Christopher Ventris and Anne Sofie von Otter both make a welcome return to the Wiener Staatsoper for Sven-Eric Bechtolf​’s critically-acclaimed production of Wagner’s Ring Cycle. Conducted by Sir Simon Rattle from 17 May, Christopher appears as Siegmund (Die Walküre), one of his signature roles, and Anne Sofie brings her much-praised interpretation of Waltraute (Götterdämmerung) to the Vienna audience.

Hailed in the role of Siegmund as ​“producing a fresh, blossoming tenor – a Siegmund at the height of his vocal powers” (Die Presse), Christopher Ventris is a regular on the Vienna stage having appeared in numerous new productions at the house, including Wagner’s Parsifal under Franz Welser-Möst, Kurt Weill’s Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny under Ingo Metzmacher and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Khovanshchina under Semyon Bychkov.

Alongside her busy concert diary, Grammy award winning mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter regularly takes to the operatic stage — earlier this season she made her role debut as Leocadia Begbick (Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny) at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, under Mark Wigglesworth. Having already performed the role of Waltraute under Sir Simon Rattle at the Aix-en-Provence Festival and under Donald Runnicles at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, this will be her first performance of the role in Vienna.