Let's see if I can remember how this blog process works! I've had some notes on my desk for several weeks now, and I couldn't really tell you what interferes with sitting down to write, but it's obvious that something's been getting in the way.

I like opera. My mother often tuned her radio to the Saturday afternoon broadcasts of the Met from New York, and would do her housework with tears streaming down her face at some particularly emotional moment. I took music appreciation classes in college, and several opera composers were covered. I recall that when the instructor discussed Richard Wagner and his unique approach to opera, I was unimpressed. But, in the last few years, I've given Wagner another chance, and I've decided that in college I was just too young.

A few years ago, the Met commissioned a new production of the Ring Cycle, Wagner's collection of four operas based on themes from German mythology. All four were broadcast in high definition on a series of Saturday afternoons, sent via satellite to local movie theaters.

The stage setting was very controversial - a series of rotating metal panels, used as a screen for all sorts of video projection, as well as shifting sets of configurations which ranged from beneath the surface of the Rhine river, to a large baronial mansion. It was all controlled by computer and on more than a few occasions didn't work the way it was supposed to. Perhaps because I was new to the music and these four operas, I had no preconceived notion of what the staging should look like, and I liked the concept.

In the fourth and final opera, the hero has become a victim of an evil potion which has robbed him of his memory. He also is being stalked by two evil doers who are intent on his murder. One of the baddies acts impulsively and stabs the hero before the agreed moment. The other conspirator reacts with shock, and runs to the fallen hero to confirm his death. {At this point, video is projected against the metal panels portraying the flowing waters of the Rhine.} He gently lays the dead man on the forest floor, walks to the side of the stage, and leans down to touch the image of the water, to rinse his hand. As the music swells with several rich, full chords, the video spread the red of the hero's blood across the panels, from left to right.

I was full of goose bumps. Although Wagner doesn't have many "weepy" moments, at least not for me, I had tears flowing down my cheeks. I doubt if I will every forget those 4 or 5 minutes.

And that got me thinking about other moments in various performances that I know I will never forget.

A performance of Rigoletto at Lyric Opera in Chicago. There were quite a few staging decisions that were out of the main, to say the least. The music was grand, the voices were elegant, and when the staging seemed too much, I closed my eyes and just listened. But near the end, the soprano star has been murdered in a case of mistaken identity, and her father is gloating what he thinks is the death of a man who has seduced his daughter. The stage was covered by a sheer black scrim, and lo and behold, here comes the seducer, singing the famous "La Donna Mobile", dressed like an old fashioned undertaker, crossing the stage and pulling the scrim aside as he sings. At that moment, I forgave all that proceeded it and that I had regarded as regrettable.

There are other moments as well. A marvelous recital by baritone Dietrich Fischer-Diskau; a riveting production of Shakespeare's King Henry the Fouth, Part I; a neighborhood symphony concert in Chicago, when a synogogue cantor strolled to the front of the stage and standing there as casually as if he were waiting for a bus, stopped the show with an aria from Verdi's La Traviata.

I've been wondering if any of my readers have similar memories.