"Gutrune...is the only woman that Siegfried has ever come across who hasn't been his aunt."I prepared myself for this 265 minute marathon by listening to Anna Russell's hilarious comedy synopsis of the Ring Cycle.
In the end I needn't have fretted so much as the six hours really seemed to whizz by. Given that it was a concert performance with no actual on-stage action, this is a testament to the tidal impetus of Wagner's music-drama. Sir John Tomlinson was particularly engrossing as bitter und twisted backstäbber Hagen.
You could sense the frisson of heightened attention around the hall when, midway through Act III, the famous funeral procession got under way. (The girl in front of me actually stuck her elbow into her boyfriend's ribs, just to make sure.) The combustion of Valhalla was later intimated by strobing some red lights at the acoustic diffusing disks high up in the dome.
This is I suppose the thinking person's Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It's also an attempt to represent through myth the end of the rule of law. And like many libertarian radicals before and after him, Wagner hesiated to define the society that was to follow, but as cop-outs go, this one is magnificent.
There was a box-full of serious professional pseuds right behind me, quoting passages of Wagner's libretto with exaggerated teutonic trilling. "Hallair, who's playing Woe-tarn tonight?" asked one particularly badly-briefed pseud at the start of Act I.
You could sense the frisson of heightened attention around the hall when, midway through Act III, the famous funeral procession got under way. (The girl in front of me actually stuck her elbow into her boyfriend's ribs, just to make sure.) The combustion of Valhalla was later intimated by strobing some red lights at the acoustic diffusing disks high up in the dome.
This is I suppose the thinking person's Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It's also an attempt to represent through myth the end of the rule of law. And like many libertarian radicals before and after him, Wagner hesiated to define the society that was to follow, but as cop-outs go, this one is magnificent.
There was a box-full of serious professional pseuds right behind me, quoting passages of Wagner's libretto with exaggerated teutonic trilling. "Hallair, who's playing Woe-tarn tonight?" asked one particularly badly-briefed pseud at the start of Act I.
The first interval lasted an hour: just long enough for me to find a pub within reasonable walking distance of the RAH...and to lose my wallet. Said pub, the Queen's Arms, (pictured below) was full of members of the BBC Symphony Orchestra with their tell-tale black suits and ties, which allowed me to time my return to my own seat to perfection.
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