Now in its sixth year, Music on the Strait has become a cherished event for music enthusiasts on the Olympic Peninsula. This hidden gem of a music festival may not receive as much attention as some of its counterparts, but it certainly deserves recognition for the incredible performances it brings to this part of the Pacific Northwest year after year.
Continue reading Music on the Strait returns for 6th seasonMonth: August 2023
Seattle Opera’s Rheingold a triumph, with strong cast and ingenious staging
Review published on Seen and Heard International
Not long ago, staging Das Rheingold at the Seattle Opera usually meant that the other three operas in Richard Wagner’s Ring Cycle would soon follow. The company was once a Wagnerian destination in the U.S., though not on the same level as the renowned Bayreuth. For decades, when the lights dimmed and the famous chord of E-flat major emerged from the orchestra, slowly at first and then transforming into the flowing Rhine, Seattle audiences and visitors from around the world settled in for a cycle-full of leitmotifs.
That was then. Seattle audiences have not seen Rheingold in ten years. This concise story of power, hubris and consequence is a fanciful two-and-a-half hours of gods and giants; castles and contracts; and of course a subterranean bad guy with an ax to grind. Rheingold sets the whole Ring Cycle in motion, its story serving as the seed of the original sin growing through Wagner’s ambitious four-part drama. But even staged alone – as it was here – there is much to enjoy in this tale of mythic gods with human failings.
Continue reading Seattle Opera’s Rheingold a triumph, with strong cast and ingenious staging
Gathering Note 