Australia loses its Ring
mainOpera Australia has called off its digital production of Wagner’s Ring cycle, due this November due to issues related to Covid travel and social distancing.
The plan is to reschedule the show, directed by Chinese-American Chen Shi-Zheng, some time in 2021.
Cancellation was left to the last possible moment.
The company hopes its ticket holders ‘will appreciate the reasons for this decision and are as delighted as we are that we can provide certainty with the rescheduled season in late 2021. We’ll be able to announce those dates in the coming days.’
If it is possible to reschedule concerts, especially those that have already been selling tickets, then that should be done.
People who bought tickets want to attend and will be disappointed if the opportunity is lost forever!
The “Ring” re-sounding will keep. It’s lasted all this while, and much longer longer in Myth and Symbol.Wagner, Erda, and Wotan would understand, if not impatient Fricka, headstrong Siegmund, or gullible Siegfried. How do th Frenh manage it in their version, Ernest Reyer’s “Sigura”, which Marjorie Lawrence sang arias from?
A Bach cantata sats it well: Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit.” I hope that’s the right, if not the genuine, article Summoned or not summoned Loki the zzzzzzzsurvivor, and the Rheinmaedchen will be there. And the Ring … you do remember the Ring? Mark Twain’s and Kaiser W]lhelm’s awful German language is without precedent or antecedent for its pronouns and articles. However do the dear Germans keep them straight?
People who have tickets can decide when the new dates are announced if they want to keep them or get a refund.