TACOMA, Wash. — Tacoma Opera brought Wagner’s Die Walküre to the city’s historic Pantages Theater Oct. 9 and 11 in what appears to have been Tacoma’s first fully staged production of the opera. The occasion marked the second installment of Tacoma Opera’s first Ring cycle, launched a year ago with Das Rheingold.
Until the last decade or so, the Pacific Northwest long enjoyed a special association with Wagner thanks to Seattle Opera, whose celebrated Ring productions once attracted devotees from around the world. But Seattle’s last complete cycle was in 2013. Tacoma Opera is now staking out its own place in that history.
The undertaking is an outstanding example of how a regional opera company with limited resources can redefine its mission in a moment when larger arts institutions, facing financial pressures, are scaling back their ambitions.
Since becoming general director in 2023, Limuel Forgey has made the Ring the centerpiece of an effort to expand Tacoma Opera’s artistic reach and civic profile. The company, founded in 1968 as a satellite of Seattle Opera, plans to present the entire cycle in 2029. Its projected budget for the four operas, estimated last year at about $2 million, is a fraction of what a major company would spend on a comparable venture.
The first of two performances of Die Walküre attracted a nearly full house, with an attentive and enthusiastic audience. The palpable sense of occasion suggested that Tacoma Opera’s gamble is already achieving something important: cultivating a local audience eager to experience Wagner’s epic on its own doorstep.
Staging Die Walküre raises the stakes considerably for Tacoma Opera’s Ring project. Last year’s Das Rheingold, for all its homespun theatrical trappings, had its share of compelling performances, notably Gabriel Manro’s imposing Wotan. With Die Walküre, the demands are greater. Wagner moves from the relatively brisk succession of encounters in Rheingold into a drama sustained by lengthy, psychologically searching exchanges, testing the singers and orchestra across a wider expressive range. Tacoma Opera rose to some of these challenges, particularly in its strongest vocal performances.
Stage director Thomas Harper, a veteran Wagnerian and former tenor who sang Mime in major Ring productions, continued the resolutely traditional approach established in last year’s Rheingold, prioritizing straightforward storytelling over any heavy-duty Regie reinterpretation. Tamsen Tanner’s costumes, with their furs, braids, armor, and feathered headpieces, evoked a familiar storybook world of Norse legend, tinged with touches of contemporary fantasy and cosplay culture.
The first act began with a burst of energy and expectation, offering some of the production’s most compelling moments as the encounter between Siegmund and Sieglinde gathered dramatic momentum. James Chamberlain, an experienced Wagnerian who sang Siegfried in a complete Ring cycle in Vermont last year, brought a powerful, ringing tenor to Siegmund, his expansive cries of “Wälse!” prompting prolonged spontaneous applause.
Chamberlain and Jessica Sandidge as Sieglinde established a compelling rapport as the bond between the two characters deepened. A soprano whose repertoire ranges from Puccini’s Manon Lescaut to Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah, Sandidge quickly overcame some initial tentativeness, gaining confidence and revealing a thrilling upper register supported by a firm lower range. She was especially convincing in conveying Sieglinde’s vulnerability as Hunding’s oppressed wife, though her sometimes wide-eyed, girlish demeanor was less persuasive in suggesting the character’s awakening sensuality.
While Jonah Spool, who sang Fasolt in last year’s Das Rheingold, added tension to the scene with his hulking Hunding, his initial interruption of the lovers prompted a few titters, as if the audience were watching a sitcom about a compromising romantic encounter. In Spool’s vocally solid Hunding, a more threatening stage presence would have sharpened the dark atmosphere from which the twins seek escape.
The physical staging, however, did not always match the intensity of the performances. Hunding’s hutlike dwelling was serviceably realized, but the great ash tree in which the sword Nothung is embedded — and on which Siegmund’s desperate hopes become fixed — jutted up not so impressively stage left, scarcely registering as the scene’s focal point. The sword was difficult to see, robbing Siegmund’s climactic gesture of some of its force.
The visual shortcomings became more conspicuous in Acts II and III. A pair of artificial-looking rock formations dominated the stage, backed by largely static projected landscapes. Lighting by Limuel Forgey and L. B. Forgey could have done more to alter their appearance, but the narrow range of colors and generally flat illumination left these rudimentary rocks looking stubbornly phony — also a weakness in last year’s Rheingold.
The orchestral demands posed another challenge. Given the restricted size of the Pantages Theater pit — and the expense of assembling Wagner’s enormous instrumental forces — conductor Bernard Kwiram again prepared a reduced orchestration for just 39 musicians, following his admirably balanced and effective adaptation of Das Rheingold last year. The ensemble comprised double woodwinds, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, a single tuba and harp, percussion, and just 18 strings.
