief god and architect of Valhalla.
• It’s Samuel Youn’s American debut and role
debut as Alberich, the Nibelung who steals the
Rhinemaidens’ gold, renounces love, forges the
all-powerful ring, and curses it when Wotan steals
it, leading to the series of catastrophes chronicled
in the four-opera cycle.
• Also making American and role debuts: Tanja
Ariane Baumgartner as Wotan’s goddess-wife
Fricka (protector of marriage, though hers isn’t
going so well) and Okka von der Damerau as Erda,
the earth goddess who foretells the troubles the
ring will bring to whoever possesses it.
• Additional role debuts include Ryan Opera Center
alumna Laura Wilde as Freia (goddess of youth
and beauty), and current ensemble members
Dianna Newman/Woglinde and Annie Rosen
Wellgunde (Rhinemaidens), and Jesse Donner/
Froh (god of spring).
“There is no more ambitious, large-scale, or exciting
venture that an opera company can undertake than
a new Ring,” declares Freud (who worked on a Ring
at Welsh National Opera before becoming general
director there, and planned one for Houston Grand
Opera, but came to Chicago before it started). “Our
audiences have just experienced powerfully intense,
engaging storytelling, glorious music, and detailed,
passionate performances with the first of these four
magnificent operas.” The journey continues with
Die Walküre, Siegfried, and Götterdämmerung each
season through 2020, when Lyric will present the
full cycle three times over the course of three weeks
following the regular season. Whether for first-
time opera goers or longtime aficionados, Freud
adds, “it’s a thrilling, unforgettable experience, and
Lyric’s approach is very much our own. We have
reclaimed the Ring for the theater.”
Interconnected though the plots and characters
are, each opera is distinct from the others; if
you’ve seen one, you most certainly haven’t seen
‘em all. As director David Pountney told Opera
News, “Rheingold is a fast-moving political cartoon,
Walküre is a kind of Ibsenesque family story,
Siegfried is a kind of naïve children’s pantomime,
and Götterdämmerung is a grand opera!” In an
interview with Musical America, Pountney noted
that the frame of the stage will remain “constant
through all four pieces, but the elements that are
added shift the style of each piece in a slightly
different direction. So you’re always aware that
you’re within the same book, but the chapters are
different.”
4 LY R I C O P E R A N E WS lyricopera.org