Die Walküre review — brilliantly imagined Wagner (with extra zombies)
Twenty months is a long time to wait for the second instalment of a serialised thriller. But even before the music of Die Walküre starts, Barrie Kosky — directing the Royal Opera's unfolding cycle of Wagner's Ring — reminds us of the main talking point of Das Rheingold, the first instalment. That naked old lady, representing Earth in all its exhausted vulnerability, is back.
Again she covers her eyes in despair. Again she will be a mute witness on this epic journey to the world's end. And again that journey is evoked by Kosky with a startling theatricality that goes hand in glove with Antonio Pappano's vivid conducting of the music and the Royal Opera orchestra's magnificent playing.
There's not much scenery, and certainly
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