juliana snapper

Work

Hojotoho! (2010)
or “She will sit by the fire and spin, the topic and butt of all jokers”

Hojotoho! was a serial staging of 19th century German composer Richard Wagner’s Die Walküre, Act III, scene 1 — the most iconic moment in the American imagination about opera: the shrieking, wing-helmeted fat lady.

Hojotoho! stages six artists’ re-envisioning of this scena, acting as opera director, with Juliana Snapper as Brünnhilde (Wotan’s Valkyrie daughter).

Die Walküre — op. WWV 86B (1870-1876) — is the second of the four operas that constitute Wagner’s The Ring of the Nibelung.
Juliana Snapper as iconic character Brünnhilde (Hojotoho!, 2010)
Hojotoho! was filmed by Elana Mann at Machine Project (June 18, 2010, Los Angeles, CA, USA.)

The work was part of the Machine Project series Basement Wagner — a brief history of the Bayreuther Festspiele, being held in conjunction with the Ring Cycle Festival which took place at the Los Angeles Opera in summer 2010.

The Bayreuther Festspiele is an annual festival held in Bayreuther, Germany, which celebrates the works of Richard Wagner. The Machine Project version could be considered “Festspiele 101”.

Commissioned by the Los Angeles Opera, the series was created by Liz Glynn, with performances and workshops organized by Juliana Snapper.