My first experience of Wagner was throwing myself in at the deepest of deep ends (folloiwng advice and recomendations) in the 1960s at Covent Garden with a Ring cycle conducted by Solti.
I had little idea in advance what to expect other than something obviously on a very large scale that surely had to succeed (or otherwise) on the basis of its ability to keep a narrative going - and going - and going by means of always engaging music. I do not recall being let down by a single semiquaver, except at the very end of Götterdämmerung where, notwithstanding the most moving music, it all seemed to end just too peremptorily, for reasons that I could not then figure out and have never really been able to figure out since.
But who needs these abbreviated Rings - other, perhaps, than those who seek a little bit of perfectly harmless amusement? I was not much more than a kid when I heard the real thing; I have no intention now to compromise any aspect of the effect of that experience...
I had little idea in advance what to expect other than something obviously on a very large scale that surely had to succeed (or otherwise) on the basis of its ability to keep a narrative going - and going - and going by means of always engaging music. I do not recall being let down by a single semiquaver, except at the very end of Götterdämmerung where, notwithstanding the most moving music, it all seemed to end just too peremptorily, for reasons that I could not then figure out and have never really been able to figure out since.
But who needs these abbreviated Rings - other, perhaps, than those who seek a little bit of perfectly harmless amusement? I was not much more than a kid when I heard the real thing; I have no intention now to compromise any aspect of the effect of that experience...
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