Forget the Reaper—do not fear the Wagner.

That's the advice of tenor Kip Wilborn, who's essaying the role of Siegmund in Hawaii Opera Theatre's production of “;Die Walkuere”; this week.

You remember Siegmund, the hapless outsider who falls for Sieglinde in a whole soapy telenovella's scope of travails, not the least of which is being the plaything of Norse gods. The valkyries of the title are goddesses who decide who dies in battle and then escort the slain warrior to the beerhall of the dead, or something like that.

Will Siegmund meet his afterlife? Or can he fight his way out of predicaments with his magic sword Nothung? And “;Die Walkuere”; is only the second chapter of Wager's mega-epic “;The Ring of the Nibelung,”; albeit the most action-packed.

Who needs “;Avatar”; with stuff like this? Just don't be put off by Richard Wagner's lofty rep as the chilly Matterhorn of opera. These are stories, not lectures.

“;There is not a moment when Wagner is not absolutely in specific touch with the really soft spot of every scene, that which is human and real,”; said Wilborn.

How important a character was Siegmund to Wagner? He named one of his illegitimate sons after the “;Walkuere”; hero, and how's that for juicy?

Like Siegmund, Wilborn “;stumbled into”; his destiny by prepared accident. Fond of music as a kid in Odessa, TX, he was taking piano and voice at the University of Missouri when the lead in a stage production fell ill. Wilborn, the classic understudy, was thrust onto the stage and discovered he liked it.

“;I heard a fair amount of classical music growing up, even though in the oil fields of west Texas, sports is the main thing,”; said Wilborn. “;At some stage in your career, you have to make a choice between classical and pops concerts, or the Broadway musical path. They have two different worlds and they're not all that friendly with each other. The opera world thinks Broadway music isn't that good, and the folks on Broadway think that opera singers can't act.”;

At the fork in the trail while in college, Wilborn took the opera path. “;Now I'm locked in, in a good way,”; he said. “;I'm always moving around, on the road, traveling back and forth to Europe and such. If I were on Broadway, I'd never get out of New York.”;

The modern opera-singer-for-hire, like Wilborn, has a snazzy Web page as well as clips on YouTube. Wilborn's online brochure gets him work all over.

The opera is “;less centralized”; in Europe, often having small companies in any city of decent size. “;And so I'm really working a lot in Europe. The arts industry, which is privately funded, is really struggling. There's one great opera company, the Connecticut Opera in Hartford, which just closed doors after more than 50 years.”;

And so Wilborn is a traveling man. As it turns out, he travels from Hawaii.

“;I live here!”; he said. “;I was here on an engagement, I met a wonderful woman and got married. There's a little problem in that Europe is on the other side of the planet.

“;It's doesn't help my career to live in Hawaii, but it sure helps my life!”;