Die Walküre – LIVE at La Scala

Die Walküre LIVE on December 7th at 8am PST
Simulcast in HD from Opening Night
at Teatro alla Scala, Milan, Italy

Emerging Pictures’ Opera in Cinema (www.operaincinema.com) LIVE in HD series continues its season on Tuesday, December 7, 2010 with a live broadcast at 8 a.m. PST of Wagner’s Die Walküre from the opening night at Teatro alla Scala, Milan, Italy. This highly anticipated new production of Die Walküre is directed by Guy Cassiers, and boasts a star-studded cast, including Simon O'Neill, John Tomlinson, Vitalij Kowaljow, Waltraud Meier and Nina Stemme. Daniel Barenboim conducts.

The Opera in Cinema series has been praised by The New York Times as “[an] exciting means for enjoying opera.” With surround sound and crystal-clear High Definition, Europe’s greatest opera houses can be enjoyed up close, on the big screen.

The Ring Cycle (as it is commonly called) is a monolithic presence in music history. It is often said to be the embodiment of the concept of Gesamtkunstwerk, or “complete art work,” a term Wagner adopted to describe a work of art that incorporates all areas of artistic expression: dance, drama, music, visual arts, etc. Certainly The Ring qualifies: the combined operas are 15 hours of continuous music, with words written by Wagner himself.

The emotional and dramatic power of the music lies in one of Wagner’s greatest innovations, the leitmotif. The leitmotifs are musical themes with specific dramatic associations. For instance, every time someone is singing about Valhalla, the home of the gods, the Valhalla leitmotif plays, conjuring up the grandeur of their palace. The concept of leitmotifs has expanded far beyond the opera house. For example, film score composer John Williams wrote a leitmotif for Darth Vader that instantly conjures up his evil visage. Wagner uses leitmotifs to great effect by allowing the orchestra to comment on the action on stage, almost as another character in this epic drama; as a result, his music adored by both opera and orchestral music fans alike.