[From the 1/3/06 SFCV.org]

   The new year brings the first-ever "American Ring" for the San
   Francisco Opera and Washington National Opera. The two companies
   are co-producers of a Star-Spangled Wagner cycle, opening with
   Das Rhinegold in D.C. this spring, the four operas coming to the
   West Coast in 2008.
   
   This will be a Der Ring des Nibelungen with a "a design inspired
   by history and landscape of the United States," presenting Erda,
   for example, as a Native American woman. Company director Placido
   Domingo has been planning "...an American atmosphere... (feeling)
   that this is not only an original, but also a proper concept for
   the Ring in the capital of the United States." Domingo also plans
   to sing the role of Siegmund in the following year's Die Walkure.
   Leading the Das Rhinegold cast are Robert Hale as Wotan, Robin
   Leggate as Loge, Gordon Hawkins as Alberich, and Elizabeth Bishop
   as Fricka.

   Neither the Washington company's website (http://www.dc-opera.org)
   nor San Francisco's (http://sfopera.com/) has much information
   about the curious production plan of an American setting, but a
   report last weekend by Ben Mattison in PlaybillArts.com, quotes
   stage director Francesca Zambello talking about it: "(With
   Domingo), we have coined the term 'American Ring,' and the
   designers and I are using American history, mythology, iconography,
   and landscape to set the operas. We are creating a world in some
   ways familiar to our audience but also one that will feel very
   mythic as we look to our country's rich imagery. The great themes
   of the Ring -  nature, power, and corruption - resound through
   America's past."
   
   Sets in Washington are designed by Michael Yeargan, and costumes
   by Anita Yavich. SFO General Manager David Gockley is likely to
   disclose some of the San Francisco-specific information when he
   is holding the first press conference in his new capacity, on
   Jan. 11. (At Domingo's other company, the Los Angeles Opera, the
   fate of a long-planned "Star Wars Ring" has been up in the air,
   so perhaps the "American Ring" could fill the bill.)

Janos Gereben/SF
www.sfcv.org
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