The orchestra, away from all the stuffiness of the concert hall and its four square walls provides, by striking contrast, a real breath of fresh air to Wagner’s Ride of the Valkrie. It seems as if a tired, sleeping beast had been conjured back to life for a crowd of festival goers who were genuinely struck with a fascinating curiosity for this most surreal of meetings.
Wagner’s intention for this epic piece was for an omnipresent, all out audiovisual experience that blasts the narratives mythology with a gregarious wrath. It’s an effect that’s most fitting with Glastonbury’s own fantastical vision of wonderland. The English National Opera performed a pounding performance that didn’t seem the least bit out of place here.
The tremendous weight that the Orchestra gave as it galloped through this most exagerated of mythological stories appeared even more brilliant through the massive stacks of the Pyramid Stage sound system. It gave the piece just that extra blockbuster sheen.