Die Walküre, Bluebeard’s Castle coming up for Edmonton Opera season 61

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Full of smart twists, raw emotion and bold partnerships, Edmonton Opera has just announced its 2024/25 season — No. 61 — with plenty of time to catch this year’s remaining productions.

This is important to note as this season’s final opera (running May 28 – June 1) is Wagner’s 1869 Das Rheingold — the first of four chapters of the German composer’s famous Ring Cycle, Der Ring des Nibelungen.

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Creating a grand series spanning years, it’s now been officially announced next Edmonton Opera season will end with the second Ring Cycle opera, Die Walküre — the concept being to present each of the four through 2027, a timing scale never before attempted in the city.

“We’re committing to this,” says Edmonton Opera’s artistic director Joel Ivany. “Now’s the time to hop on board, because you still have time to see Rheingold knowing that The Valkyrie is coming up next year,” he says, dropping Die Walküre’s English title.

And, yes, this is some music you’re likely familiar with, says Ivany, citing Apocalypse Now’s famous Ride of the Valkyries helicopter bombardment scene after which Robert Duvall’s mad Kilgore declares his proclivity for napalm in the morning.

“You’re going to hear it in a different way, though, because it’s a chamber arrangement,” explains Ivany of the two operatic Ring Cycle performances being staged in the Maclab Theatre in a special partnership with the Citadel. “It’s going to be smaller, but you’re also going to see Maclab used in a way it’s never been used before.”

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The 2024/25 season is all about partnerships between Edmonton Opera and other organizations, including the season’s opening production of Johann Strauss II’s Die Fledermaus (Revenge of the Bat), happening Nov. 7, 9 and 12 this year.

“This is a true partnership with Edmonton Symphony Orchestra,” says Ivany, who will also direct this opera with some 120 people onstage, including Edmonton Opera’s chorus.

“We’re kind of going big for this one,” Ivany laughs on his inventive reimagining of the traditional German opera, which will still be sung in German, but feature new, English dialogue in a sort of Midsummer Night’s Dream-style operetta within a play. “The story we’re telling is of a local community opera group putting on a production of Die Fledermaus.

“So you’ll see the actors and their relationships with each other — I don’t want to say in a way more relatable, but just presented in a different way — where we’ll keep all the music and melodies and all the good fluff of what this show is as well.”

This production will be performed on the big stage at Edmonton Opera’s longtime residence of the Jubilee Auditorium.

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Next up in season 61, running Feb. 1, 4, 6 and 7, 2025, is Béla Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle — also creatively reinvented, this time by London, UK’s Theatre of Sound, with a new libretto by Daisy Evans and new arrangement by Stephen Higgins.

The Hungarian one-act symbolist opera has been updated into a heart-wrenching modern narrative.

“Instead of Duke Bluebeard who marries these wives and then locks them up in these torture rooms,” Ivany explains, “it’s been reframed around a couple, Bluebeard and Judith, his wife who’s dealing with dementia.

“And each door they open is a memory from the past, which she recognizes, and then doesn’t,” says Ivany, “with all the pain comes with that.

“So it’s a heartbreaking look at what I think many people are going through.”

In other words, bring Kleenex — though the story will also shine with moments of love and joy.

This one is directed by Evans and conducted by company music director Simon Rivard.

Here we arrive at another cool partnership, this time with Telus World of Science and its Ziedler Dome digital visualization theatre and planetarium.

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“I kept imagining pairing these visuals, these 10k laser projections showing galaxies and the stars and the moon, with music over the centuries of opera inspired by those very same things,” says Ivany.

The result is Aquarius, a sonic and cosmic smorgasbord reaching both into the future and back through musical history, including Dvořák’s Song to the Moon from Ruskala, and Queen of the Night from Mozart’s Magic Flute.

This show will include the opera’s chorus, soloists and a chamber ensemble with piano.

“It’s going through classic music and finding out, what has references to that?” explains Ivany of our celestial neighbours. “And how cool would it be to hear that while you’re gazing up, staring at the larger-than-life moon?”

The 90 or so minutes of music will be quite intimate in the 250-seat dome with “the most comfortable seats in Edmonton,” Ivany laughs.

This one will also have some of the most beautiful costumes of the season, matching centuries-old music.

The new partnerships mix things up and make for interesting creative possibilities, but it’s also a matter of helping keep ships afloat.

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“For us, we need to be working with other arts organizations to max out the most we can do, and it’s just better working together,” Ivany says.

Besides this season’s Das Rheingold upcoming in May and June, Edmonton Opera is immediately presenting Argentinian composer’s Osvaldo Golijov’s Ayre — a blend of Arabic, Hebrew, Sardinian and Sephardic folk melodies and texts — Thursday and Friday.

Miriam Khali — Ivany’s wife — sings in this production which pushes the boundaries of classical music, often rooted in folk, at MacEwan University’s 415-seat Triffo Theatre.

“Could we have done this in the Jubilee or the Winspear? Yeah,” says Ivany. “But again, we’re able to make this a little more intimate.

“The theatre has the lighting and we have the costuming, so it’s kind of like a pumped up concert, a perfect combo for this different identity that can also be our company.”

Tickets to Ayre, Das Rheingold and the upcoming season are all available at edmontonopera.com.

One more thing to note, the company is continuing with its low ticket prices starting at $40 and — really, so amazing — free admission if you’re under 21.

Subscription packages for next season start at $191.

“We’re 60 years old,” says Ivany, “so we’re celebrating that milestone, but also kind of boldly looking ahead to charting a new path for at least as long as I’m here.

“What we’re trying to do is have more touch points within the community, and just say, ‘Hey, we actually have an opera company in the city, and you should come check us out.’

“If you like big stuff, we’ve got that,” he says. “And if you like small stuff, we’ve got that too.”

fgriwkowsky@postmedia.com

@fisheyefoto

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