Unabridged Wagner

Wagner devotees abroad take their opera seriously and in large doses. Performances at Bayreuth (home of the late great Richard where are held world-famed festivals) begin at 4 o'clock,/- last long into the evening. Intermissions are of an hour's duration wherein listeners may refresh themselves with a schnitzel and a grosses dunkeles. But the music is given complete. There is no slicing for comfort or convenience.

Average U. S. operagoers want their music, like their sermons, short. To them it matters little when conductors freely snip great passages. Only critics and a small minority call such cutting desecration. Yet for them last week Manhattan's Metropolitan Opera changed its policy. began a series of Wagner matinees in which, for the first time in 30 years, the Ring will be given uncut. Not yet have starting times been announced but they are bound to hurry many a patron's luncheon for Die Walkuere, unedited yet allowing for only average intermissions, takes approximately four and a half hours to perform, Siegfried four and three quarters, Gotterdammerung five hours or more.

/-With the exception of Das Rheingold, two-hour introductory opera to the Ring, which begins at 5 o'clock, is given without pause.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.