Wagner Always Rings Four Times

Seattlest was a bit grumpy earlier this week when we realized we had tickets for Seattle Opera’s Ring cycle over the coming week. Did we really want to spend a good 18 hours over four days ingesting a steady diet of Wagner, Wagner and more Wagner? No, we did not! Especially when the performances conflicted with a few really good social events we would otherwise have gone to. But after cursing ourselves for not putting the dates in our calendar when we got the tickets months and months ago, we reconciled ourselves to the Ring.

So much has been written about Wagner’s Ring Cycle (and Seattle Opera’s production) that Seattlest feels overwhelmed just thinking about it, let alone thinking about summarizing it for you. So we won’t. What we will do, though, is give you some reviews – and perhaps some background and a little history – over the coming days (our social sacrifice will come to some good, after all). Unfortunately, if you don’t already have tickets, you don’t really have a chance of seeing the operas (they’re supposedly visually spectacular). However, you will be able to listen to them on KING FM (98.1) on the following days and times: “Das Rheingold” at 7 p.m. Aug. 13; “Die Walküre” at 7 p.m. Aug. 20; “Siegfried” at 7 p.m. Aug. 27; and “Götterdämmerung” at 6 p.m. Sept. 3.