(WILLIAMSTOWN and GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass.) – The ever-popular Met Live in HD broadcasts in the region turn their gaze toward Robert Lepage’s innovative, high-tech staging of Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring Cycle) in coming days, where the performances can be seen at The Clark in Williamstown and the Mahaiwe in Great Barrington.

The Ring Cycle encore series includes the special behind-the-scenes documentary, Wagner’s Dream (May 8 at The Clark; Fri May 11 at 8 at the Mahaiwe), and then continues with Das Rheingold (May 10 at The Clark), Die Walküre (May 15 at The Clark), Siegfried (May 17 at The Clark), and Götterdämmerung (May 18 at The Clark). For screening times at the Mahaiwe, click through to the Mahaiwe website.

Das Rheingold (Encore Performance)
Thursday, May 10, 2012 at 1pm at The Clark

Das Rheingold premiered at the Met on September 27 to rave reviews. The New York Times praised “the splendid performance [Maestro James Levine] drew from the superb Met orchestra, which played brilliantly, and the excellent cast, as strong a lineup of vocal artists for a Wagner opera as I have heard in years.” Bryn Terfel leads the cast, singing the role of Wotan. Featured performers include Wendy Bryn Harmer as Freia, Stephanie Blythe as Fricka, Patricia Bardon as Erda, Eric Owens as Alberich, and Richard Croft as Loge.

Die Walküre (Encore Performance)
Tuesday, May 15, 2012 at 1 pm at The Clark

Lepage’s production of Die Walküre combines cutting-edge video and scenic technology with traditional costuming to create Wagner’s world of gods and heroes. Die Walküre employs the same flexible computerized set seen in the season-opening production of Das Rheingold, which will shift and adapt to create 22 settings and scenes—including the forest hut of Hunding and Sieglinde, the jagged mountaintop where Valkyries bring the bodies of dead heroes, and the flaming rock where Wotan forces Brünnhilde into supernatural slumber. “Lepage’s staging continues to fulfill the enormous promise of last autumn’s Das Rheingold,” says Variety.

Siegfried (Encore Performance)
Thursday, May 17, 2012 at 1pm at The Clark

In part three of the Ring cycle, Wagner’s cosmic vision focuses on his hero’s early conquests. Gary Lehman sings the vocally challenging title role and Deborah Voigt’s Brünnhilde is his prize. Bryn Terfel is the Wanderer. The New York Times commended the performance for “the impressive singing of the cast all over and the remarkable playing of the Met orchestra under the company’s principal conductor Fabio Luisi.”

Götterdämmerung (Encore Performance)
Thursday, May 17, 2012 at 1 pm at The Clark

Fabio Luisi, the Met’s Principal Conductor, leads the orchestra, chorus, and cast in the sweeping, varied score, which weaves together leitmotifs from all the operas in the saga and leads to an unforgettable conclusion, as Brünnhilde’s love for Siegfried is betrayed and she plunges the world as she knows it into a cataclysm of total destruction. “Götterdämmerung is the most theatrically effective staging of the four works in this epic series, and the clearest representation of the director Robert Lepage’s vision…Fabio Luisi drew an uncommonly articulate and nuanced account of this daunting opera” (The New York Times).

The Clark is located at 225 South Street in Williamstown, Massachusetts. The galleries are open Tuesday through Sunday, 10 am to 5 pm (daily in July and August). Admission is free November through May. For more information, call 413 458 2303 or visit The Clark.

Click on the link for dates and times for showings at the Mahaiwe.