14.05.2026

OLIVIA VERMEULEN – Role debut as Waltraute in Wagner's Götterdämmerung under Kent Nagano

The Dresden Music Festival’s “The Wagner Cycles” project demonstrates that Richard Wagner’s famous “Ring” cycle can still yield entirely new auditory experiences. Since 2023, in close collaboration with a renowned team of scholars, one part of the tetralogy has been prepared each year and performed in Dresden as well as on tours to Europe’s major music centers in a historically informed style. The result has thrilled audiences and critics alike. The New York Times, for example, included Die Walküre from the Amsterdam Concertgebouw on its list of the world’s best performances of 2024. A transparent orchestral sound and the singers’ declamatory precision are also guaranteed for Götterdämmerung. For the dramatic finale, the specially founded Dresden Festival Chorus will add an impressive sonic dimension to this large-scale project.

Olivia Vermeulen, known as much for her stylistic versatility as for her interpretive expressiveness, makes her eagerly anticipated role debut as Waltraute in this production and takes on her very first Wagner role in this particular context.

Once again, she will be joined by Ida Aldrian as the Rhine daughter Wellgunde, who has already appeared in the previous cycles of Das Rheingold and Die Walküre (as Siegrune) and will perform as Siegrune in the coming season at both the Hamburg State Opera and the Opéra de Paris.
 

Besetzung

Young Woo Kim, Siegfried
Johannes Kammler, Gunther
Daniel Schmutzhard, Alberich
Patrick Zielke, Hagen
Åsa Jäger, Brünnhilde
Sophia Brommer, Gutrune
Olivie Vermeulen, Waltraute

Jasmin Etminan, Erste Norn
Marie-Luise Dressen, Zweite Norn
Valentina Farcas, Dritte Norn
Ania Vegry, Woglinde
Ida Aldrian, Wellgunde
Eva Vogel, Flosshilde

Kent Nagano, conductor
Dresdner Festspielchor der Richard-Wagner-Akademie
Dresdner Festspielorchester
Concerto Köln