RSNO Friday Night Club: Wagner Highlights from Götterdämmerung

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Friday Night Club Fri 26 Jun 2020: 7.30pm WAGNER Highlights from Götterdämmerung introduced by James Naughtie Sir Andrew Davis Conductor Royal Scottish National Orchestra Christine Goerke Brünnhilde Burkhard Fritz Siegfried Karen Cargill Waltraute Ain Anger Hagen Josef Wagner Gunther RCS Voices Timothy Dean Director Performed on Sat 25 Aug 2019 at the Usher Hall, Edinburgh, as part of the Edinburgh International Festival

RSNO Friday Night Club: Highlights from Götterdämmerung

Friday Night Club

St Andrew’s Celebration with Phil & Aly

Join us next Fri 3 Jul at 7.30pm (BST) for our final Friday Night Club concert John Logan Conductor Phil Cunningham Accordion • Aly Bain Fiddle Eddi Reader Vocals • Julie Fowlis Vocals Royal Scottish National Orchestra National Youth Pipe Band of Scotland Recorded on Sat 26 Nov 2016, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall

Sponsored by

rsno.org.uk/friday

Scotland’s National Orchestra

Highlights from Götterdämmerung Act I Prologue Sunrise Siegfried and Brünnhilde’s Love Duet Siegfried hands over the Ring to Brünnhilde Brünnhilde gives Siegfried her horse, Grane Act I Scene 3 Waltraute begs Brünnhilde to return the Ring to the Rhinemaidens Brünnhilde refuses to give up the symbol of Siegfried’s love Act II Scene 3 Hagen summons his troops to welcome Gunther and Brünnhilde Act III Scene 2 Hagen confronts and stabs Siegfried Siegfried dies, pledging himself to Brünnhilde Act III Scene 3

Richard Wagner (1813-1883)

FIRST PERFORMED 17 August 1876, at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, as part of the first complete performance of Der Ring des Nibelungen.

Brünnhilde commands a funeral pyre for Siegfried She puts on the Ring and rides Grane into the flames The Rhine bursts its banks The Rhinemaidens retrieve the Ring from Hagen’s grasp Valhalla, the home of the gods, is consumed by fire

RSNO Friday Night Club: Highlights from Götterdämmerung

Ain Anger HAGEN Bass Ain Anger studied at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre, Tallinn, and began his career as a member of Oper Leipzig, where he made his debut in 2001.

From 2004 to 2010 he was a member of the ensemble of the Vienna Staatsoper, where his roles included Monterone (Rigoletto), Philip II (Don Carlos), Basilio (Il barbiere di Siviglia), Sarastro (Die Zauberflöte), Des Grieux (Manon), Peneios (Daphne), Orest (Elektra), Pimen (Boris Godunov), Gremin (Eugene Onegin), Zaccaria (Nabucco), Fiesco (Simon Boccanegra), Dossifey (Khovanshchina), Pogner (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg), Daland (Der fliegende Holländer), Hunding (Der Ring des Nibelungen) and Hermann (Tannhäuser).

His engagements elsewhere include Fafner (Das Rheingold, Siegfried) at Bayreuth, Hunding in complete Ring cycles in Munich and Frankfurt, Hunding (Die Walküre) in Chicago, Daland at La Scala (Milan), Pogner in San Francisco, Hermann with the Deutsche Oper Berlin at the BBC Proms, Hagen in Toronto, the title role in Boris Godunov at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Pimen for the Royal Opera and Cardinal Brogni (La Juive) in Munich.

During the 2018-19 season his opera engagements included Hunding (Die Walküre) for the Royal Opera, Zaccaria at the Vienna Staatsoper, Gremin (Eugene Onegin) in Munich, and King René (Iolanta) and the Commendatore (Don Giovanni) for the Opéra National de Paris.

Prior to lockdown his 2019-20 engagements included Hunding (Die Walküre) in Amsterdam and Madrid, and Heinrich (Lohengrin) and Sarastro in Vienna.

Scotland’s National Orchestra

Karen Cargill WALTRAUTE Born in Arbroath, mezzo-soprano Karen Cargill studied at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (now the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland) and the National Opera Studio, London.

Her opera engagements include Fricka (Die Walküre) at the 2017 Edinburgh International Festival; Waltraute (Götterdämmerung) for the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Royal Opera and the Metropolitan Opera, New York; Anna (Les Troyens) and Magdalena (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg) for the Metropolitan Opera; Waltraute (Die Walküre), Second Norn (Götterdämmerung) and Dryad (Ariadne auf Naxos) for the Royal Opera; Geneviève (Pelléas et Mélisande) at Glyndebourne; Suzuki (Madam Butterfly) and Brangäne (Tristan and Isolde) for English National Opera; and Judith (Duke Bluebeard’s Castle) and Isabella (L’italiana in Algeri) for Scottish Opera.

With her recital partner Simon Lepper she has performed at the Wigmore Hall (London), Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Kennedy Center (Washington), Carnegie Hall (New York) and Edinburgh International Festival. She regularly sings with the London Symphony, London Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Cleveland, Philadelphia and Seoul Philharmonic orchestras, and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe.

During the 2018-19 season her opera engagements included Mère Marie (Dialogues des Carmélites) and Erda (Das Rheingold, Siegfried) for the Metropolitan Opera, and Brangäne in Montpellier. Prior to lockdown her 2019-20 engagements included Judith for Opera North and Berg’s Seven Early Songs with the RSNO.

RSNO Friday Night Club: Highlights from Götterdämmerung

Burkhard Fritz SIEGFRIED Tenor Burkhard Fritz was born in Hamburg, where he studied medicine alongside his vocal studies with Ute Buge. He also studied with Alfredo Kraus, Carlo Bergonzi, Arturo Sergi and Irmgard Hartmann-Dressler. He began his career at the Stadttheater Bremerhaven and the Musiktheater im Revier, Gelsenkirchen, before joining the ensemble of the Berlin Staatsoper in 2004. He has been a freelance artist since 2010.

His engagements have included the title role in Tannhäuser in Antwerp and Leipzig, and at the Berlin Staatsoper, the title role in Lohengrin in Copenhagen and at the Vienna Staatsoper, Erik (Der fliegende Holländer) in Cologne, Siegmund (Die Walküre) in Leipzig, Bacchus (Ariadne auf Naxos) at the Berlin Staatsoper, the Emperor (Die Frau ohne Schatten) in Leipzig and at the Berlin Staatsoper, Hoffmann (Les contes d’Hoffmann) and Paul (Die tote Stadt) in Dresden, Max (Der Freischütz) in Hamburg, and Waldemar in a staging of Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder in Amsterdam.

He has a busy concert career collaborating with leading international conductors and performing a repertory that includes Mahler’s Eighth Symphony and Das Lied von der Erde and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.

During the 2018-19 season his opera engagements included the title role in Siegfried in Chicago, the title role in Parsifal in Melbourne and Munich, Walther von Stolzing (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg) at the Berlin Staatsoper and Paul in Dresden. Prior to lockdown his 2019-20 engagements included Florestan (Fidelio) and Hoffmann in Dresden.

Scotland’s National Orchestra

Christine Goerke BRÜNNHILDE Soprano Christine Goerke was born in Medford, New York, and was a member of the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program at the Metropolitan Opera, New York (1994-7).

She specialised in Mozart and Handel before moving to more dramatic repertory in 2005.

Her recent engagements include Brünnhilde (Siegfried) in concert at the 2018 Edinburgh International Festival; the title role in Elektra for the Metropolitan Opera, in San Francisco and Houston, and at the BBC Proms; the title role in Ariadne auf Naxos at La Scala, Milan, and Glimmerglass; Brünnhilde (Der Ring des Nibelungen) in Toronto and Houston; the title role in Turandot for the Metropolitan Opera and the Royal Opera; Leonore (Fidelio) in Cincinnati; Cassandre (Les Troyens) in Chicago; Brünnhilde (Die Walküre) in Chicago; and Ortrud (Lohengrin) for the Royal Opera.

In concert she has appeared with the Cleveland, New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, BBC Symphony, Royal Concertgebouw, Atlanta Symphony and Sydney Symphony orchestras, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and the Hallé.

She received the 2001 Richard Tucker Award and the 2017 Opera News Award, and in 2015 she was named Vocalist of the Year by Musical America.

During the 2018-19 season her opera engagements included Brünnhilde (Siegfried) in Chicago, Elektra in Toronto and Brünnhilde in the complete Ring cycle for the Metropolitan Opera. Prior to lockdown her 2019-20 engagements included Isolde (Tristan und Isolde) in Amsterdam and Lucerne, the title role in Turandot in New York and the title role in Elektra in Vienna.

