6 / 30
Sir Andrew Davis, Lyric’s music
director and principal conductor,
is “exhilarated” to return to the
sweeping grandeur of the
Ring
. He
first conducted the cycle in 2001-05
at Lyric, a revival of the August
Everding production. “It’s almost like
doing a new piece – a lot of water has
flowed under the bridge since then,”
he told
Musical America
. “In our new
production, the emphasis is on the
storytelling – the characters and their
relationships are the focus, musically
and dramatically.”
In an interview with
Chicago on the
Aisle
, Maestro Davis noted that
Das Rheingold
is expository, and
“stylistically much simpler than the
rest of the cycle. What’s going on
later, Wagner tells you in musical
subtext, but that sort of layering
doesn’t apply in
Rheingold
.” Even
though there are 91 musicians packed
into the pit, he calls the orchestral
writing “quite spare, with very little
of the complex contrapuntal writing
that’s prevalent in the three later
operas….It’s a primitive story with a
bare-bones quality. Wagner made a
deliberate attempt to tell the story
directly, using every kind of textural
possibility, including the simplest.
Walküre
shows much greater subtlety
and complexity, and there the gods
become more human and are more
affected by humans. ”
Ah, so much to look forward to! The
journey continues in the autumn
of 2017, with Eric Owens as Wotan,
Christine Goerke as his Valkyrie
daughter Brünnhilde, and a host of
the best and brightest young Wagner
singers, to be announced in February.
Ho-jo-to-ho!
Wagner’s glorious score is played with rich, glowing, finely detailed
sound by the splendid Lyric Opera Orchestra under Davis, who
maintains supple musical continuity and alert synchronization
with the stage.
— Chicago Tribune
PHOTOSBYTODDROSENBERG
“
“
6 LY R I C O P E R A N E WS
lyricopera.org
For Chicago music loves, “
—Musical America
“