Overall, the results were uneven. The chamber-scale forces lent a revealing transparency to the extended dialogs at the heart of the drama, from Siegmund and Sieglinde’s initial encounter in Act I to the confrontation between Wotan and Brünnhilde in Act III. Inner orchestral lines that are normally submerged in Wagner’s dense textures could be heard with unusual clarity. Even individual chords sometimes took on an unexpected character, as the reduced forces allowed the instrumental colors within them to emerge separately.
Elsewhere, Wagner’s richly layered orchestral textures sounded more depleted. The turbulent passages in the Act II battle scene suffered especially from this loss of weight and propulsion, while moments of already spare, recitative-like writing sounded unusually exposed.
Still, the “Ride of the Valkyries” generated considerable excitement, and the sweeping “Magic Fire Music” retained much of its enchantment. Kwiram’s generally broad, measured tempos did not always serve the drama as effectively, occasionally tempering the mounting passion between Siegmund and Sieglinde.
Paradoxically, despite this deliberate pacing, the entire performance lasted just shy of four hours, including two intermissions — an unusually brief Walküre, shortened significantly by the omission of Wotan’s approximately 20-minute monologue in Act II.
Act II staged a revealing contrast between the two divine antagonists. Rachelle Moss, who had impressed as Erda in last year’s Rheingold, returned to sing a Fricka of fiery conviction, projecting the wounded pride of a goddess determined to hold Wotan accountable for his transgressions. Yet Harper’s direction made Fricka seem primarily concerned with her husband’s infidelity. Her argument has much larger implications: She is defending the laws and obligations on which Wotan’s power rests, even as he attempts to evade them.
Bryan Glenn Davis, a seasoned dramatic baritone whose Wagnerian experience includes the title role in The Flying Dutchman, brought an introspective, brooding quality to Wotan, portraying a god already feeling the weight of his poor choices. He sang and acted in a subdued manner, often seeming resigned to his predicament. I missed more of the god’s commanding presence and the turmoil beneath it. But the production also deprived Davis of a crucial opportunity to explore Wotan’s conflict by omitting his entire extended Act II confession to Brünnhilde.
This was a particularly consequential omission. Wotan’s confession returns to the events of Das Rheingold, but he is now forced to confront what his decisions have cost him. It is hardly a “previously on Netflix”-style recap. We watch him expose his contradictions to Brünnhilde, while she listens, questions him, and begins to grasp the anguish behind his commands. The scene changes their relationship before our eyes and prepares the way for her defiance. Cutting it removes that process of discovery, an especially regrettable choice for a production hoping to introduce Wagner’s epic to new audiences.
Yet Tara Jamshidian, making her role debut as Brünnhilde, emerged as the outstanding discovery of the production. A soprano who has been developing her Wagnerian repertoire under the mentorship of Jane Eaglen (a celebrated Brünnhilde in Seattle Opera’s history and elsewhere), Jamshidian brought a richly colored voice to the role, with a thrilling, ringing upper register, an attractive warmth in the lower range, and an expressive command of the text.
Her Brünnhilde combined the exuberance of a young warrior goddess with an emerging capacity for empathy. She was especially moving in the Annunciation of Death, as her encounter with Siegmund awakened her compassion and led her toward the momentous decision to defy Wotan. She was equally affecting in Act III, bringing fresh urgency to Brünnhilde’s encounter with the despairing Sieglinde as the prospect of her unborn child gave her a reason to live. In the final confrontation with her father, Jamshidian sustained the scene’s dramatic force through the tenderness and anguish of their farewell.
The eight Valkyrie sisters made a spirited ensemble, bringing energy and flashes of dark humor to their scenes together. Rachelle Moss, already impressive as Fricka, did double duty as Schwertleite, contributing to a “Ride of the Valkyries” that proved surprisingly effective as theater.
In a curious way, Tacoma Opera’s Ring initiative echoes an earlier chapter in American Wagner history, explored by the cultural historian Joseph Horowitz in his landmark 1994 book Wagner Nights and recently revisited in fictional form in his novel The Disciple, which concerns late-19th-century New York, conductor Anton Seidl, and the enthusiasts surrounding him who helped turn Wagner into a popular cultural phenomenon — in the process reaching audiences well beyond established operatic circles.
The circumstances in Tacoma are vastly different, of course, but Forgey’s undertaking reflects a similarly democratic conviction that Wagner’s music dramas belong to a broader public, not simply to the privileged audiences of major opera houses.
There is still much for Tacoma Opera to refine as it prepares for Siegfried and the eventual completion of its Ring with Götterdämmerung. Still, audience enthusiasm suggested that this enterprise is finding a welcome response in Tacoma.
