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Bismarckicm Parallel. Between the time that news tickers carried the first word to Washington on Monday afternoon and the public confirmation on Wednesday evening, McNamara's reassignment had been inflated into a palace revolution comparable to Kaiser Wilhelm II's dismissal of Otto von Bismarck in 1890, partly because the Iron Chancellor had opposed his sovereign's militant foreign policy...
Visually, Von Karajan's conception was akin to the antiscenic expressionism of postwar Bayreuth productions, with a few meager props on a bare stage to suggest rather than spell out the setting. But he went beyond the Bayreuth style in meshing musical values to stage pictures. The music, too, frequently sounded spare and delicate, engaging the listener's imagination rather than overwhelming...
...When Wotan summoned the magic fire at the finale, the blackness was pierced by a single red spot, transforming Wotan's spear into a tongue of flame; in the inexplicit staging, these moments stood out in a relief that old-fashioned literalness could never achieve. The orchestra, which Von Karajan subdued to the point of regretfulness during the love scene between Siegmund and his twin sister Sieglinde in Act I, later blared and crackled as Wotan and Fricka haggled about the implications of incest, thus highlighting Wagner's philosophical meditations on the Ring rather than the story itself...
Operatic impresarios have attributed the drop in Wagner's popularity to the absence of full-blast singers, but Von Karajan's achievement suggests a happy solution to the problem. His low-keyed approach encourages performers to sing Wagner without strain. And why not? After all, he says, "what is forte? There is no absolute value. We try to make music-drama, not opera...
...Von Karajan's Ring, which is being mounted with a $500,000 grant from Eastern Airlines, may or may not end the current Wagnerian decline at the Met-and Manager Rudolf Bing's well-known distaste for the German master. In the 1890-91 season, 39 of 70 Met performances were Wagner; in 1965-66, the last season at the old house, ten out of 212. Lacking the heroic singers to do justice to his demands, Wagner could return to new glory on the shoulders of a heroic conductor...