# What's your favorite moment from the Ring?



## pianoville (Jul 19, 2018)

So I recently became addicted to the Ring, and would like to know what's your favorite parts? For me the moment Siegmund pulls out the sword is unbeatable!


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

pianoville said:


> So I recently became addicted to the Ring, and would like to know what's your favorite parts?


Todesverkündigung from Act 2 of Walküre.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

A bit obvious, but Wotan's Farewell.

N.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

Siegfried's death and funeral.


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## DarkAngel (Aug 11, 2010)

Heil dir Sonne........


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## lextune (Nov 25, 2016)

It's impossible for me to pick a favorite moment.

There are so many that usually get mentioned, (Ride of the Valkyries, Entrance to Valhalla, Magic Fire, Immolation, Siegfried's Death and Funeral, etc.)

Here's a few more amazing moments that are maybe a little less known (?) [probably not the forging song]:

Siegfried Act III Vorspiel and the summoning of Erda





Siegfried Act I The forging of Nothung





Gotterdammerung Act II Hagen's Call





Basically every Act begins and ends tremendously. To become a real Ring fanatic you just have to be someone who likes those "Quarters of an Hour" in-between that Rossini was talking about.


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

The moments between the opening of Rheingold and the final note of Gotterdammerung are pretty good. 

After Siegfried kills the dragon and the woodbird shows up.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

It's a toss-up, either Rheingold or Gotterdammerung.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

lextune said:


> It's impossible for me to pick a favorite moment.
> 
> There are so many that usually get mentioned, (Ride of the Valkyries, Entrance to Valhalla, Magic Fire, Immolation, Siegfried's Death and Funeral, etc.)
> 
> Basically every Act begins and ends tremendously. *To become a real Ring fanatic you just have to be someone who likes those "Quarters of an Hour" in-between that Rossini was talking about*.


Yes there are some fantastic moments. Pity Wagner couldn't keep them going and lapsed into longueurs and the 'boring quarter hours' that Rossini talked about. But the best bits are really worth hearing even though the music always seems to me to exalt the sinister. One of the most telling is Hagen's Watch from Gotterdamerung. As has been pointed out many times it's more fun to write for (and play) villains!


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

Rossini talking about quarter of an hours is a huge laugh after all his ridiculous, repetitive, eye rolling "serious " operas.

He should have tried listening for a while and improving his attention span instead of running for his next meal!


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Ride of the Walküries from the Walkürie and the Immolation scene from Götterdämmerung.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Itullian said:


> Rossini talking about quarter of an hours is a huge laugh after all his ridiculous, repetitive, eye rolling "serious " operas.
> 
> He should have tried listening for a while and improving his attention span instead of running for his next meal!


Whatever the merits or not of Rossini's operas, they do not invalidate his comments on Wagner!

For all but devotees, Wagner is often over-lengthy. Wagner should have employed an editor instead of relying on people to improve their attention spans or pad their seats!


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## DarkAngel (Aug 11, 2010)

Itullian said:


> The moments between the opening of Rheingold and the final note of Gotterdammerung are pretty good.


That is the correct answer, well done lad..........:lol:


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## Don Fatale (Aug 31, 2009)

Leaving the obvious comments aside (looking upwards)

Gotterdammerung Prelude into Act 1, Siegried and Brunnhilde's duet and Rhine Journey.

To me, the most exciting side of vinyl (i.e. 25 minutes) ever created.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DavidA said:


> Whatever the merits or not of Rossini's operas, they do not invalidate his comments on Wagner!
> 
> For all but devotees, Wagner is often over-lengthy. Wagner should have employed an editor instead of relying on people to improve their attention spans or pad their seats!
> 
> Pity Wagner couldn't keep them going and lapsed into longueurs and the 'boring quarter hours' that Rossini talked about. But the best bits are really worth hearing even though the music always seems to me to exalt the sinister.


How well did Rossini even know Wagner's works? How well-grounded are his opinions? He said, "One cannot judge 'Lohengrin' from a first hearing, and I certainly do not intend to hear it a second time." Once, when discussing Wagner with a singer, he plunked his spaghetti-fed backside down on the piano keyboard and said "There! That's the music of the future." Given such a level of attentiveness and understanding, I think Rossini more than earned Itullian's advice. More spaghetti, waiter.

