Die Walküre, Grange Park Opera

The gigantic Ring Cycle of Richard Wagner looms large in the history of opera, but it doesn't always have to be performed in the huge opera houses with which it is generally associated, as a new production of Die Walküre at Grange Park Opera will show.

And while we tend to associate The Ring's Norse legends with the great spaces of the gods' heavens and the mythical Valhalla, Die Walküre, the second chapter in Wagner's four-part story, is in some ways a domestic piece. The action opens in the woodland home of Sieglinde, where a stranger arrives during a raging storm. He is Siegmund, and the couple are instantly attracted, even though Sieglinde is already married.

Love and revenge unfold side by side as the gods become involved in these mortals' plight, and the powerful Wotan, who has fathered both Siegmund and Sieglinde, clashes with his daughter Brünnhilde and her fierce Valkyries. And they have the power to decide who shall live and who must die.

This new production of Die Walküre is directed by Stephen Medcalf, who staged a number of productions with Grange Park Opera before this year's move to its new home nearer the capital. It is conducted by Stephen Barlow, a Grange Park regular and director of last year's eye-catching Opera Holland Park production of La Bohème.

Siegmund is sung by Bryan Register and Sieglinde by Rachel Nicholls, with Alan Ewing as her jealous husband Hunding, Thomas Hall as the god Wotan, Jane Dutton as Brünnhilde and Sara Fulgoni as Wotan's vengeful wife, Fricka.

Die Walküre is sung in German.

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General public booking opens 10.30am, 8 Feb.

Click here for supporters' priority booking, now open.