Diary – 27 October 2007

Valhalla: Row H, Seat 9

It’s Wednesday, so it must be Rheingold. In an unlikely logistical triumph, I have managed to build my week around the second cycle of the Ring at the Royal Opera House — and quite something it is, too. As much as I might aspire to be George Bernard Shaw’s ‘Perfect Wagnerite’, I am still very much a novice in the world of neurotic gods, Niebelungs, giants, Walsungs, dragon music, stolen gold, sacred spears and Rhinemaidens. So the privilege of attending this amazing event — an unalloyed triumph for Tony Hall and his team at the ROH — feels all the greater (for expert opinion, see Michael Tanner’s review on page 75). There is a cultural camaraderie in the air that I have only experienced once before, at a rare showing of Abel Gance’s six-hour epic film, Napoléon. The lady sitting next to me has come all the way from Cardiff to see Sir John Tomlinson’s magnificent Wotan, Plácido Domingo’s Siegmund and Antonio Pappano’s command of the whole cycle.