{"id":44945,"date":"2017-11-18T22:29:39","date_gmt":"2017-11-19T05:29:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=44945"},"modified":"2017-11-18T22:40:18","modified_gmt":"2017-11-19T05:40:18","slug":"the-valkyrie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2017\/11\/the-valkyrie.html","title":{"rendered":"“The Valkyrie”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Br\u00fcnnhilde<\/a>
\u201cBr\u00fcnnhilde the Valkyrie,\u201d by Arthur Rackham (1910)
Wikimedia Commons public domain<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Rather a Germanish day today (Saturday). \u00a0Also a good day to be inside \u2014 dark and windy and rainy.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

My wife and I went out to lunch with a long-time friend \u2014 I knew him at BYU before my mission; he was called to the same mission as I was (though he spent most of his time in Lebanon rather than in Switzerland), and he was the best man at our wedding \u2014 at The Berghoff<\/a>. \u00a0That\u2019s something of a tradition whenever we\u2019re here; he introduced me to the restaurant, many years ago . \u00a0All three of us had Wienerschnitzel. \u00a0(After all, what else were we supposed\u00a0<\/i>to have? \u00a0Tradition!)<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Sieglinde,<\/a>
Sieglinde brings food to Siegmund and her husband Hunding, who has perhaps just begun to notice the resemblance between her and his visitor. (Arthur Rackham, 1910; Wikimedia Commons public domain)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Then my wife and I attended a performance \u2014 four hours and forty-five minutes long, counting two thirty-minute intermissions \u2014 of Die Walk\u00fcre<\/em> (The Valkyrie<\/em>) at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. \u00a0It is, of course, the second opera in Richard Wagner\u2019s four-part cycle, Der Ring des Nibelungen<\/em> (The Ring of the Nibelung<\/em>).<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The principal performers\u00a0were Brandon Jovanovich (Siegmund), Elisabet Strid (Sieglinde), Ain Anger (Hunding), Eric Owens (Wotan), Christine Goerke (Br\u00fcnnhilde), and Tanja Ariane Baumgartner (Fricka). \u00a0The conductor was Sir Andrew Davis.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

There were a few aspects of the production for which I didn\u2019t much care: \u00a0For example, the place where Br\u00fcnnhilde and her Valkyrie-sisters had their \u201cheadquarters\u201d \u2014 and where they gathered the souls of heroic fallen warriors \u2014 resembled a butcher shop. \u00a0All of the Valkyries (except Br\u00fcnnhilde) were dressed in red, and their assistants were wearing bloody butchers\u2019 aprons. \u00a0A bit much, I thought. \u00a0And not really consistent with the nature and tasks of the \u201creal\u201d Valkyries. \u00a0But, overwhelmingly, it was a very good performance.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I saw the entire Ring<\/em> cycle at the San Francisco Opera back in 1990, when I spent a summer at a seminar sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. \u00a0My wife and kids weren\u2019t with me for most of that time, so she missed it. \u00a0Which is why, now that they\u2019re slowly doing the Ring<\/em> here in Chicago, we\u2019re attending. \u00a0Last year, at roughly this time, we saw Das Rheingold<\/em>. \u00a0Next year, if all goes well, we\u2019ll be back for Siegfried<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Sieglinde<\/a>
Sieglinde fetches a sleeping potion with which to put her evil husband Hunding to sleep. (Arthur Rackham, 1910; Wikimedia Commons public domain)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I was surprised to find myself rather moved by the final act of tonight\u2019s opera. \u00a0It\u2019s been more than a quarter of a century, of course, but I don\u2019t remember reacting that way in San Francisco. \u00a0Maybe I\u2019m just getting old and sentimental. \u00a0I also found myself thinking theologically, as I watched the interaction between Wotan and Br\u00fcnnhilde (the Valkyrie). \u00a0Perhaps I\u2019ll write those thoughts up at some point.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Posted from Chicago, Illinois<\/p>\n

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\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 Rather a Germanish day today (Saturday). \u00a0Also a good day to be inside \u2014 dark and windy and rainy. \u00a0 My wife and I went out to lunch with a long-time friend \u2014 I knew him at BYU before my mission; he was called to the same mission as I was (though he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n"The Valkyrie"<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"    Rather a Germanish day today (Saturday). \u00a0Also a good day to be inside -- dark and windy and rainy.   My wife and I went out to lunch\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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