Die Walküre returns to the San Carlo in Naples in the legendary staging directed by Tiezzi and sets by Giulio Paolini, with Jonas Kaufmann among the protagonists

Sara Die Walkure of Richard Wagner the first opera staged at San Carlo Theater in Naples after the recently completed restoration, which brought the magnificent hall and the large canvas by Giuseppe Cammarano that crowns the ceiling back to its splendour.

The Valkyrie, Wagner's grandiose and passionate masterpiece, second chapter and first day of the Tetralogy, returns to the Neapolitan Massimo from 16 to 29 April 2023, in the famous staging signed by the director Federico Tiezzi, featuring iconic scenes from the conceptual artist Giulio Paolini and the beautiful costumes of Giovanna Buzzi.

Created for San Carlo in 2005, the production, suspended between theater and art, stands out for its powerful visual impact and rarefied beauty, and it is no coincidence that in 2006 the Italian critics awarded it a double Abbiati Award, for the scenery and the clothes.

The cast is first-rate, featuring some of the greatest Wagnerian interpreters of the moment on stage: Jonas Kaufmann, which returns after last year's inaugural Othello, will give body and voice to Siegmund, John Relyea will be Hunding, Christopher Maltman, Wotan, Vida Miknevičiūtė will play the role of Sieglinde, Okka von der Damerau that of Brünnhilde.

On the podium, at the helm of theSan Carlo Orchestra and Chorus, the Israeli master Dan Ettinger, from this Season new musical director of the Theater.

Die Walkure is the second of the four musical dramas that form the Tetralogy of the Ring of the Nibelung of Richard Wagner; was performed for the first time individually, against the composer's intention, the June 26, 1870 in Munich at the behest of Ludwig II, while the first staging of the entire Ring took place at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus from 13 to 17 August 1876.

Among the greatest examples of musical theater of the 19th century, Die Walkure, "masterpiece of heroism and passions" is considered one of the most impressive and moving works in the entire history of music. “Music does not express the passion, love, nostalgia of this or that individual in this or that situation” – he said Wagner in a phrase that has become famous – “but passion, love, nostalgia itself. Music is the language of passion.”

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(Top, photocredit Luciano Romano; Jonas Kaufmann, photocredit Gregor Hohenberg -Sony)