© Bayreuther Festspiele, Meistersinger 2018

News from the Members

19.05.2017
Wagner Rings in Stockholm
The Royal Opera in Stockholm revived its 10-year old production of The Ring over the last two weeks of May.
This Ring was first staged in 2005 with performances of Das Rheingold.  40 years has gone by since the last Ring production in Stockholm.

This time round, director Staffan Valdemar Holm, together with Slovenian conductor Marko Letonja brought together an outstanding singing team of Swedish singers, including the star soprano Nina Stemme, Katharina Dalayman, Michael Weinius, John Lundgren and Cornelia Beskow. The role of Siegfried was performed by the Swedish tenor and rock musician Lars Cleveman, who had previously sung the role at the Met in New York. He has also performed Tristan at Covent Garden under Antonio Pappano, and Parsifal at the Proms. Falck Stuckmann in the role of Hagen was a notable exception from the Swedish casting.

All performances sold out in record time when they were released 18 months ago. Many eager members of Wagner Societies in the Nordic countries managed to get tickets, including 40 Finns from the Wagner Society in Helsinki and 11 members of the Wagner Society in Iceland.  A large group from Gothenburg also attended.

The Stockholm Wagner Society, with their Chair, Kerstin Jonasson,  organised a Wagner dinner for the visiting societies so they could get to know the Stockholm members. They also organised a lecture in which Klas Liljefors examined the different versions of Wagner‘s ending of Götterdämmerung.

Royal Opera dramaturg Katarina Aronsson invited the public to call in at the  Guldfoajén at the Royal Opera on the subject of Der Ring des Nibelungen and Wagner. Various guests and lecturers visited the Call corner at every opportunity, among them the British Wagner specialist Barry Millington:

http://www.operan.se/repertoarsida/ringhornan/