Göteborgs Symfoniker

“I’m a stage animal”

Enjoy an exciting interview where the fantastic soprano Nina Stemme shares her thoughts about the concert, Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder, performed in September 22 in Gothenburg’s Concert Hall. Hear her talk openly and warmly about the relationship with the audience, about the challenge of singing Wagner, about trying to understand and portray Wagner’s and Mathilde’s relationship – and about the desire to be on stage.
– I’m a stage animal, she says.

Nina Stemme is one of Sweden’s most internationally acclaimed dramatic sopranos, and Wagner is something of her speciality. Here we get to hear her in Wesendonck Lieder, which Wagner composed at the same time as Tristan und Isolde. The music portrays burning desire, heavenly beauty and impassioned longing.

Richard Wagner only composed around twenty songs, including a handful in 1839–1842, when he tried in vain to win the hearts of Parisians. The next step was in 1857–1858: in political asylum in Zürich during his most revolutionary period, he simultaneously became involved in a passionate romance with Mathilde Wesendonck, the wife of a wealthy Swiss silk merchant.

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Programme

Nina Stemme Soprano