Understanding Grand Opera

[janine]

"The Ring Of The Niebelungs" is the ultimate super-long opera.  Sort of what the "Lord of the Rings" movies would have been like if Peter Jackson had actually tried to include everything in the books.

If you know nothing about opera, yet if you can find some opera company somewhere who will actually stage the entire opera, you should bring a picnic lunch and do it.  I think it takes about a zillion hours.  You'd hear a lot of pieces of music that have made it into our pop culture everywhere, from Bugs Bunny cartoons to commercials to samplings in rock songs.

This will either make you swear off opera, which is sad but no loss to you if you didn't care for it before -- Or, it will turn you into a diehard appreciator of opera.  You'll be scrambling to find out when the weekend performances at the Met are played on your local public radio station.

Anna Russel, who is certainly a great talent herself in many ways, undertakes to explain four segments of the Ring Cycle to us in a palatable way -- see the three videos below, and tell me what you think.