A little drama

Recently I acquired the entire Der Ring Des Nibelung in a 14 CD set, featuring James Levine and The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus. This Deutsche Grammophon recording was apparently released to mark the opening of the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts in Toronto last year, and the Canadian premier performance of the Ring. I became blasé about the heady drama of Richard Wagner's music years ago. Nevertheless for 15 hours of operatic saga, one of Western music's most peculiar masterpieces, I couldn't resist the $40 bargain.

With all the driving around March Break, I've worked through the first five discs or so, and am finding the performance surprisingly enjoyable. Not as difficult to listen to as I decided 20 years ago. I was only a teenager when WQRS in Detroit broadcast a lengthy exposition of the four operas, and I listened raptly, intrigued by the threads of Norse mythology and connections to J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth (my disenchantment happened later). From that radio series, many of Wagner's leitmotifs come to mind; these are recurring pieces of melodic or harmonic material that refer to characters or ideas in the unfolding drama. For instance, whenever Loge takes action (the demi-god of fire, and a trickster), a mysterious shimmering theme runs through the orchestra, eventually erupting as Magic Fire Music during the second of the four operas, Die Walküre.

As one becomes familiar with the music, it pretty well tells the whole, epic story. Good listening for a long drive. So I've been picking through the first two operas, not necessarily in sequence, poking ahead to find the more familiar instrumental preludes and interludes, then going back, slogging through the passages of convoluted musical dialogue between gods, heroes and antiheroes.

Last night, after taking Marian and Brenna to visit my parents for a few days, I stopped on the way home near Comber to photograph the sunset. The landscape is typical of Essex County countryside where I grew up. It's hard to say what ecosystem covered this territory before the arrival of Europeans: perhaps Carolinian Forest, or oak savannah, or even tallgrass prairie. Most likely, a combination of the three. All are gone. The land is extremely fertile, the bottom of an ancient, giant lake that preceded the Great Lakes. It remains fertile but empty in winter, covered in soybeans all summer, rather dull unless nature deals a stroke of magic.