There’s been a lot of rings out in popular culture lately. At least, a remake of a horror film and an incredible set of movies based on an incredible book. For me, when I think of The Ring, I think of a very large set of operas by Wagner. What follows is a brief account of my finding of the ring.

I first discovered Der Ring Des Nibelungen when I was in high school, and was precocious. That was in my “long and difficult is more impressive phase” with regards to literature (no comments, Mr. Freud). I was often found toting about Das Kapital, the Roads to Freedom trilogy by Sartre, or something similarly dense and impressive.

When I was exposed to Wagner, it was a perfect match musically to my musical snobbery. Difficult and unapproachable to many — perfect! It was Der Ring that was the pinnacle of this. 4 operas over 14 hours.

My senior year of High School, PBS broadcast the Metropolitan Opera’s production of Der Ring in four consecutive nights. I was glued to it, watching on a 5 inch black and white TV I’d dragged into the back of the house. Like most of the things I read at the time, I don’t know how much I got out of it. I do recall cheering Brünnhilde on when she was singing about jumping on Siegfried’s funeral pyre.

Superficial as it was, that was my introduction to this work. When I got to the university it was enough to cause me to fall in with some other Wagnerites, and in my first year jumped through every academic hoop known to man and enrolled in the seminar “Wagner’s Ring.” I went through the opera carefully with scores. I learned the countless leitmotifs, and their interactions. I learned the names of the three Rhinemaidens and the nine Valkyries. Our final exam was to watch the Ring in four consecutive nights.

After this more intimate meeting, the Ring stayed with me in a very tangible way. Lately, I have had the desire to hear it again, carefully. Perhaps I am a new stage of my life where I need to see what light it can shed on my personal version of The Human Condition.