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| Latvian National Opera house |
Riga (where the national opera house is based for those not keeping up) is highly significant for wagnerians for three reasons - two of which I find are well known the last less so. Indeed, so important may Riga and it's opera houses be to wagnerians that Bayreuth may have been a far different theatre if Wagner had never been there.
First, of course, Wagner was Music Director of the old Riga Stadttheater; second, it was while running away from creditors in Riga that he made the faithful sea voyage that he claimed gave him the idea for the Sailors Chorus in the Flying Dutchman (he also of course wrote act 1 and part of act 2 of Rienzi here). However, of perhaps most interest, and less known, is that the old theatre may have given him the outline for the design of Bayreuth.
According to Friedrich Glasenapp:
To anyone who has been to Bayreuth these features may seem familiar!"The auditorium of the old Stadttheater ...was a pretty gloomy place. A native of Riga (who later) compared it to a "barn" (while in) conversation with Wagner asked him how he had been able to conduct there. Wagner replied there were three things about this "barn" (that) had stayed in his mind: First was the steeply rising stalls, rather like an amphitheatre; the second was the darkness of the auditorium; and the third was the surprisingly deep orchestra pit. If ever he succeded in building a theatre to his own designs, he added, he would keep these three features in mind" C.F. Glasenapp: Das Leben Richard Wagner (1894-1911)
Richard Wagner Strasse, Riga
And now to the details
Wagner: Götterdämmerung
Latvian National Opera
Die Walküre (2007)
Production Music Director and Conductor
Director
Set and Costume Designer
Dramaturge
Siegfried (2008)
Cast:
