Residents invited to watch ‘The Valkyries’
OPERA CLUB
People are invited to come and watch Richard Wagner’s “Die Walkure” (The Valkyries) on Tuesday, Oct. 18, at 1:30 p.m. in the Learning Center, located off the main meeting space in Clubhouse 3.
Sylvan Von Burg will introduce this first time screening of the music drama of Wagner who conceived the story, wrote the libretto and composed the music for this tale of both gods and mortals.
Act 1 introduces viewers to a beleaguered stranger who stumbles into a mountain dwelling and discovers there a person who is in fact his longlost married sister, Sieglinde. As they learn about each other, the sister’s husband and homeowner, Hunding, arrives to reveal that he has been actively pursuing this very stranger and challenges him to a fight to the death the very next day. As the parties disengage to rest for the night, the newly met brother and sister fall in love and flee with a sword that had been embedded in a tree by their father, a god named Wotan who in fact has fathered many children with various women.
In Act 2, the audience meets Brunnhilde, a god-like warrior woman who is Wotan’s favorite daughter and who on her steed collects fallen heroes and transports them to Valhalla to be honored as heroic gods in their afterlife. Wotan commands Brunnhilde to protect his daughter Sieglinde and her brother/lover Siegmund by destroying Hunding.
However, their talk is interrupted by Erda, wife of Wotan and goddess of marriage, who scolds her husband for his infidelities and for allowing the lovers to escape their fate for breaking an existing marriage, with incest to boot. When the foretold battle ensues, Brunnhilde’s efforts are in vain as a chastened Wotan destroys the very sword he planted for his heroic son, who in turn is killed by the enraged Hunding. Brunnhilde is left to gather up the broken sword and spirit away Sieglinde, who is pregnant by the fallen Siegmund.
Act 3 finds Wotan punishing Brunnhilde for her attempt to protect his son by withdrawing her god-like status and making her a mortal who is subject to other mortals but concedes to her request to protect her by a ring of fire so that only the strongest mortal will be able to find her.
The production is in German with English subtitles. People are urged to wear masks if desired. No dues or fees are collected. For more information, contact Opera Club President Beverly Emus by calling (562) 296-5586 or by email at Beverly90740@gmail.com.
