Henrietta Bredin

The Wagner effect

Henrietta Bredin has put together a series of events to celebrate the Royal Opera House’s Ring cycle

issue 08 September 2007

Henrietta Bredin has put together a series of events to celebrate the Royal Opera House’s Ring cycle

It is with considerable trepidation that I venture to write about Richard Wagner in these pages, considering that in doing so I am following a trail well blazed by Bernard Levin — a passionate and lushly articulate devotee — and that no fewer than three highly eminent Wagner scholars are current contributors: Michael Tanner, Patrick Carnegy and Robin Holloway. However, I shall take my courage in both hands as I am in the final throes of a project I was asked to take on by the Royal Opera House just over a year ago, devising a festival of events to celebrate its performances of the Ring cycle this October.

It has been something of a dream brief. Off I’d go like a questing hound, snuffling out ideas and dragging them back to the ROH to drop them in a quivering heap for consideration.

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