I forgot where I read about an United States past president was treated to a Wagner's opera. While he enjoyed the overtures he had a hard time putting up with most of the opera which involves a lot of singing. His remarked something to this effect - the music was great, only if there isn't so much singing.
The down side of living in a smaller city is the difficult access to good symphony and opera performances. Short of traveling to the cities where the performance takes place the syndication of live HD broadcast of Metropolitan Opera in a movie theater in recent years is one close substitute - albeit at a significant compromise. I meant to catch the Met's 4 episode "Ring" (The Ring of the Nibelung) cycle in spring this year but never got around to do so.
Last week by chance I found out that my local PBS affiliate OPB (Oregon Public Broadcasting) would be showing the entire "Ring" production in the next four Sundays. I was elated and determine to remember to watch the entire 4 episode series in the next four Sundays.
One problem with OPB's schedule is it has no information concerning the production at all. This was not the case many years ago when they gave good synopsis of all programs. I infer it is the victim of the continuous funding cut by our government as well as the reduction of sponsorship due to the global economic malice. As a regular viewer of the Sunday noon Great Performances I knew it must be one of the many "Ring" productions within the last few years at the Met. The question begging for an answer is which one? I thought it would be the 2012 production by the Met with Robert Lepage’s staging that was aired in Live HD in theaters across the country and internationally.
On Sunday Oct 7 I watched the Das Rheingold on my HDTV at home. In the past I would listen to the audio with my 6-channel sound system instead of the sound from the TV's not-so-great speakers. However I have learnt that it is a waste of time and effort as the broadcast audio quality of the Great Performances always leaves much to be desired. The reasons for that would be enough to write a blog post. Because of the inferior audio, I could not bother to set up the recording on my personal computer.
It turned out the production was from 2 years ago which I infer is the first Lepage's production rather than many subsequent Met's so called encore productions that also involve with Lepage's stage work. It was the 2010 production with maestro James Levine as the conductor (I understand maestro Levine could not conduct in the April performance this year due to last minute health matter).
here is the cast sheet excerpt of the 2010 Das Rheingold production
the complete cast sheet with the synopsis
new york times interview of the production director robert lepage
As a light-hearted references I came across this so called opera 52 facts, as well as this 1957's "What' Opera Doc" episode of the Bug's Bunny that was deems as the number one of the top 50 cartoons. It was selected to be archived by the Library of Congress. The cartoon episode drew from many passages from many of Wagner's opera include the "ring", Tannhauser, and Die Meistersinger. Of the use of music from Wagner's opera there is none more widely known as the use of the Ride of the Valkyries in the movie Apocalypse Now.
The mention of opera in popular culture would be incomplete without pointing out "popera" - the operatic pop. Make no mistake and despite the huge popularity of some (as your local PBS affiliate tend to play to ad nauseam during fund raising drives), these singers are not opera singers in any stretch of the definition. The irony is the top performers make a very good living most of the real opera singers can only envy.
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