Music: Ring Tradition

Last week Manhattan's Metropolitan Opera completed a Ring of the Nibelung cycle, thereby accomplishing for the ninth successive year one of the greatest mechanical labors required of the stage. The four full-length Ring operas lasted a total of 14 hours, required 18 complete changes of scene, 34 major singers, a large chorus, 80 stage hands and technicians, an orchestra of 114, ten full beards, one horse. Richard Wagner's masterpiece contains practically every theatrical trick except Eliza crossing the ice—swimming Rhine maidens, a roaring dragon, a rainbow, galloping Valkyries, a Nibelung forge going full...