New in Town

The Astoria Music Festival opened last weekend, and I eagerly attended my first festival event: Saturday evenings concert at the Liberty Theater, which celebrated composer Richard Wagners birthday bicentennial.

Though Im somewhat familiar with Wagners opera Tristan und Isolde, I had never encountered any of his famous four epic operas of Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung). The four operas combine German and Scandinavian myths to tell the story of gods, heroes and other fantastic creatures who struggle to obtain a magic ring that gives its bearer dominion over the world. A Nibelung dwarf, Alberich, forges the ring from gold he steals from the Rhine maidens in the river Rhine. The chief of the gods, Wotan, obtains the ring and then must use it to pay the giants who built Valhalla, the home of the gods. Wotans schemes to regain the ring drive the rest of the story, affecting his Valkyrie daughter Brünnehilde, his mortal children Siegmund and Sieglinde, and their son, the hero Siegfried.

Besides introducing me to a fantastic new story (Im afraid Im a bit of a mythology nerd), the concert also introduced me to some amazing music.

The first piece the orchestra played was Wagners Siegfried Idyll. A symphonic poem for chamber orchestra, the piece was first performed Christmas morning in 1870 as a birthday present for Wagners second wife, Cosima, after the birth of their son, Siegfried. Wagner later borrowed some of the idylls motifs for the Ring Cycles third opera, Siegfried.

At the concert, conductor Keith Clark invited the audience to be transported through time and listen to the idyll as Cosima must have that early Christmas morning: music wafting up the stairs to the bedroom, recalling the pastoral setting outside their home on Lake Lucerne in Switzerland. Beginning and ending with a dreamy lullaby, the music is warm and soft, perfect for an intimate setting.

After the intermission, festival performers enchanted the audience with Act 1 of Die Walküre (The Valkyrie), the second opera in the Ring Cycle. (You may be familiar with the famous Ride of the Valkyries, the music that begins the operas third act, as eight Valkyrie sisters prepare to carry fallen heroes to Valhalla.)

Act 1 tells the story of the fugitive Siegmund, who arrives seeking shelter at the cottage of the warrior Hunding. There, he meets Sieglinde, Hundings unhappy wife, who is later revealed to be Siegmunds long-lost twin sister. The two fall in love, and Siegmund plans to rescue his bride and sister from her forced marriage.

Sieglinde, played by Chicago Lyric Opera mezzo-soprano Stacey Rishoi, commanded the stage. Tall and dressed in an elegant black gown, Rishoi stayed in character whether she sang or was silent through the long performance. Though the program said English supertitles would be used for the German-sung opera, they did not appear over the stage. But with the programs plot summary and Rishois dynamic singing, expressions and posture, the gist of the action was easy to follow. She blossomed from withdrawn and unhappy to smiling and regal. Tenor Allan Glassman, of the Metropolitan Opera, played Siegmund, and San Francisco Opera bass Gustav Andreassen, who is Rishois husband in real life, played Hunding; both men gave impressive performances.

Hearing world-class performers on the stage of historic Liberty Theater is a treat not to be missed. I cant wait to see what else the Astoria Music Festival has in store this year.