RSNO Friday Night Club: Highlights from Götterdämmerung

Josef Wagner GUNTHER Bass-baritone Josef Wagner was born in Lower Austria and studied with Kurt Equiluz and Robert Holl at the Universität für Musik und Darstellende Kunst, Vienna. He also attended masterclasses with Paul Esswood, Walter Berry and Christa Ludwig, and currently studies with Wicus Slabbert. In 2002 he joined the ensemble of the Vienna Volksoper, where his numerous roles included Don Alfonso (Così fan tutte), Dulcamara (L’elisir d’amore), Figaro (Le nozze di Figaro) and Papageno (Die Zauberflöte).

He has been a freelance artist since 2006.

His recent engagements include the title role in Don Giovanni and Lindorf/Coppélius/Dr Miracle/Dappertutto (Les contes d’Hoffmann) at the Volksoper; Golaud (Pelléas et Mélisande), the Dutchman (Der fliegende Holländer) and the Ruler in Korngold’s Das Wunder der Heliane at the Deutsche Oper Berlin; Figaro in Toronto; Guglielmo (Così fan tutte) in Marseille; Antigone in Spontini’s Olympie at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Paris; Papageno in Antwerp; the title role in Eugene Onegin in Helsinki; the Music Master (Ariadne auf Naxos) in Nancy and at the Aix-en-Provence Festival; and Peter (Hänsel und Gretel) in Nancy.

His concert repertory ranges from Baroque to contemporary music and he is a noted exponent of Schubert’s Die Winterreise and Die schöne Müllerin.

During the 2018-19 season his opera engagements included the Dutchman in Malmö, the Count (Capriccio) in Madrid and Jokanaan (Salome) in Stuttgart. Prior to lockdown his 2019-20 engagements included Marcello (La bohème) in Helsinki and Mandryka (Arabella) in Zürich.

Scotland’s National Orchestra

Sir Andrew Davis CONDUCTOR During the 2018-19 season his engagements included Idomeneo, Siegfried and Cendrillon with the Lyric Opera of Chicago; John Harbison’s Second Symphony with the Boston Symphony Orchestra; Berlioz’s L’enfance du Christ with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales; and guest appearances with the BBC Symphony, BBC Philharmonic and Royal Liverpool Philharmonic orchestras. Prior to lockdown his 2019-20 opera engagements included The Barber of Seville and The Queen of Spades in Chicago.

He records exclusively for Chandos and his recordings of York Bowen’s Symphonies Nos 1 and 2 (2012), works by Berlioz, Elgar, Grainger, Delius, Ives and Holst (2015) and Messiah (2017) were nominated for GRAMMY Awards.

Born in Ashridge, Hertfordshire, in 1944, Andrew Davis was an organ scholar at King’s College, Cambridge, before taking up conducting.

Formerly Chief Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra (1991-2004) and Music Director of Glyndebourne Festival Opera (1988-2000), he is currently Conductor Laureate and interim Artistic Director (until 2020) of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (having previously served as Principal Conductor), Conductor Laureate of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Music Director and Principal Conductor of the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Chief Conductor of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Conductor Emeritus of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.

He conducts virtually every other internationally prominent orchestra and opera company in a varied repertory, and is particularly noted as a proponent of 20thcentury works.

He was made a CBE in 1992 and knighted in 1999.

RSNO Friday Night Club: Highlights from Götterdämmerung

Timothy Dean CHORUS DIRECTOR Timothy Dean studied at the University of Reading and the Royal College of Music. He was Chorus Master and Head of Music for Kent Opera, the first Music Director of British Youth Opera, conductor of the London Bach Society, Music Director of The Opera Company and Assistant Music Director and Chorus Master with the New D’Oyly Carte Opera Company, before becoming Head of Opera at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (now the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, or RCS) in 1994. He was Artistic Director of British Youth Opera (2000-6), of which he is now a vice president, and was Director of the RSNO Chorus (2006-14); he was made a fellow of the RCS in 2010.

In 2013 he conducted The Cunning Little Vixen for the Hong Kong Academy of the Performing Arts and in 2014 was artist-in-residence at the Hochschule für Musik, Nuremberg.

He was involved in the RCS’s collaborative projects in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, conducting performances of Ariadne auf Naxos, Britten’s Phaedra, and War and Peace (which was nominated for a Royal Philharmonic Society Award).

He is Artistic Director of the RCS’s Song Studio, Director of RCS Voices and Head of the RCS’s Leverhulme Advanced Conducting Programme.

Scotland’s National Orchestra

RCS Voices RCS Voices was established in 2014 to provide performing opportunities for young singers at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland to sing both as a group of soloists and in ensembles.

