Additional Casting Revealed For THE RING OF THE NIBELUNG at San Francisco Opera

Casting details for San Francisco Opera’s Summer 2028 presentations of Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung) have been announced. Also known as the Ring cycle, Wagner’s epic transpires across four different operas—Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Siegfried and Götterdämmerung. Relating the creation of the world, the corrupting influence of an all-powerful ring and a heroine’s sacrifice that makes possible a new beginning, the Ring is widely considered the most ambitious work ever conceived for the Lyric Stage. Leading the massive work for the first time, Caroline H. Hume Music Director Eun Sun Kim conducts three complete cycles from June 13 through July 2, 2018. Francesca Zambello directs her visually spectacular staging, a co-production with Washington National Opera, which was first unveiled at the War Memorial Opera House in June 2011 and revived here in 2018.

Tickets for the complete Ring cycles go on sale on October 13 at 10 a.m. for Ring Circle members, 2026–27 Season subscribers and donors of $150 or more. Four-opera cycle tickets go on sale to the general public in July 2027. Tickets for the non-cycle performances of Das Rheingold in May/June 2027 are available now. Tickets for non-cycle performances of Die Walküre in fall 2027 and the one-off performances of Siegfried and Götterdämmerung in spring 2028 will be available after the Company’s 2027–28 Season is announced in early 2027.

In 2023, Eun Sun Kim began her initiative to conduct the works of Wagner each season in San Francisco with Lohengrin (the preparation for which was captured in the NorCal Emmy-nominated documentary Eun Sun Kim: A Journey into Lohengrin), followed by Tristan und Isolde in 2024 and the Company’s new production of Parsifal in 2025. This season, Kim leads Das Rheingold (May 29–June 22, 2027), the first installment of Wagner’s epic tetralogy as the Company prepares to present the complete Ring in 2028. KQED summarized Maestro Kim’s multi-season Wagner program to date: “And can we take a moment to appreciate the gift San Francisco has in Eun Sun Kim at the podium? All the dynamism of the score comes alive under her baton.”

San Francisco Opera has assembled an international cast of the world’s leading Wagnerians for the 2028 Ring. As previously announced, the Ring cast will be headed by a trio of dynamic artists. American soprano Tamara Wilson makes her highly anticipated Company debut as the warrior goddess Brünnhilde who appears in three of the four operas: Die Walküre, Siegfried and Götterdämmerung. American baritone Brian Mulligan, well-known to San Francisco Opera audiences in a wide repertoire of operas including his standout performances singing Wagner, is Wotan, the chief of the gods who appears in Das Rheingold, Die Walküre and, disguised as the Wanderer, in Siegfried. New Zealand tenor Simon O’Neill, who won acclaim as the Company’s Tristan in 2024, is the heroic Siegfried in both Siegfried and Götterdämmerung.

German bass-baritone Falk Struckmann has sung most of the low-voiced roles in Wagner’s works and returns as the cycle’s namesake, the Nibelung Alberich, in Das Rheingold, Siegfried and Götterdämmerung. American soprano and former San Francisco Opera Adler Fellow Julie Adams will portray Sieglinde in Die Walküre and Gutrune in Götterdämmerung. American tenor Christopher Sokolowski, who made his Company debut this season as Lord Darnley in Thea Musgrave’s Mary, Queen of Scots, takes on the role of Siegmund in Die Walküre and sings Froh in Das Rheingold. After creating a sensation as Ortrud in Lohengrin for her American and role debut, Romanian mezzo-soprano Judit Kutasi portrays Wotan’s wife, Fricka, in both Das Rheingold and Die Walküre.

American tenor Brenton Ryan returns to the Company as the cunning god of fire, Loge, in Das Rheingold. Chinese tenor and former Adler Fellow Zhengyi Bai is Mime in Das Rheingold and Siegfried. Canadian bass John Relyea portrays two roles spread across three of the cycle’s operas: Fafner in Das Rheingold and (in the form of a dragon) Siegfried as well as the evil Hagen in Götterdämmerung. Korean bass Kwangchul Youn is the giant Fasolt in Das Rheingold and Hunding in Die Walküre. Estonian bass-baritone Lauri Vasar, last seen on the War Memorial Opera House stage as Papageno in Mozart’s The Magic Flute, is Donner in Das Rheingold and Gunther in Götterdämmerung. After making her Company debut as Brangäne in Tristan und Isolde in 2024, Annika Schlicht returns in Götterdämmerung as the Second Norn and the Valkyrie Waltraute.

The cast includes current San Francisco Opera Adler Fellows Sadie Cheslak as Erda in Das Rheingold and Siegfried and the First Norn in Götterdämmerung; Sofia Gotch as the Rhinemaiden Woglinde in Das Rheingold and Götterdämmerung and the Forest Bird in Siegfried; and Mary Hoskins as the Third Norn in Götterdämmerung. Mezzo-sopranos Laura Krumm and Taylor Raven are the Rhinemaidens Wellgunde and Flosshilde, respectively. Additional casting for the Ring will be announced at a later date.

When first unveiled as a complete four-opera cycle during San Francisco Opera’s 2011 Ring Festival, the New York Times hailed Zambello’s production as “boldly contemporary.” Zambello revisited elements of the staging for its April/May 2016 revival at the Washington National Opera, which the Washington Post proclaimed “strong and moving, thought-provoking and powerful,” and concluded, “My bottom line for any production, updated or not, is the quality of its storytelling, and this is where Zambello excelled. When a production creates characters that move you, and get you to re-engage with the work in new ways, it is succeeding.” In 2018, the San Francisco Chronicle said, “It would be hard to ask for a more triumphant conclusion to a triumphant week at the War Memorial Opera House … the swell and fall of the composer’s richly imagined orchestral currents, the pinpoint dramaturgy of these stark moral and psychological portraits, and the cornucopia of vivid stage imagery—all of it combined to create an immersive theatrical experience unlike any other.”

Along with Zambello, the production showcases the work of set designer Michael Yeargan, Costume Designer Catherine Zuber, lighting designer Mark McCullough lit in revival by A.J. Guban, projection designers S. Katy Tucker and Jan Hartley and, in the cycle’s final chapter, Chorus Director John Keene.

There are some differences in the casting for the non-cycle performances of individual Ring operas in Summer 2027 (Das Rheingold) and Fall 2028 (Die Walküre), but otherwise all announced artists for the Ring will perform their roles in each of the three cycles, which are scheduled for June 13–18, June 20–25 and June 27–July 2, 2028.

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