To say that "for all but devotees" Wagner's operas are too long is to pin a label on anyone who doesn't think Wagner's operas too long. In your eagerness to make your own limited appreciation known for the hundredth time, you put down those who appreciate Wagner more. And don't tell us that "all but devotees" isn't intended as a dig - an attempt to portray those who love Wagner (which includes many on this forum) as amusingly eccentric or cultish. What would you think if someone wrote that "for all but devotees" Mozart's operas have some beautiful musical numbers but have frivolous plots and superficial characters chattering away in musically vacuous recitative?

Where does Wagner "exalt the sinister"? His villains are given their moments of glory - all Wagner's characters have their day in the sun, if only the sun of their own self-esteem - but they fare badly in the end. I would say that Wagner presents the sinister well, as he presents many other human qualities well.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

One of my favorite moments in Wagner - and it is a moment, not a scene - is the brief orchestral passage that follows Fricka'a defeat of Wotan in Act 2 of _Die Walkure._ He says, "Nimm den Eid!", and as Fricka walks off satisfied that righteousness has prevailed, the orchestra plays a rising melody of an indescribable expressiveness just before she speaks to Brunnhilde on her way out. I remember hearing James Levine talking admiringly of this remarkable moment in a Met intermission interview. It occurs at 21:48 here:


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

The moment when Alberich, in Rheingold, curses the Ring is pretty spine chilling.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

I am with lextune (post 6) on Nothung and Hagen's Call.

Now here is a really strange Nothung:


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## lextune (Nov 25, 2016)

Fritz Kobus said:


> Now here is a really strange Nothung:


It's from Fritz Lang's Die Nibelungen - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Nibelungen

...and here it is:





EDIT:
It was, of course, a silent picture, I don't know who choose the music in the one I posted, but I just mute it, and put on a Wagner recording of my choice. 
The film is actually incredibly beautiful at times.


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## DarkAngel (Aug 11, 2010)

Don Fatale said:


> Gotterdammerung Prelude into Act 1, *Siegried and Brunnhilde's duet and Rhine Journey*.
> 
> To me, the most exciting side of vinyl (i.e. 25 minutes) ever created.


That is Heil dir Sonne part 2 for me (interrupted by norns dark view of the future events)


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## howlingfantods (Jul 27, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> One of my favorite moments in Wagner - and it is a moment, not a scene - is the brief orchestral passage that follows Fricka'a defeat of Wotan in Act 2 of _Die Walkure._ He says, "Nimm den Eid!", and as Fricka walks off satisfied that righteousness has prevailed, the orchestra plays a rising melody of an indescribable expressiveness just before she speaks to Brunnhilde on her way out. I remember hearing James Levine talking admiringly of this remarkable moment in a Met intermission interview. It occurs at 21:48 here:


I love that part. Alex Ross has written an article about this mysterious passage: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/04/25/secret-passage-alex-ross


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

howlingfantods said:


> I love that part. Alex Ross has written an article about this mysterious passage: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/04/25/secret-passage-alex-ross


A magnificent article. Not many writers have captured the subtle meanings Wagner's music communicates. I find myself wishing Ross would analyze the whole _Ring!_ His statement, "Wagner's music can have incredible specificity" would have pleased the composer, and it pleases me: I've always felt that Wagner's art is the ultimate refutation of Stravinsky's famous dictum, "music cannot express anything," and that the discussions which frequently appear on this forum concerning meaning in music would take a slightly different turn if people knew Wagner's work better.


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## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

Alex Ross is one of my favorite music writers. He was here in San Francisco in June and caught a performance of _Götterdämmerung_ before heading to Los Angeles for the opening of the Thomas Mann house. (It seemed like he had not been here for the earlier operas, though I don't know. I didn't see him, but it's a big house and I may have missed him).


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

If we are talking moments then one of my favourite moments, and there are many of them, is from Götterdämmerung, Act 3, when Siegfried has been encouraged, neé goaded, by Hagen and his entourage, into recounting his earlier times and exploits. Hagen says, and the finest example I have heard is from the Furtwangler, '53 Rome recording, "So singe, Held" and the contempt and hatred with which Josef Greindl imbues that little phrase is just sublime. The way that Greindl says the word Held illustrates that, in his eyes, Hagen thinks that Siegfried is anything but a hero. Give it a listen. Genius!


