A nearly four-hour Wagner opera sung entirely in German, performed with a 40-piece orchestra squeezed into a historic Tacoma stage, is drawing attention as the only production of its kind happening anywhere in the United States this year. Tacoma Opera stages Die Walküre at the Pantages Theater on Friday and Sunday, bringing gods, heroes and forbidden love to downtown Tacoma in a production company officials describe as the most demanding undertaking in the opera's history.
Die Walküre is the second chapter of Richard Wagner's four-part Der Ring des Nibelungen, a cycle that totals roughly 17 hours across its full run, according to the News Tribune. Wagner completed the opera in 1870, and per the News Tribune, it was last performed in Washington state 14 years ago in Seattle. That earlier staging was part of Seattle Opera's full-scale “green Ring,” a production that, according to Seattle Opera, drew opera goers from 22 countries and all 50 states when it closed out the company's run as what was long nicknamed “America's Bayreuth” for Ring Cycle productions staged between 1975 and 2013.
A Four-Year Commitment Launched With Das Rheingold
Tacoma Opera kicked off its own Ring Cycle in October 2025 with Das Rheingold, the first installment of what the company called the most ambitious project in its more than 55-year history, according to a Tacoma Opera announcement. Die Walküre marks the second of four planned chapters, with the company telling the News Tribune it might stage the Ring's third part in 2027 and its fourth in 2028. Tacoma Opera says it will preserve its costumes and sets as the cycle continues, and the News Tribune reports the company typically puts on three major productions a year, including an April 2027 debut of Le Nozze di Figaro reimagined with a Harlem Renaissance setting.
Founded in 1968 as the Tacoma Opera Society with a debut production of Johann Strauss's Die Fledermaus, the company has grown into the second-largest professional opera organization in the Pacific Northwest and operates as a resident arts group of Tacoma City Theaters, per the company's own account of its history.
Rewriting Wagner Note By Note
Wagner originally scored Die Walküre for an orchestra exceeding 100 musicians, including specialty Wagner tubas and an expanded brass section, according to the News Tribune. The Pantages Theater, however, fits a maximum of 40 musicians in its pit — a gap that explains why conductor Bernard Kwiram spent months rewriting the entire opera to fit the venue. The News Tribune reports Kwiram worked 12 to 14 hours a day starting in June 2026 to adapt the score, producing a first violin part alone that runs 120 pages.
Kwiram, who also serves as music director for the Seattle Gilbert and Sullivan Society and Tacoma City Ballet according to CS Music, previously conducted Tacoma Opera's 2025 staging of Das Rheingold. Jinshil Yi, speaking to the News Tribune, called the undertaking considerable: “There's just a humongous effort to bring this here.” Yi also described Die Walküre as considered the most demanding and challenging opera in the operatic canon, requiring singers with what Yi called Wagnerian voices — voices born with a particular size and range capable of projecting without microphones.
Hundreds Auditioned, A Cast Took Shape
The demands of the role meant professional singers auditioned by the hundreds before the production found its cast, the News Tribune reports. The lineup settled on Bryan Glenn Davis as Wotan, Tara Jamshidian as Brünnhilde, Jessica Sandidge as Sieglinde, James Chamberlain as Siegmund, Jonah Spool as Hunding, and Rachelle Moss in dual roles as Fricka and Schwertleite, under the direction of Thomas Harper, according to OperaWire. Davis previously starred as Wotan in the company's 2025 Das Rheingold.
Act III brings nine Walküren onto the Pantages stage, the armored warrior daughters of Wotan who give the opera its name, per the News Tribune. Chorus master Chavaleh Forgey oversees the English supertitles projected above the stage throughout the German-language performance. Tacoma Opera began rehearsals in September, held a dress rehearsal on October 7, and the orchestra itself is made up largely of local musicians, the News Tribune reports.
A Historic Stage Built For a Different Era
The Pantages Theater opened in 1918 as a vaudeville venue designed by architect B. Marcus Priteca. It underwent a $21.8 million, city-backed renovation completed in 2018 that upgraded seating, lighting, acoustics and seismic stability while preserving its 1,272-seat capacity, according to Tacoma City Theaters. That same centennial renovation expanded stage capacity and backstage storage, a factor that helps explain why the venue can host an opera of this scale at all, even in reduced form.
Die Walküre premiered as a standalone opera on June 26, 1870, at the National Theatre in Munich, staged at the insistence of King Ludwig II of Bavaria — six years before its debut as part of the complete Ring Cycle at Bayreuth in 1876, according to Wikipedia. Wagner had originally resisted staging individual operas from the cycle until the full four-part work was finished.
Tickets And Showtimes
Tacoma Opera presents Die Walküre at 7 p.m. Friday and 2 p.m. Sunday at the Pantages Theater, 901 Broadway, according to the News Tribune. Tickets range from $34 to $295, and Ticketmaster has capped purchases at 10 tickets per person and credit card to curb unauthorized resale. Before turning to Wagner this season, Tacoma Opera staged Christoph Willibald Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice at the Pantages in April, according to the Weekly Volcano, part of a season building toward this weekend's rare Wagner staging.
