Ring interrupted

This COVID problem is getting serious:  the Brisbane production of the Ring Cycle, which had been postponed a year, now seems to be postponed indefinitely (but not actually cancelled.)   I think they had got a fair bit of pre-production worked out by mid 2020, so I guess they will not want that to go to waste.

So, this is by of background to explaining that I made my way through the second in the series, Die Walkure, on Youtube on the weekend.  It's the Opera North production still - which is more a sung version on stage than a full production, but the story is there in clear subtitles, and it's easy to follow.

I'm happy to say I'm enjoying it.   The music is often very impressive, and while I don't really know enough about opera style singing to know how objectively good the artists are, they seem pretty impressive in this production.  

I'm also continuing to enjoy trying to summarise it to my son, and annoying him by explaining how much more substantial in themes it is than Tolkien.   (I also re-read the posts I wrote last year on that comparison, and must point them out to him as well.)  

Anyway, Die Walkure is where the internal family squabbles of the Wotan clan really start to ramp up.   And, to again put a modern spin on things, Wotan's first response to his wife's complaint that it's really creepy that the separated twins he had fathered meet up as adults and become lovers (very quickly - it only took a cup of mead) is pretty much "love is love".   He changes his mind though, and decides to keep his wife happy by killing Siegmund (or perhaps, by letting him be killed) after all, getting his daughter Brunnhilde (a Valkyrie) into the plot, but she changes her mind too and decides to try to protect Siegmund, but fails.   Which leads to Wotan punishing her by stripping her of immortal status, and putting her to sleep so she can be woken by the first dude who finds her, and become a mere housewife.   She begs her Dad to make it hard for anyone to do that, otherwise she might have to marry the first weakling who decides to take advantage of a woman sleeping on a rock.  Wotan does, by circling it in flames.   Dramatic music rises, and curtain down.

That's the very short version.  There's also another unhappy marriage; a wife drugging her husband so she can have sex with her twin (well, the sex is only implied - she is pregnant by the end); the magical sword in the tree; Wotan wandering around in disguise; the sword not being as useful as Siegmund might have hoped; and the Valkyries not sure whether they are really up to protecting their sister from their Dad, or not.

The other fun of these operas is working out which lines would have been pricking the ears of young Adolph.  I wonder if he watched them with a notebook.

Next week - hopefully I get through Number 3.    

Update:   hey look, someone from Brisbane has written a very lengthy article explaining Wagner's  evolving ideas about the father/son story that is Wotan and Siegmund.   More information than you knew you needed!

Also - I can now agree with what this person said in his witty take on watching the Ring Cycle :  How Crazy Do You Have to Be to Sit Through 15 Hours of Opera?:

It contains numerous prolonged sections of inner monologue and narration, redundant to an exasperating degree.....[I've deleted some of the funny notes he apparently wrote during some of the more protracted sequence.]

But yes, this benefits the soul. These stretches, however maddening, are not mind-numbing.   The Ring is so long that it lulls one's brain into a state of semi-hypnosis, resting but active. This is where the magic happens. Your mind floats above the story, free to think upon its greater themes, to weave them into your own life and your flashes of memory.

Yes.   I mean, what other work brings up so many issues and gives you so much time to think about them?