Opera Scotland

Valkyrie 2001Scottish Opera

Read more about the opera Walküre

The second instalment of the new Ring production again opened at the Edinburgh Festival before entering the Autumn repertoire in Glasgow.

The overall standard, both musical and dramatic, established by the Rheingold, continued without a problem. Some new singers were encountered, most notably the young Swedish tenor Jan Kyhle, who looked ideal as Siegmund, and also sounded excellent in spite of apparently having little by way of operatic pedigree. The new Sieglinde, the Swiss soprano Ursula Füri-Bernhard, also gave a lovely lyrical performance, but was the most important of the artists who was unable to return for the cycles in 2003. Matthew Best and Anne Mason maintained the high standard they had reached the previous year, and would achieve even more in 2003. Elizabeth Byrne had only sung Verdi, Puccini and MacMillan in Scotland before, but she had already sung the Walküre Brünnhilde in the USA and would develop the other sections of the role in this production. Clare Shearer and Yvonne Lea both returned in the roles they had taken in the 1991 Richard Jones production.