Die Walküre - some initial musings before bedtime

I have just returned from the second night of the Wagner Ring Cycle at Seattle Opera. Tonight was surely ladies night, just as Das Rheingold had flooded the auditorium with testosterone the night before. Margaret Jane Wray took the role of Sieglinde, an unhappily married wife of woodsman, Hunding (Andrea Silvestrelli).

Margaret (right) shone, both as an actress and as a singer, projecting her clearly defined Wagnerian German into my head and beyond. The audience clearly agreed as the applause rose an octave or two  (ok decibles for the pedants) as she took the stage for a well deserved bow. 

Stephanie Blythe seemed to revel in her Fricka tonight. To me, she seemed to enjoy her character's sharper personality as she used a woman's manipulative skills to beg, nag and encourage a perplexed Wotan into doing her bidding. Don't ask me why, but I thoroughly enjoyed Stephanie tonight and she made more of an impact on my enjoyment of the show than the night before during the male frenzy of Rheingold.

The third lady in the triumvirate of females who carried the night was Janice Baird as Brünnhilde. There's no PC way of saying this, so we'll get it out there immediately. She's smaller than Margaret and Stephanie and to the uninitiated fits less the image of a female opera singer, especially in a role like Brünnhilde, which over the years has taken on an iconic cultural role in the non operagoer's psyche of a female singer. Nonetheless, Janice filled the stage with both her acting and her singing. Like Jason Collins the night before, she supplemented her lines with some visual acting and it added to, rather than subtracted from, the operatic feast on hand.

Two more things before Wotan casts me into Valhalla for not really being on his side tonight. The fire surrounding the stage at the end of the night was lovely, although it did seem to frighten a few of the more elderly customers. I would have loved them to take their bows with the fire still burning. That would have been classy.

Lastly, Jason Collins wasn't needed as understudy to the spellbinding Stuart Skelton in the role of Siegmund. Skelton was making his Seattle Opera debut tonight, and Seattle seemed to love him. Rightly so.

I digress. Back to Jason. He was good enough to pop his understudy head into the press room before the start so that I could grab a few words with him. He's really nice guy, very friendly and very down to earth. He told me a wee secret that I'm going to share with you. He's singing the Star Spangled Banner at the Mariners v Yankees game on the 15th, the night after the first cycle ends. That'll give you a chance to hear him again. The Seahawks, you know that team that calls its sport football but it isn't, were so jealous of the Mariners, that they asked him to do the national honours at Qwest Field, a week later. Nice to know it's not just our mighty mighty Sounders, the Hawks are envious of. (Tod Leiwecke, you don't read this do you?)

Now Jason, can I get you to come and sing the "Bluest Skies You'll Ever See are in Seattle" at our Houston v Sounders viewing party on August 23rd at Fado Irish Pub? Watch this space! He told me he knew Danny Boy, but what opera singer doesn't?

Night night all, to finish up here's Greer Grimsley, surrounded by but not singing Ring of Fire.

Photos: Margaret Jane Wray as Sieglinde and Greer Grimsley (Wotan). © Chris Bennion