Xenite.Org News

New Zealand producing 28-minute Wagnerian Ring epic - Lord of the Rings news - J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings

August 14, 2000 at 13:18:27

The New Zealand Herald has a report on one man's quest to bring Wagner's opera to the little screen in a 28-minute television special.

The Ring Cycle is normally produced in four parts which plays through sixteen hours and requires more than 100 players in a full operatic format. New Zealander Alan Platt, who lived and worked in London for almost 30 years, has brought the Wagnerian story home to his basement, where he has been working on what the New Zealand Herald calls "the half-hour meltdown of The Ring".

The production calls for full orchestration and animated models (apparently what Americans call stop-action animation, such as is used to film Claymation movies -- think of the old Santa Claus and Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer television specials).

Platt is aiming to reach the 7-to-11-year-old audience with his version of the story. "Sieg-fried appears as a baby, then in the next minute he’s a 12-inch high giant with rippling pectorals and a magic sword. In the real version that takes 90 minutes," Platt tells the Herald.

Tolkien fans will recall that despite allegations from some readers that he was influenced by Wagner, J.R.R. Tolkien's only admitted connection was that "both rings were round, and there the resemblance ceases." (Letter 229) Both Ring epics are being produced in New Zealand, and there the resemblance ceases as well.

But we thought the picture of Platt with the dwarf miniature was kind of cool. Parents in the United Kingdom and New Zealand may want to keep an eye for this show when it airs. The kids may actually like it.