lord o'THE RING

Ali (my boss) could not use his tickets to Wagner's The Ring w/out Words program and gave them to me to use. Two great tickets - at least for seating and accessibility. When you're a 'patron' you get the good parking access - and great seats. Lorin Maazel was supposed to conduct and it would have been fun to see him - but he was ill and they had some newbie do it. A hack, if you will.

We were entertained when he, what I call 'flitted' out to the podium. Denton even turned and said "that's a lot of Loafer Lightner!"

At first, the piece started out ok. I won't say it deteriorated horribly - they are all still talented musicians. Butttttttttttttt....it wasn't great. Can't say I'm a huge Wagner fan anyway - and let's face it, the only thing most people know of the Ring cycle is 'The Ride of the Vallkyries' (yawwwwwn).

I don't know a lot about classical music, but I know this much:

• Conductors shouldn't be so excitable that when they bounce up and come down you hear their shoes hit the floor......from 14 rows back!!
• Audiences shouldn't be so fucking quick to applaud at what they think is the end of the performance. It makes us look like hicks.

...and the problem w/the Ring is the same thing that was wrong w/Spielberg's AI. You think it's over. You want it to be over. And then it gets another ending. Then another. And then another. IT JUST WON'T END. (in truth it was only about 90 minutes long.)

On the way out I did see, in its own way, a great thing: a true music lover. In a reclining wheelchair...almost flat on their back w/a trach tube. All there to listen to music. It was something they had that they could do. Something they could love. Something they could appreciate.

So if the conductor was a hack or not, whether we applauded in the right place or not, or whether the piece was played well or not - it was beautiful to someone.