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Monday, August 8, 2005

Re: Wagner with Wagner

Posted by on August 8 at 14:16 PM

Das Rheingold was indeed fun, and I was struck by how much Tolkien ripped off Wagner’s Ring Cycle for The Lord of the Rings. Apparently I didn’t read Alex Ross’s article for the New Yorker two years ago, which addresses the (anxiety of) influence in some detail.

Apart from the garish rainbow, the sets were awesome. I wish the Rhein daughters could have mimicked the real motions of swimming a little more closely (and stopped doing those little backflips that were obviously machine-greased rather than water-lubricated), and that the giants could have demonstrated their oafishness through slightly subtler blocking, but theater aesthetics are not always opera aesthetics, after all.

And as for my affection for the Nibelungen—lest anyone think me a philistine for picking the one subgroup of characters who do absolutely no singing and never show their faces—well, their raggedy gray costumes were so cute! And also, I have to stick up for the little guys, who didn’t even get to make an appearance at curtain call. They deserved some clapping.

Want more on Wagner? See our intern’s blog post, from forever ago.