Rock me Sigi

frogspace and I went to see the musical "Der Ring" in Bonn yesterday. A music version - or better interpretation - of Wagners "Ring" operas. We enjoyed it very much. It's not the best musical I've ever seen but it's very good. You can take a look at it here (official website), here ("3Sat Kulturzeit" coverage, in German, interview with cast and creator) and the trailer.
Wagner already changed the original stories of the Edda according to the message he wanted to transport with his operas. And this musical has gone very far from the old sagas. Nimsgern only kept a few elements and concentrated on one interpretation of two wagnerian characters, Wotan and Brunhild. That lead to a very intresting story about emanzipation and overcoming patriarchy including double father-murder. This plus very good rock music makes the musical a great experience .. plus lot of naked skin and a Brunhild in black rubber ^_^ I liked the "Rhinedaughters" a lot. Two of the three, for some strange reason, spoke with intended heavy accent: French and Russian. But it was funny. And they all were dressed like Britney Spears trying to look like the bride from Kill Bill. The birth scene of Sigfried (called Sigi by Alberich LOL) reminded a lot of the Rocky Horror Picture show. Yay for popculture references XD

But I have to confess that it took me some time to get into the story. I had to drag my head away from all the sagas I've read (well, you need to do that with Wagners Ring anyway), that was hard since some iconic images, like Wotan as the traveler with big hat and spear, kept popping up. The second distraction was that, for me personaly, the Nibelung story needs Hagen! XD He's my favorite character from the Nibelung-legends. I guess I have to blame that on the old 60s movie and Stephen Grundys Rhinegold novel. (Hmm, just been reading the reviews on amazon.com and amazon.de, very different - plus the problem that the german translators "censored" the book)

I'm ending this entry with another death-of-a-father-god-version. This time father-murder by son. Read here some scans from J.M.S. (creator of Babylon 5) current series "Thor". It's called "father issues". And he does a great job. I never read much "Thor", but JMS already did an awesome Loki story in Amazing Spiderman. So I gave it a try. In his resurrecton of "Thor" we get a split person or douple person. In the old comics Dr. Blake and Thor were the same person. Here they are two different beings. Very interesting plot.And the new Dr. Blake is awesome in many ways! ^_^ To my surprise this series has become one of the few comic-series I'm really looking forward to each month.