More wonderful Wagner in Saffron Walden! Fresh from delivering their successful Ring Cycle over the last two years, Saffron Opera Group’s first production of Parsifal will feature their characteristic mixture of established professional singers and exciting stars of tomorrow. The superlative cast will include internationally renowned soprano Elaine McKrill as Kundry and acclaimed baritone Nicholas…
Saffron Opera Group’s Ring Cycle finally culminated in a direct, satisfyingly shattering Götterdämmerung, in which we felt the world change as the story left the gods behind, and brought the human love and tragedy of Brünnhilde and Siegfried firmly to the fore. As in all previous instalments, the Saffron Opera Group Orchestra filled the large…
Since their affecting Das Rheingold and resplendent Die Walküre in 2016, the Saffron Opera Group’s Ring Cycle has become something of a talking point in Wagnerian circles. Using a local orchestra, but attracting international singing talent to the Saffron Hall stage, their concert performances of Wagner are reliably intense, engaging, and above all, beautifully sung. This Siegfried shone…
Usually, a Ring Cycle hits you as a sudden burst of musical and philosophical intensity, its four huge evenings sprawling across one week. In practical terms, your own life ends up on hold for the Ring as a result: real life pauses while the Ring is stolen, forged, wielded, misused, tricked away, traded, hoarded, misunderstood,…
A concert performance can be almost a contradiction in terms for opera: music built to hold a powerful narrative, rich with visual effect and dramatic energy, suddenly finds itself all alone on stage, denuded of props and scenery. Thus, a concert performance of Das Rheingold, Wagner’s wildly imaginative, scene-shifting opening to his Ring cycle, is…