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Wagner at the Royal Opera? I just can’t look

Monday, 1st October 2007

I have a column in The Times today, on the Ring Cycle which starts tomorrow. Here's an extract:

Yesterday, as you will be aware, was the fortieth anniversary of the creation of Radio 4. Tomorrow sees curtain up on the Royal Opera House’s first Ring Cycle in ten years. I imagine a sizeable proportion of the Wagner audience will be Radio 4 listeners. My advice to them tomorrow - advice that, I’ve realised, is widely applicable - is simple: pretend you are listening to the radio. Keep your eyes closed.
...I’m giving the Royal Opera’s version a miss. I have no desire to waste the Pollard cash. The four operas have already been performed separately over the past two and a half years. I saw the first two, and the productions managed to be both banal and puerile.
Musically, however, the performances were first class. I saw the second opera in the cycle, Die Walküre, twice: once, fully staged, at Covent Garden; and once, a few weeks later, in a concert performance at the Proms. They had the same conductor, the same orchestra and more or less the same cast. One was six hours of dramatically dead tedium. The other was vibrant, gripping and one of the greatest musical experiences of my life. It was, of course, the supposedly inert concert performance that was sensational.
...When it comes to this week’s Ring Cycle, therefore, I’d much rather hear the real artists - the actors, the singers and the musicians - in concert. They’ll know that their communication with the audience’s imagination is direct, and that they can give their dramatic best without the interference of second-rate direction.
And since I can’t have that this week, I’ll stay home and listen to Radio 4.