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> How well did Rossini even know Wagner's works? How well-grounded are his opinions? He said, "One cannot judge 'Lohengrin' from a first hearing, and I certainly do not intend to hear it a second time." Once, when discussing Wagner with a singer, he plunked his spaghetti-fed backside down on the piano keyboard and said "There! That's the music of the future." Given such a level of attentiveness and understanding, I think Rossini more than earned Itullian's advice. More spaghetti, waiter.
> 
> To say that "for all but devotees" Wagner's operas are too long is to pin a label on anyone who doesn't think Wagner's operas too long. In your eagerness to make your own limited appreciation known for the hundredth time, you put down those who appreciate Wagner more. And don't tell us that "all but devotees" isn't intended as a dig - an attempt to portray those who love Wagner (which includes many on this forum) as amusingly eccentric or cultish. What would you think if someone wrote that "for all but devotees" Mozart's operas have some beautiful musical numbers but have frivolous plots and superficial characters chattering away in musically vacuous recitative?
> 
> Where does Wagner "exalt the sinister"? His villains are given their moments of glory - all Wagner's characters have their day in the sun, if only the sun of their own self-esteem - but they fare badly in the end. I would say that Wagner presents the sinister well, as he presents many other human qualities well.


Yet again our "friend" demonstrates his lack of understanding or appreciation of Wagner's art. Why does he continue to comment on these threads? It's a bafflement.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Barbebleu said:


> Yet again our "friend" demonstrates his lack of understanding or appreciation of Wagner's art. Why does he continue to comment on these threads? It's a bafflement.


It must be a compulsive condition of the sort that makes people wash their hands constantly, or turn around and go back in for fear they've left a burner on every time they leave the house. Or perhaps it's a secret love of the ad hoc infraction known as "feuding."

In any case, the best retort to anyone who finds Wagner's operas too long is "no, you're too short."


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## gardibolt (May 22, 2015)

Overall, I'd go with the Forging Song from Siegfried. Really looking forward to hearing that at the Lyric Opera in Chicago in a couple weeks.

But when it's done right, nothing is better than Hagen's summoning of the vassals in Götterdämmerung. The most bone-chilling I've heard is the 1955 Bayreuth Decca/Testament.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> One of my favorite moments in Wagner - and it is a moment, not a scene - is the brief orchestral passage that follows Fricka'a defeat of Wotan in Act 2 of _Die Walkure._ He says, "Nimm den Eid!", and as Fricka walks off satisfied that righteousness has prevailed, the orchestra plays a rising melody of an indescribable expressiveness just before she speaks to Brunnhilde on her way out. I remember hearing James Levine talking admiringly of this remarkable moment in a Met intermission interview. It occurs at 21:48 here:


I noticed this moment last night at Walkuere. The power of that part is also due to the motif that makes up the moment. I'll look into it and explain tomorrow.

N.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> It must be a compulsive condition of the sort that makes people wash their hands constantly, or turn around and go back in for fear they've left a burner on every time they leave the house. Or perhaps it's a secret love of the ad hoc infraction known as "feuding."
> 
> In any case, the best retort to anyone who finds Wagner's operas too long is "no, you're too short."


I was about to say that it's because Mozart's operas are too short...

N.


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## howlingfantods (Jul 27, 2015)

I guess my favorite passage is right after Barbe's--the entire passage from "Mime hiess ein murrischer Zwerg" through the Trauermarsch. I love the performance by Lorenz here on the 1950 Furtwangler La Scala Ring--no one I've heard communicates the frenzy and ecstasy better.

My favorite bars are the Redemption through Love motif that's played twice, once with "O hehrstes Wunder" and then repeated at the end of Gotterdammerung, but that's like 4 bars.

