Performer: Josefine Weber

Die Walküre in Leipzig wandelt ein Familiendrama zu einer Tragödie voller Angst und Beklemmung, mit einem Funken Hoffnung am Ende.

Canadian soprano Jennifer Maines as a demure Venus, and German soprano Josefine Weber as a chaste Elizabeth, were the outstanding singers at this Innsbruck performance of Tannhäuser.

Presenting Das Rheingold and Die Walküre in a single evening is audacious enough. To put on a Ring cycle in a week-end, you have to follow this by doing the same with Siegfried and Götterdämmerung, which requires something even more radical. Opéra de Dijon’s director Laurent Joyeux and dramaturg Stephen Sazio set themselves the task of cutting eight hours of music down to five.

Putting on a Ring cycle is normally considered a major undertaking for any opera company. For a mid-sized provincial opera company, the idea of staging the whole cycle in a weekend seems barely short of insane. But that’s what Opéra de Dijon are doing – Das Rheingold and Die Walküre last night, Siegfried and Götterdämmerung tonight, and it just had to be seen.