It is a flexible pool of talent that can vary in size according to repertory, exploring music from the Baroque to the contemporary. Its first public performances were in 2015, initially in programmes with a Baroque bias, at St Margaret’s Newlands and the Conservatoire itself. In 2015 it gave a concert of music for male voices and horns as part of the Cottier Chamber Music Project at the West End Festival, Glasgow, which included the world premiere of a work by David Kirchner; in the same year the choir expanded to make its Edinburgh International Festival debut as the chorus for The Rake’s Progress with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra conducted by Sir Andrew Davis.

SOPRANO

Julia Daramy-Williams Charlie Drummond Natasha Hendrickse-Welsh Nora Holden Mary McCabe Alexandra McPhee Emma Mockett Margaret Ravalde Victoria Stevens MEZZO-SOPRANO

Lynn Bellamy Anna-Sofia Churchill Penelope Cousland Jessica Eccleston Fiona Joice Inkeri Kallio Jane Monari Lea Shaw Beth Taylor TENOR

Maximilian Fane Robert Forrest Matthew Morgan Kenneth Reid Gordon Robertson Richard Shaffrey Luke Sinclair James Slimings Kieran White BASS

Samuel Carl James Corrigan Nicholas Cowie Timothy Edmundson David Horton Jonathan Kennedy Brian McBride Colin Murray Christopher Nairne

RSNO Friday Night Club: Highlights from Götterdämmerung

Royal Scottish National Orchestra

Formed in 1891 as the Scottish Orchestra, the company became the Scottish National Orchestra in 1950, and was awarded Royal Patronage in 1977. The Orchestra’s artistic team is led by Danish conductor Thomas Søndergård, who was appointed RSNO Music Director in October 2018, having previously held the position of Principal Guest Conductor. Hong Kong-born conductor Elim Chan succeeds Søndergård as Principal Guest Conductor. They are joined by Assistant Conductor Junping Qian.

The RSNO performs across Scotland, including concerts in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee, Aberdeen, Perth and Inverness. The Orchestra appears regularly at the Edinburgh International Festival and the BBC Proms, and has made recent tours to the USA, Spain, France, China and Germany.

The Orchestra is joined for choral performances by the RSNO Chorus, directed by Gregory Batsleer. The RSNO Chorus evolved from a choir formed in 1843 to sing the first full performance of Handel’s Messiah in Scotland. Today, the RSNO Chorus is one of the most distinguished large symphonic choruses in Britain, with a membership of around 160. The Chorus has performed nearly every work in the standard choral repertoire, along with contemporary works by composers including John Adams, Howard Shore and James MacMillan.

Formed in 1978 by Jean Kidd, the acclaimed RSNO Junior Chorus, under its new director Patrick Barrett, also performs regularly alongside the Orchestra. Boasting a membership of over 400 members aged from 7 to 18, it has built up a considerable reputation singing under some of the world’s most distinguished conductors and appearing on radio and television.

The RSNO has a worldwide reputation for the quality of its recordings, receiving two Diapason d’Or awards for Symphonic Music (Denève/ Roussel 2007; Denève/Debussy 2012) and eight GRAMMY Awards nominations. Over 200 releases are available, including the complete symphonies of Sibelius (Gibson), Prokofiev (Järvi), Glazunov (Serebrier), Nielsen and Martinů (Thomson) and Roussel (Denève) and the major orchestral works of Debussy (Denève). Thomas Søndergård’s debut recording with the RSNO, of Richard Strauss’ Ein Heldenleben, was released on Linn Records in 2019.

The RSNO’s pioneering learning and engagement programme, Music for Life, aims to engage the people of Scotland with music across key stages of life: Early Years, Nurseries and Schools, Teenagers and Students, Families, Accessing Lives, Working Lives and Retired and Later Life.

The team is committed to placing the Orchestra at the centre of Scottish communities via community workshops and annual residencies across the length and breadth of the country.

Scotland’s National Orchestra

On Stage FIRST VIOLIN Maya Iwabuchi

CELLO Aleksei Kiseliov

LEADER

PRINCIPAL

Lena Zeliszewska

Betsy Taylor Kennedy Leitch Arthur Boutillier Rachael Lee Sarah Digger Miranda Phythian- Adams Robert Anderson

ASSOCIATE LEADER

Tamás Fejes

ASSISTANT LEADER

Patrick Curlett Barbara Paterson Jane Reid Caroline Parry Ursula Heidecker Allen Elizabeth Bamping Lorna Rough Susannah Lowdon Alan Manson Liam Lynch Fiona Stephen SECOND VIOLIN Xander van Vliet PRINCIPAL

