From Wagner sceptic to convert – how I learned to love the Ring Cycle

“Hojotoho heiaha!” It’s the Met’s Wagner Ring Cycle.

In 2010, Peter Gelb, controversial managing director of Metropolitan Opera appointed in 2006, put his head on a chopping block and virtually invited critics to hack it off. There were already rumblings at some of his “innovative” productions.

Maybe Mr. Gelb is a fan of the late President John F. Kennedy. Announcing the Met’s new Wagner Ring Cycle, here’s what he might well have said:

“I believe that this Metropolitan Opera Company should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of putting the ultimate Wagner Ring Cycle on stage in New York, sending audiences to Valhalla, then returning them safely to the Earth.

No single opera project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of Richard Wagner’s masterpiece (up to a point, Lord Copper); and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish (Too right!)”.