opera

The lyrics and even the action of the Ring Cycle are a series of repeating stories in which different characters retell past and future moments, all of which move inexorably toward the culminating deaths in Götterdämerung, the cycle’s concluding opera. It’s almost as if Wagner was worried the audience might forget the storyline during the cycle’s 17 hours of high-octane emotion. More likely, he was just obsessed, a living paragon of Romantic excess. Of the many stories sung,...

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The opening music of Wagner’s Ring Cycle begins with a single note played by the lower strings. Low woodwinds join in and then horns, until slowly a chord is formed. Wagner believed this first low note was a primal sound, an aural indication of a first slouching-toward-creation. It’s hard to argue his interpretation, for the sound as it carried out from the orchestra on Tuesday’s opening night seemed saturated with the terror of newness and ominous birth. As quickly as the notes cohered...

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The curtain opened on a three-sided set of wood walls that rose from stage floor to flies. Projected on the surface of these walls was a film of stormy sky and sea separated by a line of seemingly enormous craggy cliffs. The deep blue sky was coursed by turbulent clouds; waves rose in turmoil. Agitated movement flowed across the entire stage, only to be replaced by equally striking imagery. Out of a blood-red world the silhouette of a ship appeared. Flames engulfed the stage as the Dutchman...

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Categories: opera