Jacqueline Speirs Marion Wilson Nigel Mason Michael Rigg Wanda Wojtasinska Paul Medd Anne Bünemann Sophie Lang Robin Wilson Katie Jackson Kirstin Drew

DOUBLE BASS Ana Cordova PRINCIPAL

Margarida Castro Michael Rae Paul Sutherland John Clark Sally Davis FLUTE Anna Wolstenholme GUEST PRINCIPAL

Helen Brew Janet Larsson PICCOLO Janet Richardson PRINCIPAL

OBOE Adrian Wilson PRINCIPAL

VIOLA Tom Dunn

Peter Dykes Kirstie Logan

Asher Zaccardelli Susan Buchan Lisa Rourke David Martin Claire Dunn Katherine Wren Francesca Hunt Aoife Magee David McCreadie

COR ANGLAIS Henry Clay

PRINCIPAL

BASS CLARINET Duncan Swindells

PRINCIPAL

CONTRABASS TROMBONE Alastair Sinclair

BASSOON David Hubbard

TUBA John Whitener

PRINCIPAL

Luis Eisen CONTRABASSOON Paolo Dutto

PRINCIPAL

Dominic Hackett

HORN Christopher Gough

PERCUSSION Simon Lowdon

PRINCIPAL

Alison Murray Andrew McLean David McClenaghan Martin Murphy Lauren Reeve- Rawlings Elise Campbell Ian Smith Hayley Tonner TRUMPET Christopher Hart PRINCIPAL

Marcus Pope Jason Lewis Brian McGinley BASS TRUMPET Emma Bassett TROMBONE Dávur Juul Magnussen PRINCIPAL

Lance Green

CLARINET Nicholas Carpenter

BASS TROMBONE Josiah Walters

Fraser Langton Robert Fairley

TIMPANI Paul Philbert

PRINCIPAL

PRINCIPAL

GUEST PRINCIPAL

PRINCIPAL

PRINCIPAL

John Poulter Tom Hunter HARP Pippa Tunnell PRINCIPAL

Sharron Griffiths Teresa Barros Pereira Romão Helen Thomson Zuzanna Olbrys Gwen Yorke OFFSTAGE HORN Peter Francomb PRINCIPAL

Fergus McWilliam Michelle Perry Anna Douglass OFFSTAGE STEIRHORN Cillian Ó Ceallacháin PRINCIPAL

Paul Stone Simon Johnson

RSNO Friday Night Club: Highlights from Götterdämmerung

James Naughtie PRESENTER James Naughtie is one of the best-known voices on British radio, having been a presenter on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme from 1994 to 2015. From 1997 he anchored all the BBC Radio UK election results, and worked on every US presidential election from 1988. He is now the Today programme’s Special Correspondent.

He is the author of The Making of Music: A Journey with Notes, to accompany a BBC radio series on the history of Western music, The Rivals, The Accidental American and The New Elizabethans, as well as the political novels The Madness of July and Paris Spring.

Born in Aberdeenshire in Scotland, he started his career in journalism at the Aberdeen Press & Journal before becoming the Chief Political Correspondent of The Scotsman, then held the same position with The Guardian from 1985.

He was voted the Sony Radio Awards Radio Personality of the Year in 1991 and won the Voice of the Listener & Viewer Award in 2001.

He was Chancellor of the University of Stirling from 2008 to 2018.

We hope that you are enjoying the RSNO’s Friday Night Club performances The RSNO is a registered charity, and, with many others, will be severely impacted by this crisis, which is touching the lives of each and every one of us. The support of our audiences and supporters continues to inspire and uplift us, now more than ever. We would like to take this opportunity to send our support and best wishes to you and your families during this challenging time.

In common with many of our colleagues around the country, we have been forced to cancel concerts and events. Ticket sales count for a large part of our income and these cancellations will have a considerable financial impact. We are therefore asking you to consider supporting the RSNO at this very difficult time, by donating the cost of your tickets or by joining

rsno.org.uk

the RSNO Circle. We realise for many, this may not be possible. However, if you are able to consider this request, we would be extremely grateful for your generosity.

Please donate online at rsno.org.uk/support-rsno or visit rsno.org.uk/circle to join today.

In the meantime, we continue to work hard to enrich lives and support the well-being of our community through free, accessible online music and content.

We are a family and a community brought together by music. When our Orchestra returns to the stage, we look forward to welcoming you back to the RSNO and enjoying many more great concerts together.

In partnership with

The Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Edinburgh International Festival would like to thank

for their support of the 2019 performance of GÜtterdämmerung at the International Festival

The RSNO is supported by the Scottish Government