A Golden Opportunity

One of the things that makes seeing a Ring Cycle prohibitive for a lot of people is the cost and the time commitment. Usually opera companies charge twice as much for Ring tickets as they do for other productions, so even sitting up in the back of the balcony can easily run $400 for an entire cycle of the four operas, not to mention going to the house four times over the course of a week or so for some very long performances. Personally, there's little I'd rather do, but since I'll have seen the entire thing piecemeal by next week, the cost, and to a lesser extent the time commitment dissuaded me from seeing LA Opera's complete Ring Cycle again.

But now that LA Opera has made the tickets the same price as they are for other productions, and given people the opportunity to choose performances on the dates that work for them, I can't see any good reason to miss what is one of the greatest works of art ever created in what's turned out to be an intelligent, provocative, creative, fascinating and very well-cast production. Or at least catch some of it- especially Das Rheingold and Die Walkure.

No doubt LA Opera is only doing this because they have to sell more tickets, but their loss is a gain for opera lovers who can now see the most exciting Ring around until the LePage production comes to the Met in 2012. Don't be a sucker- get some tickets. This production of Rheingold is on my all-time top 5 list of things I've seen.

And how many opportunities to you get to hear Domingo in something terrific (rather than wait for him to show up in something mediocre like Cyrano, which no one really would ever mount if here weren't in it).

Don't kick yourself- when are you ever going to get the chance to see a Ring Cycle of this magnitude ever again for prices that start at $200 for the whole thing? In this country? Probably never. See you there.

PS- currently there are tickets for the remaining performances of The Stigmatized available on Goldstar.

Photos by Monika Rittershaus