But perhaps only 4 bars is just right. Obviously, some people are indisputably correct that only devotees can appreciate compositions of such length. It's not like people spend enormous amounts of money to go to see performances in a specific location in an otherwise uninteresting backwaters of Germany, or that opera houses spend years investing huge expenses in effort, time, and money in order to stage these colossal performances that sell out instantly, at such inflated prices that they're able to subsidize other performances of other presumably easier to appreciate operas that somehow don't sell nearly as many tickets. That would be inconceivable.


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## howlingfantods (Jul 27, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> I find myself wishing Ross would analyze the whole _Ring!_


He's been working on a Wagner book for years. It looks... rather large:

http://www.therestisnoise.com/2018/01/wagnerian.html

I'm looking forward to it!


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> One of my favorite moments in Wagner - and it is a moment, not a scene - is the brief orchestral passage that follows Fricka'a defeat of Wotan in Act 2 of _Die Walkure._ He says, "Nimm den Eid!", and as Fricka walks off satisfied that righteousness has prevailed, the orchestra plays a rising melody of an indescribable expressiveness just before she speaks to Brunnhilde on her way out. I remember hearing James Levine talking admiringly of this remarkable moment in a Met intermission interview. It occurs at 21:48 here:


I said I would comment on this as it stood out in the performance I saw on Thursday night. When seeing this post I wasn't sure of the exact moment meant, but thought I would look into it at some point around my viewing of Walkuere. The interesting thing is that I was deeply moved by the motifs just after this moment during the performance and I thought I should add it to this thread and thinking that perhaps it was the moment Woodduck had mentioned.

However, it wasn't exactly Woodduck's moment, but that which comes just after it that so moved me. The rising phrase is not a motif, but aptly describes Fricka's moving away leaving Wotan in sadness. Not because she has 'won' the argument, but because (as Wotan explains afterward) she has made him realise that his plan is flawed. This is due to the paradox created by his plan for a hero acting on his behalf, but also on his own free will.

My moment comes just after this when the phrase (and Wotan's sadness) is interrupted by the anger motif (associated with the emotion behind Fricka's request - she may represent following the letter of the law over the spirit, tradition and conservatism at their extremes, but the music tells us that her discourse has far more to do with Wotan and his adultery than it does Sieglinde's and Siegmund's). This mutation of the anger motif is slowed down and whilst we pity Wotan does Fricka the abandoned wife not elicit our sympathy too?

Fricka then tells Brunhilde that Wotan wants to speak with her and goes out to a poignant version of the curse motif, which is self explanatory. Our lust for power, control and dominance do for us every time.

N.


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## pianoville (Jul 19, 2018)

howlingfantods said:


> My favorite bars are the Redemption through Love motif that's played twice, once with "O hehrstes Wunder" and then repeated at the end of Gotterdammerung, but that's like 4 bars.


This passage is slowly becoming my favorite too. Such beauty!


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## pianoville (Jul 19, 2018)

When Siegfried kills Mime and Alberich is laughing in the background has become one of my favorite moments, mostly because I don't need to hear Mime anymore :lol:


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

this scene. this scene right here


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## Granate (Jun 25, 2016)

DarkAngel said:


> Heil dir Sonne........


_Siegfried_ is the oddest duck of the Ring for me, but something in Act II and the entire Act III always ends up winning me. This waking is just hair-raising, just the entire leitmotif that is used in the overture of _Götterdämmerung_, and how Karl Böhm shapes the pace and sound to dream about it.


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## DarkAngel (Aug 11, 2010)

Granate said:


> _Siegfried_ is the oddest duck of the Ring for me, but something in Act II and the entire Act III always ends up winning me. *This waking is just hair-raising*, just the entire leitmotif that is used in the overture of _Götterdämmerung_, and how Karl Böhm shapes the pace and sound to dream about it.


Rumbling timpani drums in the distance and plucked harp string like birds chirping in the brilliant morning sun filtering through the forest trees, a glorious setting to awaken from a deep long sleep.........


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

DarkAngel said:


> Rumbling timpani drums in the distance and plucked harp string like birds chirping in the brilliant morning sun filtering through the forest trees, a glorious setting to awaken from a deep long sleep.........


This moment was possibly my favourite from the Siegfried I saw on Sunday. Six harps! A stunning moment.

Gotterdaemerung tomorrow!

