Day 150: Lord of Wagner's Ring
36yearsago.com
Vienna 1971—A Student Journal
A year of music, study, travel, sightseeing &
friends.
Day 150
— Lord of Wagner's Ring
30-December-1971
(Thur.)
TRANSCRIPT
Another good day. Last day of work in the electronic
music lab. But, I got a good amount (always slow and
long) of work done.
At night, went to the first part of “The
Ring”—“Das
Rheingold.” Was very good, basically
enjoyable, except that (1) the brasses were sometimes
weak, (2) [the singing in] a few places wasn't as
good, and (3) I was dead tired. It was also more of
an intellectual opera—where the understanding of the
libretto was very important. Still enjoyable.
Had a letter from Lucille D. Said that a group of
students from Montclair was going to be in Munich for
a couple of weeks. Hopefully, we will try to
rendezvous. It would be good.
REFLECTIONS
Wagner’s
Ring. No, it’s
not the ring from
Lord of the Rings, the
movie, it’s Richard Wagner’s
Der Ring des Nibelungen (The
Ring of the Nibelung, the four
operas of The Ring Cycle—Das
Rheingold, Die Walküre, Siegfried, and
Götterdämmerung. Let it be
said, these are serious operas for serious opera
buffs. I am attending the first opera of the
cycle,
Das Rheingold. I wonder
if I’ll get to see the entire Ring Cycle. I comment
that the brass and some of the singing is perhaps not
up to par. I’m certain that it was fine.
I’ll let
this Wikipedia
article summarize
the plot of The Ring. Interestingly, the story has
some similarity to Tolkien’s
Lord of the Ring series and
it’s adaptation to the movie—a powerful ring that
allows you to control the entire world. The story
includes dwarfs, gods, and mythical creatures from
German and Scandinavian folk tales. Wagner wrote for
a large orchestra that adds to the powerful impact of
these operas.
I will post a photo of the Dixie Pixies, of which Lucille was a part. She’s holding the sign (left). See a few more Montclair State pictures in the Slide Shows area.
Serious photo hobbyist. Just a note on these photos. In college, I started my photography journey with a single class that really interested me. These photos are black and white, scanned from a hard copy. They are mine. I had set up a photo darkroom in our basement and actually learned to develop B&W photos as part of my hobby. It was a lot of fun. If you have any young students as a parent, or for yourself at any age, look at photography as a great lifelong hobby. Nowadays, with digital photography, you obviously don't need a darkroom. Instead, discover how to edit and manipulate photos on your computer with programs such as iPhoto (Mac) and Adobe Photoshop Elements (PC and Mac), or other software.
For the serious photography hobbyist, check out Chris Marquardt's Tips from the Top Floor podcast and website.
John
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