I grew up in New York during the cold war, so for me Rheingold is a beer, Siegfied was the head of K.A.O.S in TV's Get Smart, and the Valkyrie is a supersonic bomber. I loved the Warner Brothers' What's Opera, Doc? with a cross-dressing Bugs Bunny as Brunhilde and Elmer Fudd as Siegfried, and more recently I saw Sing Faster, a Stagehand's Ring Cycle (a documentary I highly recommend). At least I know that Robert Wagner is in no way related to Richard Wagner, and therein lies my redemption.

Today I heard Wotan sing (which is an impressively bass role), and met Siegfried (sung by another Dan). He told me about a wonderful book on the Gutenberg Project. Entitled "Chapters of Opera" (with the long-winded subtitle of "Being historical and critical observations and records concerning the lyric drama in New York from its earliest days down to the present time"), and it documents, amongst many other things, reciepts for the Metropolitan Opera House. What I was surprised to learn was that towards the end of the 19th century, Wagnerian opera receipts account for nearly 60% of the total income of the Met (with all other composers combined making up little more than 40%). According to Dan (and I confess I only skimmed the book, but he read it), this trend continued into the 1920's! When Wagner died in 1883, over 10,000 books and articles were written about him. And while Italian and French opera was considered effete and snobby, Wagner was very accessible to the groundlings, who continued to buy tickets. An interesting change from today's attitudes...

I also saw blocking being practiced (and refined and practiced again). In all of the characterizations of rehearsals that I have seen in movies (Being Julia, Moulin Rouge, The Red Shoes, Phantom of the Opera, All That Jazz, Noises Off, etc.), there is never an accurate portrayal of the detail that goes into rehearsal. It seems like where you walk is effortless and obvious, yet in this opera, the actors must know each footstep, and often each step must be in time to the music. When actors pass on stage, who passes in front must be pre-arranged, so there are no collisions (and there are no traffic lights on stage). Each prop must be placed "just so", and positioned on the upbeat so that on the downbeat this syllable may be uttered... there are hundreds of such directions per actor, and it is amazingly complex.

And at times, it can also be dangerous. The Ring features swords, and spears, and assorted other pointy things that are fixed or mobile or wielded or flailed. In addition to singing and moving, you also have to watch out that you don't get speared, punctured, or otherwise impaled. Amongst the many props for this production of The Ring, I learned that there are 113 skulls . I'm not quite sure, but counted amongst them may be those of the singers who did not pass their audition.

This is definitely getting to be fun. More soon (with pictures), as I somehow manage to connect the St. Mary's Midgets basketball team of 1920 with the dragon supernumeraries from the Ring...