Das Magnificent.

Das Rheingold.

How lucky I was to have seen the Met production (via HD Live) today. Not being familiar with the music of Wagner (shame on me), I was overcome with its effects, the Lepage set on the Met stage both expanding and contracting with the swells and crescendos of the transformative music. It hits you between the eyes, at the peak of the throat, to the tips and tops.

If only the two upcoming productions weren't sold out at the Met yet... but alas... (this opera is so massively impressive it demands three separate productions--it may even be four--which is to be expected. Sitting through 9 hours of straight opera would be tenuous at best... but an interesting experiment I'm sure the likes of Mozart even contemplated).

Wow-o. I have to buy me a box set of this magnificence. It's times like these when I wish I could simultaneously sing opera professionally, return to making etchings with steel plating that would attempt to capture these epic scenes, and inscribe my passion into words fit enough to cover my body in images of light and moss. And so on.