Saving Up For A Really Good Ring

Putting on a production of Wagner’s Ring Cycle is the operatic equivalent of staging four major Broadway musicals and four symphony orchestra concerts simultaneously. That kind of excess costs money, and if you aren’t the Metropolitan Opera (and these days, who is?) you’d better have a plan for serious fundraising. In Australia, the State Opera of Adelaide is putting the finishing touches on an innovative campaign to bring a Ring Cycle there in 2004. Rather than merely soliciting donations from opera lovers, organizers offered donors the chance to ‘sponsor’ a specific role in the opera, a member of the creative team, or even the conductor.