J. R. R. Tolkein wasn't the first to craft epic tales about magic rings and mythic creatures. Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle, a set of four full-length operas, has all that and more. And now the Canadian Opera Company is scheduled to perform the Ring Cycle. The CBC will air each successive opera live on Sept. 12, 13, 15, and 17. Also included in the on-air schedule is a host of Wagner-related special features, both humorous and enlightening. If you have access to a CBC radio station, be sure to catch what is guaranteed to be an exciting performance.
Wagner's Ring Cycle can be broken down into four parts, each of which runs a good three to four hours on stage. The story follows the creation of the ring, the curse placed on the ring when it is stolen from its creator, and the entanglements of the gods and humans who come into contact with it. The narrative feels very similar to J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings in that it signals the end of an age: the twilight of myth and the dawn of the modern era of Man. Wagner relied heavily on Germanic and Norse mythologies, including the Nibelungenlied (a 12th-century High German poem) and Eddas (an Old Norse text). For the Ring Cycle, Wagner followed a rather cohesive method known as through-composed: rather than progressing as a string of related but distinct songs, each scene flows continuously as a single whole. With funding from King Ludwig, Wagner was able to build an opera house in the Bavarian town of Bayreuth exclusively for the production of this hefty piece of operatic work.
