Two evenings, two orchestras, two operas from Wagner’s epic Ring cycle. This mammoth undertaking happened on April 2 in Lexington, Massachusetts and again on April 3 in Nashua, New Hampshire, when Jonathan McPhee led the Lexington Symphony, Symphony New Hampshire, and vocal soloists in Wagner’s Das Rheingold and Die Walküre. McPhee, who is music director of both orchestras, dubbed it “The Essential Ring, Part I,” with the two operas boiled down to just over two hours—not the six-plus hours they normally take. The cast included bass-baritone Alfred Walker as Ring meddler-in-chief Wotan, mezzo-soprano Joanna Porackova as his wife, Fricka, and soprano Jane Eaglen as Brünnhilde. The cycle continues this fall with the second, final installment: “The Essential Ring, Part II,” with Wagner’s Siegfried and Götterdämmerung.
