Gone are the horned helmets in Wagner’s ‘Ring,’ but are new ways always better?

Today, stagings of ‘The Ring of the Nibelung’ blast into science fiction, the Industrial Age or Achim Freyer-like Brechtianism. Programmers cheer, but audiences don’t always. The horned helmet — usually sitting on the head of a zaftig soprano — is the universal symbol of Richard Wagner's "The Ring of the Nibelung." But like Shakespearean tights and codpieces, it's a visual cliché that fell out...

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