WCLV PRESENTS RINGFEST 08

As the Olympics get underway in China,
on Friday, August 8^th and Saturday, August 9^th,
WCLV presents its own Olympics with a
marathon broadcast of Richard Wagner’s
mammoth opera cycle The Ring of the
Nibelungen, featuring a new re-issue
of the critically acclaimed 1988 recording
by the Bavarian Radio Orchestra
conducted by Bernard Haitink. Among
the raft of vocal stars: James Morris,
Theo Adam, Eva Marton, Siegfried Jerusalem,
Kiri Te Kanawa, Thomas Hampson,
and Anne Sofie von Otter.   

If you must watch the Olympics, turn down the
TV sound and listen to Wagner. You’ll be
surprised how well the Ring music fits the
pictures from the Olympics.

The inclination towards romantic depictions of valkyries
is evident in Valkyries by Peter Nicolai Arbo, 1869.

Between operas and during intermissions, WCLV will present a trivia contest in which
we’ll challenge our listeners to display their knowledge of giants, dwarves, Rhinemaidens
and leitmotifs. Winners will receive a copy of Telarc’s recording of Lorin Maazel’s arrangement
of the Ring music, The Ring without Words, and a magic helmet (No guarantee as to
what magic, if any, will occur!). And one lucky listener, drawn at random from all of the winners,
will receive a lovely gold ring with the words “WCLV RingFest 08” engraved inside.

Also during the course of the Ring broadcast, we’ll present Anna Russell’s sidesplitting and
so-accurate telling of the story of the Nibelungens, as well as other examples of  not-so-serious
music related to Wagner. The Russell analysis will be split up into four segments relating to each of the operas.

 

The whole strudel will be wrapped up at
8:30 PM  on Saturday the 9th with a review
of the Ring music featuring The Cleveland
Orchestra’s Severance Hall May 2006
performance of the Maazel Ring without Words,
conducted by Giancarlo Guerrero.

 

The schedule of performances is as follows: