Lenox — Staging an opera is expensive. Staging Wagner’s “Die Walküre” is prohibitively expensive, which is why tickets cost two arms and two legs. Unless it happens to be staged at Tanglewood on the weekend of July 27 and 28 — that’s when Andris Nelsons and the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra will present all three acts of “Die Walküre” in three sittings: One on Saturday at 8 p.m., one on Sunday at 2:30 p.m., and the last on Sunday at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are affordable.
Opera has been important at Tanglewood since day one. Vocal fellows of the Tanglewood Music Center attest to that, year after year. So do frequent appearances from top opera stars like Renée Fleming, Bryn Terfel and countless others — far too many to mention. The best of the best.
But “Die Walküre” has never been performed in its entirety at Tanglewood, nor in Symphony Hall, because it’s an enormous undertaking, even without sets or costumes, which means a century could pass before it happens again.
When the Boston Symphony Orchestra programs opera, it hires the best soloists in the world, the crème de la crème, including many stars of the Metropolitan Opera. Christine Goerke, for just one example, performed the role of Brünnhilde in the Metropolitan Opera’s 2018-19 production of Wagner’s Ring Cycle.
