Out West Arts: Performance at the end of the world

Photo: Al Seib/LA Times 2006

Achim Freyer.

Well, at least at LA Opera. As noted in today's LA Times, Freyer has been selected to direct the company's recently announced 2008-2010 production of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen.

Of course this is great news considering how fantastic his prior LA Opera productions have been inclduing Berlioz' La Damnation de Faust and Bach's Mass in B minor. Of course both, particularly the latter, were met with some controversy. Given Mr. Freyer as director, what Mr. Domingo meant a few weeks ago by "moderate" production remains to be seen. I think this can only be good news for LA Opera, but, of course, it does leave them at least two good years to completely screw this up, which should be ample time given the switcheroos in recent memory.

Conlon will conduct and the cast is scheduled to include Plácido Domingo as Siegmund; Linda Watson as Brünnhilde; John Treleaven as Siegfried; Anja Kampe as Sieglinde; Michelle DeYoung as Fricka; Eric Halfvarson triple-cast as Fafner, Hunding and Hagen; Gordon Hawkins as Alberich; Graham Clark as Mime; Jill Grove as Erda; Arnold Bezuyen as Loge; and Alan Held as Gunther.