Wagner fans eager for Washington National Opera's first-ever 'Ring' Cycle
From the astounding prelude -- 136 measures of orchestral music swirling through an E-flat major chord evoking the river Rhine-- to the profound close, when that river overflows and Valhalla burns up, Wagner's "Ring of the Nibelung" exerts a mighty pull. Since its 1876 premiere in Bayreuth, Germany,...