The Ring is wrapped up in a Ukrainian flag
NewsAt the Teatro Real in Madrid, the artistic team of Twilight of the Gods, in the closing performance of the opera, wrapped the corpse of Siegfried in the Ukrainian flag, as a symbolic act of homage to the victims of the war.
This, says the Real, concludes The Ring of the Nibelung, conceived by Robert Carsen and Patrick Kinmonth, which places man in front of his own path of self-destruction.
The opera I keep thinking of now is KHOVANSHCHINA. Sure, the victims in the opera are Russian, not Ukrainian, and it’s a three-way civil war, not a war of pure aggression like the one we’re seeing now, but the atmosphere and feeling, the chaos and uncertainty, feel (to me) spot-on. All one needs is a few changes in the lyrics and it would make perfect sense today. It’s certainly more like what’s happening now than Götterdämmerung is!
Here’s an utterly fantastic Ukrainian basso singing the key aria.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7JUbJWSKrY&t=1h30m48s
Are Alberich and Hagen Russian? Alberich Yeltsin and Hagen Putin?
Brilliant! Siegfried has never feared the ‘gods’, and a growing number of Russians no longer fear the point of Putin’s spear.
Everyone is insane except me.
Yes, I guess Wagner is the poster child of artist being political correct …