The London Opera Company will perform a new semi-staged production of Wagner’s Die Walküre at St John’s Church, Waterloo, London on Saturday 3 July 2021, with a company of top-flight international singers and musicians.
The London Opera Company formed last summer to give fellow musicians and international opera singers who had lost their work to the pandemic the opportunity to keep performing, and to give music lovers a first class treat after a summer devoid of live concerts.
In October 2020 they performed a sold-out and rapturously received chamber concert of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde at The Warehouse, London (review click here).
Peter Selwyn will be Music Director for this project and will be arranging a version of the opera for piano, percussion and an assortment of instruments, including bass clarinet and bass trumpet.
Having assisted on productions of Die Walküre at Bayreuth and Covent Garden, and having also conducted the Jonathan Dove reduction, Peter is now excited by the challenge of conveying the essence of Wagner’s powerful score with a small number of crucial instruments, which will bring out the important motifs and add weight to the bigger moments, such as the ‘Ride of the Valkyries’, yet also bring subtlety and colour to the more beautiful passages.
The full cast is:
Siegmund – Brian Smith Walters
Sieglinde – Gweneth Ann Rand
Hunding – Simon Wilding
Wotan – Simon Thorpe
Brünnhilde – Cara McHardy
Fricka – Harriet Williams
Gerhilde – Jacqueline Varsey
Ortlinde – Philippa Boyle
Helmwige – Natasha Jouhl
Waltraute – Harriet Williams
Siegrune – Carolyn Dobbin
Rossweisse – Angharad Lyddon
Grimgerde – Katherine Taylor-Jones
Schwertleite – Rhonda Browne
For more information and tickets go to The London Opera Company website click here.