Seattle Opera Announces Wagner'sTRISTAN UND ISOLDE, Starring Persson And Forbis, Begins July 31, 2010

With thousands of Wagner enthusiasts from around the world arriving in Seattle for a nearly sold-out Ring cycle which opens today, General Director Speight Jenkins announced that Seattle Opera will present Wagner's Tristan und Isolde July 31 through August 21, 2010, continuing its dedication to presenting the works of Richard Wagner. The company last staged Tristan in August 1998.

The new production of Tristan will be directed by Peter Kazaras, who is staging his first production of the opera, with costumes and sets designed by Robert Israel. This is the first collaboration for the pair. Maestro Asher Fisch, principal guest conductor at Seattle Opera, will lead the production.

"Over the last few years, director Peter Kazaras and designer Robert Israel have separately given Seattle Opera some of our most exciting evenings in the theater," Jenkins said. "No opera offers more of a theatrical challenge then Tristan und Isolde. The imagination of these two artists will give Seattle a Tristan to conjure with."

An opera whose score influenced subsequent composers positively and negatively more than any other ever composed, Tristan und Isolde tells a tale of longing. The two lovers, Tristan and Isolde, seek constantly to consummate their love, united finally only in death.

Swedish soprano Annalena Persson will make her United States debut as Isolde, with tenor Clifton Forbis singing Tristan. Forbis was last seen at Seattle Opera as Cavaradossi in Puccini's Tosca in 2001, and has subsequently sung Tristan with many of the world's major opera companies. Several veterans of Seattle Opera's renowned Ring des Nibelungen production will return to Seattle for next summer's Tristan. Soprano Margaret Jane Wray, currently performing Sieglinde and the Third Norn, will return to sing Brangäne, Isolde's handmaiden. Greer Grimsley, currently singing Wotan in this summer's Ring, will sing Kurwenal, a role he sang in the company's last Tristan production, in 1998. Danish bass Stephen Milling, who sang Fasolt and Hunding in the 2001 and 2005 Ring productions, returns to the company to sing King Marke.

Maestro Asher Fisch has conducted Wagner's Parsifal, Lohengrin, and Der fliegende Höllander for Seattle Opera. He won a 2007 Seattle Opera Artist of the Year award for conducting Richard Strauss's Rosenkavalier and the 2006 International Wagner Competition.

Director Peter Kazaras, the artistic director of Seattle Opera's Young Artists Program, has directed several Young Artists productions, as well as Bellini's Norma and Mozart's Nozze di Figaro on Seattle Opera's mainstage. He will return to stage Verdi's Falstaff in February and March 2010. Kazaras has a long history with Seattle Opera as a singer as well as director, performing in such roles as Loge in Wagner's Ring des Nibelungen. He is also a professor and Director of Opera Studio at UCLA.

Designer Robert Israel made his Seattle Opera debut with Die Walküre in 1985, and went on to design sets and costumes for the Ring production that was performed through 1995, as well as sets for Catán's Florencia in the Amazon and Verdi's Macbeth. He also designed both sets and costumes for the production of Wagner's Parsifal.

Further details about Seattle Opera's 2010/11 season will be announced at a later date.

Founded in 1963, Seattle Opera is one of the leading opera companies in the United States. The company is recognized internationally for its theatrically compelling and musically accomplished performances, especially the Opera's interpretations of the works of Richard Wagner. Since 1975, Seattle Opera has presented 35 cycles of the Ring (three different productions), in addition to acclaimed productions of all the other major operas in the Wagner canon. Seattle Opera has achieved the highest per capita attendance of any major opera company in the United States, and draws operagoers from four continents and fifty states.

For more information, visit www.seattleopera.org.

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