Delights at the end of the tunnel

There was a different feeling in the auditorium that afternoon; we had been given the previous evening off – presumably to allow Lance Ryan, who had sung for some four-and-a-half heroic hours on Friday, the chance to recover – and now we were back in our familiar seats, awaiting the end of Siegfried, the end of Brünnhilde, the end of the Gods and, perhaps with some trepidation, the end of the cycle itself. The routine of our lives had undoubtedly been affected by the Ring: some of us had left work early to make the five o’clock curtain times, most of us had altered our schedule of regular meals, and few of us could have been left unaffected by the majesty of Wagner’s foolishly glorious drama. While it was exciting to think about the great scenes that still lay ahead, there was also a palpable end-of-the-holiday feeling hanging in the…