For Seattle Opera’s first five Ring cycles (1975-1979, inclusive), mezzo-soprano Marvelee Cariaga was a Fricka who would not be denied. Tall, imposing, strong-featured, and amply built, Cariaga had a voice with plenty of steel in it. But she also could be empathetic and vulnerable. According to Glynn Ross, she “came onstage with such a sense of conviction that the outcome of her confrontation with Wotan was inevitable.”

In addition to Fricka, Cariaga often sang the Second Norn and Waltraute in “Götterdämmerung”. Ross also hired her to sing (in his English-language series) Adalgisa in “Norma” (1978) and Lady Macbeth (1979). For Jenkins, she sang key roles in two important productions: Venus in “Tannhäuser” (1984) and a powerful Kostelnička in “Jenůfa” (1985).

Since the late 1990s, Cariaga has turned more of her attention to teaching in the greater Los Angeles area. Cariaga also will be remembered for her legendary performance as Magda Sorel in Gian Carlo Menotti’s “The Consul” for the Spoleto Festival, which was broadcast on PBS-TV, and for her recital tours of over 1,600 engagements with her husband, the late pianist/journalist Daniel Cariaga.

Here, from the 1976 KUOW Broadcast of Seattle Opera’s English-language performance of “Die Walküre,” Cariaga sings Fricka’s ‘Klage,’ the aria in which she explodes at her husband Wotan, airing her many grievances.
So this is the end
of the gods and their glory,
now you have fathered
Wölfing the Wälsung?
I speak frankly;
am I not right?
The race of the gods
by you is forsaken!
You cast aside
what you once held in honor;
you break every bond
that you tied to unite us;
loosen, laughing,
your hold on heaven!
that the lustful lovers may flourish,
this sinful incestuous pair,
who were born of the fruit of your shame!
Oh, why mourn
over virtue and vows,
when they first were broken by you!
Your faithful wife
you always betrayed;
down in the caverns,
high on the mountains,
your glance searched and lusted for love,
where your roving eye might lead you.
Your scorn has broken my heart.
Sad in my spirit,
I had to see you
leading to battle
those barbarous maidens
your lawless love
had brought into being;
but you still respected your wife,
and the Valkyrie maids,
and Brünnhild herself,
whom you love so well--
they were bound in obedience to me.
But now when a new name
has taken your fancy,
and ‘Wälse’ prowls
like a wolf through the woodland,
now you have stooped to the depth of dishonor,
a common woman
has borne you her children:
now to whelps of a she-wolf
you would abandon your wife!
Go on with your work!
Fill now my cup!
You betrayed me; let me be trampled!
Andrew Porter, translation. Henry Holt conducted the Seattle Opera orchestra. Photo (of Marvellee Cariaga as Fricka with Rudolf Holtenau as Wotan) by Chris Bennion.