By Shirley Apthorp [Financial Times, 6 March 2006]
Copenhagenís new Ring cycle draws to an apocalyptic close at the cityís shiny new opera house with a conflagration of suitably Wagnerian proportions. Siegriedís pyre burns. Valhalla burns. The gods burn. Even Hagen, in his final plunge for the Ring, combusts. Just what the composer ordered. Or it would be, if he returned to earth as a feminist. Because Br¸nnhilde does not burn. Instead, as the scoreís final bars herald a new dawn, she cradles a newborn child. A girl? One hopes so.