LA Opera’s “Ring” Marathon

By any chance can you spare 15 hours on Saturday, July 25th? If so, I know what you can do. Los Angeles Opera is going to stream audio recordings of all four parts of their 2010 production of Richard Wagner’s Ring Cycle beginning at 8:00 AM.

This marks the tenth anniversary of LA Opera’s first Ring Cycle – thus the audio only streaming of their production. You will be able to find this at LA Opera’s website and also on their Facebook page.

The Ring Cycle is comprised of four operas that tell one continuous story. The operas are:

Das Rheingold – begins at 11:00 AM EDT/8:00 AM PDT

Die Walküre – begins at 2:00 PM EDT/11:00 AM PDT

Siegfried – begins at 6:00 PM EDT/3:00 PM PDT

Götterdämmerung – begins at 10:00 PM EDT/7:00 PM PDT

Fans of The Lord of the Rings will find this story somewhat familiar.

Wotan, King of the Gods, steals a magic ring from Alberich, a draw. He, in turn, has the ring stolen from him by two giants. Wotan spends a lot of time in these operas trying to get the ring back.

Siegfried, who is Wotan’s grandson, ultimately gets the ring back. Brünnhilde, who is revealed to be Wotan’s daughter, also happens to be Siegfried’s lover.

To get more details about each individual opera you can clip on the opera title and it will take you to thorough synopses written by LA Opera’s Mark Lyons.

Each opera will be complemented by supertitles and photos from the production.

In addition to the music itself, LA Opera will intersperse commentary and interviews with several of the participants in their production. This includes Morris Robinson (who sang the role of the giant Fasolt in Das Rheingold; Ronnita Miller (who sang the roles of Rhinemaiden Flosshilde in Das Rheingold and Götterdämmerung and Schwertleite, daughter of Wotan, in Die Walküre), Resident Conductor Grant Gershon and Jeff Kleeman who was the Technical Director for the Ring Cycle.

James Conlon, who conducted all the performances and Christopher Koelsch, President and CEO of LA Opera, will launch the 15-hour marathon.

In revised notes Conlon wrote about the Ring Cycle for this marathon (and published on LA Opera’s website), he says of this gargantuan piece:

“This poetic, four-movement, symphonic music drama, this colossus of Western civilization, ends not with the false idolatry of Wotan’s godly pomp, but with Wagner’s vision of spiritual transformation. An epic myth, conceived in a spirit of revolutionary activism, has, in the course of time, transformed itself. Through Wagner’s years of reflection, resignation and philosophical metamorphosis, that myth, culminates in a message of cosmic redemption.”

All photos of LA Opera’s Ring Cycle by Monika Rittershaus/Courtesy of LA Opera