Richard Wagner

Germanic paganism mixed with some Early Middle Age Christianity and a splash of Greek tragedy is the recipe for this week’s Sunday Opera (11/30 3:00 p.m.) and the Bayreuth Festival’s production of Richard Wagner’s “Lohengrin.”

We’re back at the Bayreuth Festival for the second of three Wagnerian operas on this week’s Sunday Opera (11/23 3:00 p.m.).This time it’s Wagner’s last opera, one that took him 25 years to complete, “Parsifal” which premiered at the second Bayreuth Festival in 1882 and will fill this week’s program.

We’re off to the Bayreuth Festival on this week’s Sunday Opera (11/16 3:00 p.m.) for the first of three works by Wagner: “Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg" which is about a 16th-century singing contest in Nuremberg where young knight Walther von Stolzing (Michael Spyres) hopes to win the hand of Eva Pogner (Christina Nilsson).

The Royal Opera House at Covent Garden is once again the home for this week’s Sunday Opera (8/31 3:00 p.m.) as we turn to the second of the operas in Richard Wagner’s Ring Cycle, “Die Walkure" with Christopher Maltman as Wotan and Elisabet Strid as Brunhilde.

Our penultimate opera from Beijing’s National Center for the Performing Arts for this season on the Sunday Opera (12/01 3:00 p.m.) is their new production of a very popular visiting presentation of Richard Wagner's "The Flying Dutchman" from last year.

We’re off to the Bayreuth Festival on this week’s Sunday Opera for Richard Wagner’s strange tale of love, “Tristan und Isolde.” Why is it strange? Five deaths and immeasurable heartache result from the wrong two people being given a love potion.

This week's opera comes from London's Royal Opera House and features the first opera in Wagner's "Ring Cycle," "Das Rheingold" featuring Christopher Purves as Alberich and Christopher Maltman as Wotan. The opera, performed in one 150 minute act, will be followed by more music featuring "northern" heroes (and an anti-hero) from Uumo Kalmi, Jean Sibelius, and Edvard Grieg,.

We're heading back to the NCPA for a visiting production by the Bayreuth Opera and Wagner's "The Flying Dutchman." We'll continue our trip to the sea after the opera with a one-act opera by Ralph Vaughan Williams based on Synge's "Riders to the Sea" as well as a few other works including a brilliantly irreverent adaption of the "Dutchman" overture by Paul Hindemith entitled "Overture to the Flying Dutchman as Played at Sight by a Second-Rate Spa Orchestra at the Village Well at 7 o'Clock in the Morning."

We're in Beijing for this week's Sunday Opera and Richard Wagner's fabled battle of sacred and profane love, "Tannhauser." After the opera, we'll have music by Siegfried Wagner to fill out the afternoon.

This program features Richard Wagner's second opera (first to be staged) "Das Liebesverbot" which he based on Shakespeare's "Measure of Measure."