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May 01, 2004
The Ring Cycle as it should be performed
Gary Robert Kelly wasn't an opera fan. But then:
[...] Several years later, I chanced to be channel-hopping one evening and came across a live performance of the Ring cycle on the BBC. It was from some big posh opera house. Somewhere foreign. La Scala, possibly, or that one that does lots of Wagner. What is it? Beruit, or Baywatch, or something like that. Anyway, as I tuned in, this short, puffy middle-aged chap in a pair of leggings and a balsa-wood sword was apparently having a nervous breakdown. I could tell he was having a breakdown because he was talking to an invisible bird. That's generally a good indication of mental infirmity. Another good indication was the way he wore this continuous expression of extreme startlement -- as though someone had just stuck a finger up his bottom. And the way he repeatedly cocked his hand to his ear while singing to Harvey the Bird something which the subtitles helpfully translated as something along the lines of "What's this you say? There's a stunningly beautiful young maiden over there in full armour asleep in the middle of a bonfire? I love you, little bird!"
Now at this point, I would have had fat-boy gently led away, but to my dawning delight I began to realise that this was not, in fact, a lunatic bank manager with high cholesterol, but the legendary 17 year old boy- hero, Siegfried. So I watched enraptured as Segfried very carefully, and very, very slowly -- sweating visibly from the exertion of it all -- bounded up a short flight of closely spaced stairs and rescued the fair Brunhilde from her enchanted sleep.
[...]
[Via alt.humor.best-of-usenet]
Posted by John at May 1, 2004 09:09 AM
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