Graham Vick and Jonathan Dove's version of the Ring Cycle captures the mighty essence of Wagner's masterpiece in 10 hours of music that can be performed across two evenings with just 12 singers and 18 orchestral players. The pocket-sized miracle opened at Stockland Green Leisure Centre, Birmingham on 12 November 1990 and toured halls and sports centres up and down the country. 

"... some of the mightiest sounds ever imagined by the mind of man, communicate every bit as awesomely as they might in Bayreuth or Covent Garden. It is as I said, a miracle." - Rupert Christiansen, The Spectator, 5 Jan 1991

Paul Wilson (Siegmund) and Helen Walker (Sieglinde) in rehearsal for THE RING SAGA.

"What we're doing is taxing, because there's no 'mystic gulf' to hide behind when you're playing in a sports hall, but it can still be dramatic as anything at Covent Garden." - Graham Vick, 1990

Director Graham Vick and Patrick Wheatley (Wotan) in rehearsal. 

So does it work?

One reviewer described it as "ear opening" and "imaginatively fresh". There was no shortage of praise for Jonathan Dove's orchestration either. "His musical surgery is so sensitive and finely tuned to Waner's sound world that there are times when you forget it is not the real thing. The fragile string ensemble at the meeting of Sigmund and Sieglinde, the forging of Nothung, the music of Erda, all are masterpieces of re-creation." (Hilary Finch, The Times, 7 January 1991. 

What began life in Stockland Green Leisure Centre has enabled other smaller scale companies and festivals to bring the work to new audiences from Berwick- upon-Tweed to Porto to Saratoga, California. 

Linda McLeod (Brynhilde), Paul Wilson (Siegfried).

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