Directed by: Brian Staufenbiel
Music and Libretto by: Richard Wagner
Original Production
Minnesota Opera - 2016
Additional Production dates
Arizona Opera - 2018
L'Opéra de Montréal - 2018
Seattle Opera - 2023
Calgary Opera - 2024
DESIGNERS
Matthew LeFebvre - Costume Designer
David Murakami - Projection Designer
David Zimmerman - Hair & Makeup Designer
Nicole Pearce - Lighting Designer
ORIGINAL CAST
Michael Christie - Conductor
Greer Grimsley - Wotan
Nathan Berg - Alberich
Denyce Graves - Erda
Katharine Goeldner - Fricka
Richard Cox - Loge
Dennis Petersen - Mime
Karin Wolverton - Freia
Kyle Albverson - Donner
Julian Close - Fafner
Jeremy Galyon -Fasholt
Christopher Colmenero - Froh
Mary Evelyn Hangley - Woglinde
Alexandra Razskazoff - Wellgunde
Nadia Benavidez - Flosshilde
Director's Note
Wagner’s world of flawed gods, aspiring demi-gods, and power-mad dwarves presents a formidable challenge for modern sensibilities. So in mounting this production of Das Rheingold, I sought to connect Wagner’s mythical realm with the mysterious complexities of our technological era. The action takes place in a future where science and technology have caught up with nature, where the organic, the mechanical, and the digital have started to fuse. Indeed, the distinction between biological processes and industrial artifice has almost ceased to exist. Gods are part man, part machine, and dwarves aspire to reign supreme by mining the technology of the past — semiconductors and computers. Technology permeates all aspects of existence and identity, and status is measured by one’s degree of technological assimilation.
In putting Rheingold on the stage, I was inspired by Wagner’s philosophy of Gesamtkunstwerk — complete work of art — and that accumulative notion informed the concept for this new production. The Jubilee Auditorium gave us the opportunity to integrate the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra into the scenic textures onstage, with the orchestra’s physical presence creating a musical-visual fabric. This freed us to use the split- level pit to represent the Rhine River and the underworld of Nibelheim. As you’ll see, the singers and orchestra will be immersed in luminous projections, images that create a framework of backstories and enhance Wagner’s expansive compositional technique — leitmotifs — to support and develop the storytelling.
Wagner considered Das Rheingold a prelude (vorspiel) to the three operas that followed, making the complete Ring Cycle. In Rheingold we see the creation of the magic ring and are introduced to the salient elements that propel the entire cycle. It’s an epic story that very much has the power to speak to our time.
MEDIA
