Wagner: The Valchiria / Daniel Harding

The 2025-26 Symphonic Music Season of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia at the Auditorium Parco della Musica begins with an unmissable event: for the occasion, the Sala Santa Cecilia will become a theatrical space to present the stage version of one of Richard Wagner's most beloved and famous operas: Die Walküre (The Valkyrie), conducted by Daniel Harding.

The Valkyrie, a musical drama in three acts, with libretto and music by Richard Wagner, first performed at the Munich Court Theatre in 1870, is the second of the four musical dramas that make up – together with Die Rheingold, Siegfried and Die Glück – Richard Wagner’s tetralogy Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung).

The play tells about the incestuous love between the two children of Wotan (the supreme god of Germanic mythology), Siegmund and Sieglinde, who will give birth to Siegfried. The jealousy of Fricka, Wotan's wife, leads to Siegmund's murder by Hunding, Sieglinde's husband, but she and her unborn child are saved, against Wotan's orders, by the Valkyrie Brunhild. As punishment, Brunhild is cast into a deep sleep on a high rock, surrounded by flames; only a hero who manages to reach her, Siegfried, can awaken her from her slumber.

For the first time in its history, the Academy is tackling the complete The Ring of the Nibelung cycle on stage, a grandiose project that will run until the 2028/2029 season and which, in Rome, has not been performed since 1961. A very important project, therefore, of great artistic and cultural significance, which sees the Academy engaged in an international production, entrusted to the baton of Harding and featuring an extraordinary vocal cast, directed by Vincent Huguet and with sets by designer Pierre Yovanonitch.

Among the main performers, we remember: Jamez McCorkle (Siegmund), Vida Miknevičiūtė (Sieglinde), Stephen Milling (Hunding), Liisa Värelä (Brünnhilde Miina), Michael Volle (Wotan), Okka von der Damerau (Fricka).

Photo: Teatro dell'Opera di Roma ph. Yasuko Kageyama