{"id":11514,"date":"2026-10-26T15:32:44","date_gmt":"2026-10-26T15:32:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=11514"},"modified":"2026-10-26T15:32:44","modified_gmt":"2026-10-26T15:32:44","slug":"singers-samuel-youn-yang-joon-mo-draw-listeners-to-wagnerian-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=11514","title":{"rendered":"Singers Samuel Youn, Yang Joon-mo draw listeners to Wagnerian world"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Bass-baritone Samuel Youn, left, and baritone Yang Joon-mo perform in the opera \u201cDas Rheingold”\/ Courtesy of the Korea National Opera<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Baritone Yang Joon-mo, 52, describes Alberich, the dwarf in Richard Wagner\u2019s opera \u201cDas Rheingold,\u201d as a role that places considerable demands on singers, requiring them to navigate a wide vocal range and master the forceful articulation characteristic of German. He will share the role with Samuel Youn, 55, a world-renowned Wagnerian bass-baritone who holds the prestigious German title of Kammers\u00e4nger, in the Korea National Opera\u2019s production of \u201cDas Rheingold,\u201d opening Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cDas Rheingold\u201d is the first opera in Wagner\u2019s four-part \u201cDer Ring des Nibelungen,\u201d or \u201cThe Ring,\u201d which took the composer 26 years to complete. After being mocked by the three Rhinemaidens while attempting to woo them, the dwarf Alberich renounces love, steals their gold and forges it into a ring. <\/p>\n

When Wotan, king of the gods, takes the ring from him, Alberich curses its owner with destruction. As the curse drives the tragedy that unfolds through the remaining three operas \u2014 \u201cDie Walk\u00fcre,\u201d \u201cSiegfried\u201d and \u201cG\u00f6tterd\u00e4mmerung\u201d \u2014 Alberich is a pivotal character who sets the entire saga in motion.<\/p>\n

The Korea National Opera is marking the 150th anniversary of the complete premiere of \u201cThe Ring\u201d this year with a plan to stage all four operas in succession through 2029. Once completed, the ambitious project will mark the first time in Korean opera history that a domestic company has produced and presented the entire cycle. Although overseas productions have been brought to Korea and local private companies have attempted the undertaking, none has completed the four-opera cycle.<\/p>\n

Youn and Yang, two veteran singers who will lead the opening chapter, met with Hankook Ilbo on Oct. 20 at the Seoul Arts Center in Seocho-gu, Seoul. Both previously pursued careers overseas before returning to Korea, where Youn teaches at Seoul National University and Yang at Yonsei University.<\/p>\n

Youn, who became the first Korean to take on a title role at the Bayreuth Festival in Germany, Wagner\u2019s spiritual home, with \u201cDer fliegende Holl\u00e4nder\u201d in 2012, said Alberich is rarely entrusted to Asian singers in Germany because of the linguistic demands of the role.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlberich requires a linguistic sensibility to handle difficult vocabulary, so in Germany they don\u2019t often cast Asian singers in the role,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Yet the role opened up new possibilities for Youn. After Bayreuth, he performed \u201cDer fliegende Holl\u00e4nder\u201d nearly 150 times, eventually reaching a point where he wanted to escape the opera altogether. It was only when he first took on Alberich at the Lyric Opera of Chicago in 2016 that he discovered how much more he could bring to the stage.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy desire not to do Wagner anymore was resolved through Alberich,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

For Yang, Alberich is a role he both loves and resents.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a role I truly love, but one that made things incredibly difficult for me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

After passing an audition at a German theater, Yang studied the score on his own. At his first rehearsal as Alberich, the conductor reprimanded him severely and spent a month teaching him the role.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven now, when it\u2019s difficult to produce a sound, I think back to that time,\u201d he said. \u201cI still keep the score I studied, piecing it together with tape where it had torn.\u201d<\/p>\n

The score even bears stains from kimchi broth.<\/p>\n

Although both singers share experience performing on German opera stages, their careers have taken different paths. Youn spent 23 years as a permanent soloist at the Cologne Opera, while Yang performed under the name Antonio Yang, serving as a principal singer at the Semperoper Dresden before appearing in Hamburg, Zurich and other European cities.<\/p>\n

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From left, bass-baritone Samuel Youn and baritone Yang Joon-mo rehearse for the opera \u201cDas Rheingold.\u201d Courtesy of the Korea National Opera<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The two knew of each other during their years in Europe but had never shared a role onstage until their appearance as Scarpia in the Seoul Metropolitan Opera\u2019s 2024 production of \u201cTosca.\u201d This will be their second time performing together.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause our vocal ranges and repertoires are different, we each bring a different Alberich to the same role,\u201d Youn said. \u201cIt would be difficult to find a cast abroad that can show so many different sides of Alberich like this.\u201d<\/p>\n

The production is particularly unconventional even for the two singers, each of whom has performed Alberich more than 100 times.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf all the productions I\u2019ve experienced, there\u2019s nothing even remotely similar to the scenes in which Alberich appears,\u201d Youn said.<\/p>\n

Swiss director Lorenzo Fioroni, who presented \u201cThe Love for Three Oranges\u201d to Korean audiences last year, brings Alberich onto the stage from the overture and follows him backstage with a live camera.<\/p>\n

The Rhine is absent from the production. Instead, Nibelheim, the underground world of the dwarves, is depicted as a city piled with boxes and trash, while Valhalla, the gods\u2019 castle, becomes a space filled with fluttering bundles of cash.<\/p>\n

Youn describes Alberich in this production as \u201ca violent character who also collapses in a devastating way.\u201d<\/p>\n

The elaborate makeup is another unfamiliar experience. Applying the fur required for the character takes two hours, and removing it takes roughly the same amount of time.<\/p>\n

For the two singers, the significance of the production extends beyond performing the role successfully.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re approaching this with the determination that Korean opera will develop further if we lay the groundwork as a steppingstone for younger singers performing in Europe and elsewhere to follow,\u201d Yang said.<\/p>\n

Youn, meanwhile, reflected on the limited time he may have left on the opera stage.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re already in our mid-50s, so there isn\u2019t much time left for us to perform in operas,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen will audiences get to see us perform Alberich again?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDas Rheingold\u201d runs from Thursday to Sunday at the Opera House of the Seoul Arts Center. Youn performs Thursday and Saturday, while Yang takes the stage Friday and Sunday.<\/p>\n

This article from the Hankook Ilbo, the sister publication of The Korea Times, is translated by a generative AI system and edited by The Korea Times.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

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Bass-baritone Samuel Youn, left, and baritone Yang Joon-mo perform in the opera \u201cDas Rheingold”\/ Courtesy of the Korea National Opera Baritone Yang Joon-mo, 52, describes Alberich, the dwarf in Richard Wagner\u2019s opera \u201cDas Rheingold,\u201d as a role that places considerable demands on singers, requiring them to navigate a wide vocal range and master the forceful…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_2277560469115098_106292521332774":"","twitter_aToxNzczMzI3Njk4OTg4ODUxMjAxOw==_1773327698988851200":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_templately_pack_id":"","_templately_imported_at":"","_templately_source":"","_templately_import_session_id":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-korea","category-trending-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t