Der Ring des Nibelungen, Aug. 1991

I remember very little about the 1991 cycles. The Rochaix-Israel Ring for the first time was really accepted in Seattle and throughout America. We had all 50 states represented and 18 foreign countries. More than 50 percent came from out of state, and for the first time we offered three cycles. We didn’t sell them all out, but we came close.

The estimable American tenor William Johns sang some of his last Siegfrieds here that summer as Warren Ellsworth sang some of his last Siegmunds that year. The latter was stricken a few years later and died at a very young age. Gudrun Volkert, the Brünnhilde, delighted the audience. I remember one rehearsal when she was simply overcome by the unending pressure of the three big parts, and she fainted just before she climbed up on the big machine in Act II. Susan Marie Pierson, her cover, who has gone on to be an acclaimed Brünnhilde herself, climbed the ladder and sang from the height. 911 responded immediately; Ms. Volkert was declared healthy but exhausted, and it never happened to her again. This Ring also saw the American debut of the Oklahoma tenor Thomas Harper as Mime, a role he now sings all over the world and has repeated in each Ring since at Seattle Opera. Eschewing a romantic tenor career and living in Germany, he switched over to Mime, Herod, and the like and contributed much to the success of this cycle and to all those thereafter.

The dragon stayed the same, the horses flew successfully, and the flame in Götterdämmerung was just as toasty as in 1987. The audience seemed to have had a grand time. No bad letters, no booing. This Ring had taken the necessary step, so characteristic of great Rings, into audience acceptance.