The opening night may have been in London, but Barrie Kosky’s new Royal Opera production of Wagner’s Die Walküre has its roots firmly in Australia. The darkly dramatic smouldering trees, so hauntingly realised in Rufus Didwiszus’ austerely effective set designs, were inspired by a trip home that the director made when the country was suffering a particularly serious bushfire season.

The Valkyries in Barrie Kosky’s new production of Wagner’s Die Walküre at The Royal Opera, 2025. Photo © Monika Rittershaus
That the Earth has burned is in no doubt in Kosky’s absorbing staging. Logs smoke, Wotan’s spear is a charred branch and magic fire rages on every limb of the world ash tree as Brünnhilde is sealed inside the trunk for her long sleep. Post-apocalyptic or eco-centric Ring Cycles are not exactly new, but this one has the peculiarly haunting quality one associates with memory plays.
Presiding over it all – as she did in Kosky’s provocative 2023 Das Rheingold – is Erda, the Earth Mother, a fragile old woman, vulnerable in her nakedness, and played here with enormous presence by Illona Linthwaite. “How did this burning come...
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