101 YEARS OLD AND STILL HAVING A GREAT PARTY...

RICHARD Wagner, you should be alive at this hour! For as recent events show, the time is ripe for a new Ring Cycle of operas, as dramatic as those written in the 1890s.

For the past week I have been riveted by the Ring at the Royal Opera House. With more than 18 hours of opera (including intervals), a lot happens but here’s a brief synopsis:

Wotan, top god in Valhalla, is having a bit of a problem with the giants he employed as builders. His only hope is to get hold of the magic ring which will give him total power but he needs the super-sword Nothung to be able to slay the giants.

Being a top god however has left Wotan little time for acting as a good husband and father and after ensuring the death of his illegitimate son Siegmund, which he can only do by shattering the sword Nothung, he gets really annoyed when his daughter Brünnhilde saves Siegmund’s wife and his as yet unborn son, Siegfried. Brünnhilde is chained to a rock and surrounded by fire which only a true hero can get through. Wotan then abandons Valhalla and goes wandering.

The hero Siegfried grows up and re-forges Nothung from the shattered pieces of the sword, slashes his way through the fire and wakes Brünnhilde with a kiss. Then it’s all rounded off with the destruction of Valhalla.

So here’s the plot for my modern, new rings for old, re-write:

Act 1: The gods gather in Valhalla and a row develops between super-god Botan and the goddess Theresfried. Botan shatters Theresfried’s magic sword Chequ-ung and resigns from Valhalla. Theresfried tries to stick Chequ-ung back together with pieces of fudge but when she tries it out in battle it falls apart again.

Act Two: Moggfried picks up the pieces of Chequ-ung, grinds them to dust and re-forges them with his own special brand of fudge into an invincible sword with only chance similarity with the original. Theresfried says it’ll never work but with the help of Botan, Moggfried hacks his way through to Maggihilda, whom nobody had heard from in years, and awakens her with a kiss. Seeing the new power of the re-forged Chequ-ung, Valhalla descends into complete turmoil.

Act Three (36 years later): Moggfried is poised to take over the world but Maggihilda doubts his suitability for such a post. In a dramatic appearance before the Valhalla Senate, she reveals that she had been brutally woken up 36 years earlier and found Moggfried lying on top of her, trying to kiss her. “His kiss was so strong that it even woke up my horse,” she says. “I was terrified when I saw the gleaming sword he carried at his side. This man is no fit person to be approved by the Senate as leader of the world.”

Some Senate gods approve of Moggfried and say he is a true hero. Others point out that he woke up the girl without even bringing her a cup of tea and perhaps some scrambled eggs and suggest he’d have done better to kiss the horse. And the rest of the world looked on in total bemusement.

The Royal Opera starts a new Ring Cycle today (roh.org.uk for details).