Twilight of the Gods

La Scala (Milan) La Scala Orchestra;
Riccardo Muti, conductor
by Richard Wagner
Performers listed below.

Richard Wagner is famous for a lot of things, not least of which is his reputation as an undisputed musical genius who also happened to have some rather unfortunate sociopathic tendancies. For more on that, tune in NPR's AT THE OPERA, with Lou Santacroce.

Here on NPR WORLD OF OPERA, we'll concentrate on Wagner's music, the opera TWILIGHT OF THE GODS, not on Wagner himself. Now, if you had to mention a single, standout trait of Wagner's operas, it might well be their astonishing length. As a rule, they're so long that in the composer's day, they gave the audience a dinner break between acts, so they'd have enough nourishment to see them through to the end.

But with this week's opera, Wagner outdid himself even in the length department. TWILIGHT OF THE GODS started life as a relatively modest piece to be called "Siegfried's Death." But Wagner felt he couldn't let his ultimate hero die without giving us all the whys and wherewithalls. By the time he got finished with those, he had turned that single opera into a massive four-drama cycle, THE RING OF THE NIBELUNGS. How long is that? Well, TWILIGHT OF THE GODS is just the last of the four, and it lasts more than four hours! To hear the whole RING cycle, you pretty much have to take a week's vacation -- and pack in plenty of carbohydrates to keep your energy up.

But, for more than a century, people have gone to just such great lengths for a single chance to hear the RING. If you want to find out why, TWILIGHT OF THE GODS is as good a place to start as any. It's the place where all the Ring's characters come together - at least the ones who aren't dead yet - and then THOSE characters die, too! On this week's NPR WORLD OF OPERA, with Steve Curwood, we'll hear Wagner's ultimate, operatic cataclysm from the venue many consider the cradle of the entire art form, LA SCALA, in Milan, Italy. Don't miss the pre- and post-performance coverage from AT THE OPERA with Lou Santacroce.

Performers:
La Scala Orchestra; Riccardo Muti, conductor; Wolfgang Schmidt (Siegfried); Jane Eaglen (Brunnhilde); Eike Wilm Schulte (Gunther); Kurt Rydl (Hagen); Franz-Josef Kapellmann (Alberich); Elizabeth Whitehouse (Gutrune)


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