Never before has the momentous Wagner opera The Valkyrie (Die Walkure) been performed in concert with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. See it on Sunday 22 July at the Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington.

An international stellar cast of singers and full symphony orchestra, featuring more than 100 musicians, will join forces this July to bring you the ground-breaking music of Richard Wagner’s epic music drama – The Valkyrie (Die Walkure).

Full of love, abandonment, infidelity, and incest, The Valkyrie is the second of four operas that form the cycle The Ring of the Nibelung (Der Ring des Nibelungen). It features some of Wagner’s most memorable music, including the popular excerpt Ride of the Valkyries. In fact, you may have already heard this masterpiece used in films such as Apocalypse Now (when the Air Cavalry regiment plays it through loudspeakers during a helicopter attack) or even on a New Zealand television advertising campaign featuring a toilet and a duck!?

Despite its frequent use in popular culture, Wagner developed this epic tale of gods and men from Norse mythology. So, we invited none other than the creme de la creme of New Zealand and international singers to represent these dramatic characters in this once-in-a-lifetime opera in concert with your national orchestra.

Conducted by Pietari Inkinen

The Cast:

SIMON O’NEILL Siegmund

EDITH HALLER Sieglinde

CHRISTINE GOERKE Brünnhilde

JOHN WEGNER Wotan

JONATHAN LEMALU Hunding

MARGARET MEDLYN Fricka