One of the tops of the Cēsis Art Festival 2021 promises to be the concert performance of the third act of the opera “Valkyrie” by Richard Wagner, the pillar of German romantic music, on Saturday, August 14, at the stage of Cēsis Castle Park. Alongside our opera artists, the world-demanded English singer, the dramatic soprano Catherine Foster, will take the stage as Brinhild. In 2011, Fostere sang Brinhild with great success in the production of “The Twilight of Gods” at the Latvian National Opera, followed by an invitation to sing this role in the performance of the “Ring” cycle at the 2013 Bayreuth Festival conducted by Kirill Petrenko. Then, for six years in a row, her Brinhilde lived on the Bayreuth stage, and by reading this role, Fostere became widely known in Europe and the world. It is safe to say that she is one of the most outstanding interpreters of the role of Brinhild in the world.
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Between rehearsals and getting to know the history of Riga, the artist found time for a conversation with composer and cultural journalist Edgars Raginskis.
It is a great joy and honor that you have returned to Latvia to enrich the music program of the Cēsis Art Festival with your singing! How has your life gone in the tense and ignorant atmosphere of the last year and a half?
I visited Riga in 2011, when I participated in the production of Wagner’s opera The Twilight of the Gods. I sailed for life until March last year, when life, as we know it, simply stopped. I lost my job, although since November last year I have been working irregularly in Wiesbaden, where we were preparing the tetralogy of the “Niebelung Ring”. After all, because of the pandemic, we played it not with an orchestra, but with a piano. I was extremely grateful for the opportunity to climb the stage at all, because it is difficult to live without singing and human contact.
Last year we started rehearsing Richard Strauss’s “Elektras” costumes, but we didn’t go any further, because the house sitting period started in England. So I flew home to Germany and waited for the situation to change. The work schedule is still being reorganized – there are opera performances and concerts, which have been moved from last year to the next one, 2022. Each of us, of course, has his own experience and his own impressions, but when I resumed work in November, the beginning was full of emotional experiences and stress. Being among other people before we had the vaccine… Of course, we were tested regularly and thoroughly for Covid-19, and the process continues, including because of our unvaccinated colleagues. I do not want to expand on this topic because it is too polarizing. I arrived in Riga with my daughter Gabija, who had just finished high school, and her year and a half was a period of complete social isolation – the learning process took place remotely, she could not meet friends.
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Now, returning to relatively normal mode means almost overcoming an invisible barrier and believing that I can socialize without worrying about just one of my friends getting sick, or that I can go there and do this, this or that. We need to find a way to live with this situation and move forward. Many problems are due to forced isolation, because we are social beings. So when I get back to work, I feel fantastic. From May to July, I have participated in several performances of the “Niebelung Ring” with a piano, I have performed in Budapest with an orchestra and I cannot tell you how much it thrilled me. I’ll meet your orchestra right away, and I can’t wait, because the concert in Budapest was in June, and before that on the stage with the orchestra dune – in March last year. I miss it all, making music is a part of my soul, which I seemed to put in a box and wait for a year and a half.
Waiting was made easier by my garden. I have a very small garden that was completely empty in March, but now it blooms and is filled with many different colors. This is my project of the last two years, in which I employ myself in the spring and summer. I even have self-pollinating tomatoes that I grew in an old bath! I don’t remember where I brought them from, but it’s interesting what the result will taste like.
So a pandemic has taught you that you can be self-sufficient, but you prefer not to.
No, I couldn’t be self-sufficient because it’s just one tomato seedling, and I don’t think I could survive by eating only tomatoes (laughs).
2020 marked the 150th anniversary of the premiere of “Valkyrie”, but due to the pandemic, the anniversary celebrations were postponed to this year. It can be said that this Saturday in Cēsis we will celebrate the “postponed and detained” anniversary.
Yes, they should have taken place last year, but for security reasons we moved the celebrations to this year, and that was the right decision. I feel that the concert performance will be a very important moment for me. So far, I have only seen Cēsis in the photos, and they are very beautiful, but on Friday I will get to know this city in person.
Do significant and significant anniversaries mean something special to you or do you enjoy any performance?
Hmm, it’s like a birthday, isn’t it !? You especially celebrate your coming of age, but enjoy every birthday. There may be more guests and pomp on the anniversaries, but for me, the celebration is every outcome in front of the audience.
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Reading Wagner’s “Valkyrie” libretto, it seems that there is everything there – incest, infanticide, sexism. In the 21st century, it could just as well be, say, the screenplay for Quentin Tarantino’s film…
That’s life. That’s what happens in the world. I find it interesting that Wagner went through with this story because it was integrated into a historically mythological context. For me, it’s a family saga, a fully-knit family story, but if you read the libretto more carefully, you’ll realize that it’s not just stories, but real family life behind closed doors, and we usually don’t know anything about these events. Valkyrie is a struggle for power and influence. I have participated in the performances of this opera, in which the activity has been reduced to the family saga, and also in productions that reflect on world events. The situations depicted in Valkyrie can be found anywhere in the world – you can adapt this story to any century, era or geographical location. I see this feature as the key to the viability of opera in time and space. I remember participating in the Ring production in Shanghai in 2010, and the audience there was extremely responsive. No matter which image of the opera you choose to identify with, each character in “Valkyrie” has an edge to sympathize with – daughter, mother, father, brother, sister. A few days ago, I read a story about two people who met, fell in love with each other, got married, and then discovered that they were a brother and sister who were separated as a result of adoption. Yes, this opera has the potential for human empathy. Yes, its events are not right, of course they are not right! But in the end it’s a story.
What values or symbols do the main characters of the opera, such as Wotan and Brinhilde, manifest?
In “Valkyrie”, Wotan is looking for a hero who can save him and give the king of the gods what he wants. What Wotan is not aware of, and which is a very modern development, is the fact that the man he is looking for is a woman. This woman is Valkyrie Brinhilde. In my view, Wotan embodies love of power, while Brinhilde has taught him to understand and feel the power of love. These are two extremes, two opposites, and also a paradox: a king of gods who greedily seeks power, teaches his daughter to act in the name of love and always to defend it. In both opera and life, those who long for all-encompassing power and control never win. On the other hand, those who view the world through the prism of the power of love endure all trials. The end of the opera and the whole cycle may not be what listeners might want, but it encodes human survival and renewal. My Niebelung Ring journey, which began in 2006, has been and continues to be full of philosophical revelations. The more I delve into the text of the opera, the more firmly I am convinced that domination and the tendency to dominate do not bring happiness and peace. Brinhilde sees it, is aware of it and is able to rise above this drive, instead choosing to peacefully carry her victim and the inevitability of fate.
In Cesis you will sing together with Latvian opera musicians. Together with Egils Siliņš, the role of Wotāns, you have already performed before.
In cases where the characters in Wotan’s role allow whimsical emotions, I have to keep myself in the reins to be able to balance their acting. Egil is very calm and balanced Wotan, so my Brinhilde can afford more emotional flashes in his presence. He was “my” Wotan at the Essen Opera in 2009, we have sung a lot together and we know the dynamics of each other’s stage behavior, we are able to interact naturally. I just sang three series of “Ring” performances in Wiesbaden with Egils, it was very interesting, and I thought to myself, “Yes, I like to sing with him!”
Can you give any directions to listeners unfamiliar with opera music, how to decode Wagner’s language of music, how to approach it?
Just come to the show and let the music speak. There is no need for anything more because the music is incredibly beautiful. If you can find and get acquainted with the opera libretto, then, of course, read this wonderful story. But even if you don’t know German, don’t be afraid, music is everything!
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