N.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

pianoville said:


> When Siegfried kills Mime and Alberich is laughing in the background has become one of my favorite moments, mostly because I don't need to hear Mime anymore :lol:


Yes Mime is one of the most problematical roles in opera. Thoroughly unpleasant. And it is so long it makes Siegfried problematical vocally. If you listen to the Solti Siegfried, with Stoltz OTT and Hotter in poor voice, it is quite painful. Certainly Mime doesn't need exaggerating as Stoltz does. Wolfhart played the part better.
Mind you, Siegfried is to me such an unpleasant character too I sometimes wish he'd have been carried off with Mime. But then we wouldn't have had Act 3


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

DavidA said:


> Mind you, Siegfried is to me such an unpleasant character too I sometimes wish he'd have been carried off with Mime. But then we wouldn't have had Act 3


Siegfried is an adolescent who has been raised in an abusive environment. Once you understand that then he makes sense as a character. One of the great things about the Ring is that it is easier to see the flaws in most of the characters and yet there are wonderful moments where our sympathies are drawn to one or more of them and it's pretty much down to the music that underlines the humanity of the characters.

N.


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## Sieglinde (Oct 25, 2009)

I really love Hagen's Watch and his duet with Alberich (somehow, every Alberich is really creepy in that part). But the Watch is exactly the kind of "villain song" I like - a bass alone with his Sinister Plans and that black velvet sound filling the theatre.


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## pianoville (Jul 19, 2018)

DavidA said:


> Yes Mime is one of the most problematical roles in opera. Thoroughly unpleasant. And it is so long it makes Siegfried problematical vocally. If you listen to the Solti Siegfried, with Stoltz OTT and Hotter in poor voice, it is quite painful. Certainly Mime doesn't need exaggerating as Stoltz does. Wolfhart played the part better.
> Mind you, Siegfried is to me such an unpleasant character too I sometimes wish he'd have been carried off with Mime. But then we wouldn't have had Act 3


Yeah, I heard the Solti recording. You're right, Mime is just too much in this recording. I definitely disagree with you about Siegfried though, I actually feel sympathy for him. By the time he dies in Göttedämmerung I feel he has matured a lot.


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## pianoville (Jul 19, 2018)

Sieglinde said:


> I really love Hagen's Watch and his duet with Alberich (somehow, every Alberich is really creepy in that part). But the Watch is exactly the kind of "villain song" I like - a bass alone with his Sinister Plans and that black velvet sound filling the theatre.


Yes. Hagen is a really well written character, I actually find him pretty scary. Especially when Siegfried enters the Gibichungs hall and he welcomes him by singing the ring curse leitmotif!


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

The Conte said:


> Siegfried is an adolescent who has been raised in an abusive environment. Once you understand that then he makes sense as a character. One of the great things about the Ring is that it is easier to see the flaws in most of the characters and yet there are wonderful moments where our sympathies are drawn to one or more of them and it's pretty much down to the music that underlines the humanity of the characters.
> 
> N.


Wagner empathizes with all his characters, good and evil, and lets us see them from their own points of view. He told Cosima that he loved Alberich, and it shows in the Nibelung's outbursts of woundedness and pride. Even characters treated comically or satirically, such as Mime and Beckmesser, are allowed to express their deluded self-esteem in a way that gives them a momentary dignity.


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## Sieglinde (Oct 25, 2009)

pianoville said:


> Yes. Hagen is a really well written character, I actually find him pretty scary. Especially when Siegfried enters the Gibichungs hall and he welcomes him by singing the ring curse leitmotif!


I love deep-voiced angsty villains and he really delivers  Plus I had the luck to see Matti Salminen on stage, he was phenomenal.


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## damianjb1 (Jan 1, 2016)

"The moments between the opening of Rheingold and the final note of Gotterdammerung are pretty good. "

I like that bit too


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## gellio (Nov 7, 2013)

Wotan's Farewell. Which is interesting since Walkure is my least favorite opera of the Ring operas.


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## pianoville (Jul 19, 2018)

gellio said:


> Wotan's Farewell. Which is interesting since Walkure is my least favorite opera of the Ring operas.


Why is Walküre your least favorite opera? I've always thought it was the most appealing of the four.


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