"Die Walküre - Act 3" Opens Tomorrow

The sneak premiere of  The Theater on the Hills production of Richard Wagner's "Die Walküre - Act 3" is now over. It was a thundering success!

The open premiere will be tomorrow, Sunday March 29, 2015, at 12 PM (noon) SLT, after which the performances will continue through April.

Please read my friend Eddi Haskell's raving review over on his blog: Eddi and Ryce Photograph Second Life.

Here is your ticket to ride to The Theater on the Hill (SLurl).

Attention Opera Lovers!

During the coming week the Theater on the Hill will premier the third - and final act - of Richard Wagner's epic opera Die Walküre (The Valkyrie). This is the act that is many opera lovers favorit.

I am alas not at liberty to reveal the date of the semi-closed premier, however, after that the regular performances will commence from March 29th and onward.

In an exclusive interview Othon Weiland-Nootan revealed to Bock in SecondLife,
- "Bock,  even  opera  haters  will be  amazed! Nothing like this show has never been seen before  in  SecondLife."

ACT III: On the Valkyries' Rock, Brünnhilde's eight warrior sisters - who have gathered there briefly, bearing slain heroes to Valhalla - are surprised to see her enter with Sieglinde. When they hear she is fleeing Wotan's wrath, they are afraid to hide her. Sieglinde is numb with despair until Brünnhilde tells her she bears Siegmund's child. Eager to be saved, she receives the pieces of the sword from Brünnhilde and ecstatically thanks her rescuer as she rushes off into the forest to hide near Fafner's cave, a place safe from Wotan. When the god appears, he sentences Brünnhilde to become a mortal woman, silencing her sisters' objections by threatening to do the same to them. Left alone with her father, Brünnhilde pleads that in disobeying his orders she was really doing what he wished ("War es so schmählich"). Wotan will not relent: she must lie in sleep, booty for any man who finds her. But as his anger abates she asks the favor of being surrounded in sleep by a wall of fire that only the bravest hero can pierce. Both sense this hero must be the child that Sieglinde will bear. Sadly renouncing his daughter ("Leb' wohl"), Wotan kisses Brünnhilde's eyes with sleep and mortality before summoning Loge, the spirit of fire, to encircle the rock. As flames spring up, the departing Wotan invokes a spell forbidding the rock to anyone who fears his spear.

The actors
Brünnhilde: Oliver Elton
Wotan: Silvano Korobase
Sieglinde: Yanneck Docherty

Valkyries: Joshua Swords, Louie Bisiani, Rick Carson, Richardson Nootan-Weiland, Remi2000, Ronny Swords, Wolfhard Gelman Chaffe, WildSummer Destiny

The production

Produced and Directed by Immerdar Fredriksson

Scripting by Blaise Timtam

First Life Ring Machine designed by Robert LaPage for the Metropolitan Opera and adapted for SecondLife by Immerdar Fredriksson and Blaise Timtam

This production has been made possible in part by a generous grant from THE CHETZ R. SZONDI FOUNDATION

Executive Director Garth Raleigh

The recording

Brünnhilde: Birgit Nilsson
Wotan: George London
Sieglinde: Gre Brouwenstijn

Conductor: Erich Leinsdorf
The London Symphony Orchestra

Recorded 1961 by Decca Records

Opera in SecondLife

I attended the premiere of an opera at the Theater on the Hill yesterday. The company performed the first act of Richard Wagner's "Die Walküre" with Silvano Korobase, Oliver Elton and Richardson Nootan.

The storyline of the first act (according to Wikipedia) with pictures from yesterdays performance:

"During a raging storm, Siegmund seeks shelter at the house of the warrior Hunding. Hunding is not present, and Siegmund is greeted by Sieglinde, Hunding's unhappy wife. Siegmund tells her that he is fleeing from enemies. After taking a drink of mead, he moves to leave, claiming to be cursed by misfortune. But Sieglinde bids him stay, saying he can bring no misfortune to the "house where ill luck lives".

 Returning, Hunding reluctantly offers Siegmund the hospitality demanded by custom. Sieglinde, increasingly fascinated by the visitor, urges him to tell his tale. Siegmund describes returning home with his father one day to find his mother dead and his twin sister abducted. He then wandered with his father until parting from him as well. One day he found a girl being forced into marriage and fought with the girl's relatives. His weapons were broken and the bride was killed, and he was forced to flee to Hunding's home. Initially Siegmund does not reveal his name, choosing to call himself Wehwalt, 'filled with woe'.

When Siegmund finishes, Hunding reveals that he is one of Siegmund's pursuers. He grants Siegmund a night's stay, but they are to do battle in the morning. Hunding leaves the room with Sieglinde, ignoring his wife's distress. Siegmund laments his misfortune, recalling his father's promise that he would find a sword when he most needed it.

Sieglinde returns, having drugged Hunding's drink to send him into a deep sleep. She reveals that she was forced into a marriage with Hunding. During their wedding feast, an old man appeared and plunged a sword into the trunk of the ash tree in the center of the room, which neither Hunding nor any of his companions could remove. She expresses her longing for the hero who could draw the sword and save her. Siegmund expresses his love for her, which she reciprocates, and as she strives to understand her recognition of him, she realises it is in the echo of her own voice, and reflection of her image, that she already knows him. When he speaks the name of his father, Wälse, she declares that he is Siegmund, and that the Wanderer left the sword for him.

 Siegmund now easily draws the sword forth, and she tells him she is Sieglinde, his twin sister. He names the blade "Nothung" (or needful, for this is the weapon that he needs for his forthcoming fight with Hunding). As the act closes he calls her "bride and sister", and draws her to him with passionate fervour."

It was overall an extremely interesting experience to watch and listen to the performance, although I am not an opera buff myself and cannot tell you who the singers were. Opera is in itself an acquired taste and will, in my humble opinion, most likely prove to be so in SecondLife also.

Those of us at the premiere and sharing the experience with the cast and crew were overwhelmingly enthusiastic, but more so for the effort the company had put into this production than anything else.

You have a chance to catch the performance on Sunday September 22, 2013, at 12:00PM SLT. Your limousine to the opera (SLurl)

"An Overwhelming Experience"

The Theater on the Hill Company has given its guests many wonderful and entertaining musicals, shows, cabarets and plays through the years, but now they are pulling all the stops and going all out and promise their guests "an overwhelming experience".

For - perhaps - the first time in SecondLife The Theater on the Hill is going to treat its patrons with a full blown dramatic opera with stunning effects. The opera is Richard Wagner's "Die Walküre", act 1.

"Siegmund" will be portrayed by Silvano Korobase, "Sieglinde" by Oliver Elton and "Hunding" by Richardson Nootan.

Subtitles in English will be provided for those who are not fluent in the German language of the opera.

The opera premieres on Tuesday September 17, 2013, at 1:00PM SLT. If you cannot catch that performance you have a second chance on Sunday September 22, 2013, at 12:00PM SLT.

Your limousine to the opera (SLurl)