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Götterdämmerung
(Twilight of the Gods)
"Every time
I listen to Wagner, I am overcome with a desire to invade
Poland."
(Woody Allen)
 Götterdämmerung
(Twilight of the Gods) is the final opera of Richard
Wagner's Ring Cycle, and is considered to be the finest
in the Cycle. It will be performed by the West
Australian Symphony Orchestra and the West Australian
Opera Chorus with soloists.
Siegfried - Alan
Woodrow
Brunnhilde - Susan
Bullock
Hagen - Harry Peeters
Gunther - Margaret Medlyn
Gutrune - Sir Donald McIntyre
Waltraute/2nd Norm - Elizabeth Campbell
Woglinde - Merlyn Quaife
Wellgunde - Nicole Youl
Flossholde - Kathryn Dineen
First Norm - Liane Keegan
Third Norm - Leanne Kenneally
The opera will be sung in German with a new English
surtitled adaption by WA poet John
Kinsella broadcast to the audience inside the Concert
Hall and outside.
Ring Cycle goes Bush in
The Australian, July 1 2002
This article describes Kinsella’s adaptation of
the lyrics for the PIAF performance.
The production will be on a grand scale combining the
momentous music of the Ring Cycle with a cinematic leitmotif
journey of the goldfields of Western Australia, the
ancient karri forests and the timeless treasures of
the Indian Ocean underworld.
Plot
Synopsis
You can read a synopsis of the opera's plot.
Richard Wagner
You can find out more about Richard Wagner and the
Ring Cycle from:
The Richard
Wagner Website
The
Richard Wagner Home Page
The following books are available
at the State Library
The
Life of Richard Wagner
This four volume set written by Ernest Newman was originally
published in 1937. Described as ‘vast
scholarship, profound insight and brilliant prose…that
is likely to stand as the definitive word on its subject’.
My
Life
An autobiography written by Richard Wagner and translated
from the German into English.
Wagner
Barry Millington illuminates ‘Wagner’s
magnetic and egotistic personality, his theories on
his art, on revolution, the role of ‘the people’,
‘racial purity’ and his anti-Semitism set
against his social and cultural background’.
Who's
who and what's what in Wagner
1997
A Jonathan Lewsey reference work about Wagner that is
organised in a dictionary format on opera plots, character
biographies and a lexicon of difficult words and phrases.
Ring Cycle
The following works are a selection of the many books
on Wagner's Ring Cycle which are held by the State Library.
How
to understand Wagner's Ring of the Nibelung ... : the
story and descriptive analysis, with musical examples
of the leading motives of each drama
Tells the story of 'The Twilight
of the Gods' as well as a musical analysis, written
by the well known opera writer Gustav Kobbe.
Wagner
Rehearsing the 'Ring' : an eye-witness account of the
stage rehearsals of the first Bayreuth festival
Provides Wagner’s view of how “the
Ring" should be performed. Wagner requested
that Porges, writer and musician ‘follow
all my rehearsals very closely and note down everything
I say, even the smallest details, about the interpretation
and performance, so that a tradition goes down in writing’.
Ring Resounding in 24 Hours,
April 1998
This article outlines the details of the State Opera
of South Australia's production of Wagner's Ring cycle
in November 1998.
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