Ride of the 45-ton Machine

I generally spare readers of this blog any reference to my opera addiction, but I did devote seven hours yesterday (including travel time and a technical delay) to Die Walküre, the second in Robert Lepage's Ring Cycle music dramas. I had a fairly good time at Das Rheingold last fall, but on reflection, and after that interminable first act in which Bryn Terfel with his stringy hair, huge jowls, and seven-day growth of beard filled the silver screen in dimensions never intended for an opera divo, I have to say that the new Met Ring is a multi-million-dollar, forty-five ton failure. It just -- doesn't -- work. (And I'm not referring to the Machine's failures during the premiere of Rheingold and the theater broadcast of Walküre.) I will be there for Siegfried in the fall, but it will be more of a duty call than a pleasure anticipated.

I saw a fairly decent Siegfried at the Kennedy Center a couple years ago. At the intermission, a Wagner buff told me how, when the Met put on Ring Cycles of its earlier production, Lufthansa laid on charter flights, so Germans could flock to New York to see the Ring as Wagner intended it to be seen. I doubt very much that anybody will be flying from Frankfurt to attend this version. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford