Interesting! I am unlikely to watch these soonish (nearly all tv I watch is at very hushed volume after Reason's bedtime, and what's the point of listening to Die Walküre at 5% volume?), but it's good to know about the performances. The bits of Ring I've seen "staged" were something that aired on PBS for weeks on end when I was young, perhaps a BBC production and quite dark with greens and blues. (Plus, 12" TV screen.)
Have you read any of the underlying texts from which Wagner drew? Volsungasaga is the proximate major source; Hatto's Penguin translation of Das Nibelungenlied is fairly reliable, but the Middle High German text is courtly and feels quite different from the Icelandic one. Þiðrekssaga, an Icelandic-lang compilation of northern German material, is awesome and an intertextual clearinghouse and also a source for Duane's Elf-King's Roses, but it's harder to find in English translation; I photocopied the library copy I read because I figured I'd never see the book again.
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Have you read any of the underlying texts from which Wagner drew? Volsungasaga is the proximate major source; Hatto's Penguin translation of Das Nibelungenlied is fairly reliable, but the Middle High German text is courtly and feels quite different from the Icelandic one. Þiðrekssaga, an Icelandic-lang compilation of northern German material, is awesome and an intertextual clearinghouse and also a source for Duane's Elf-King's Roses, but it's harder to find in English translation; I photocopied the library copy I read because I figured I'd never see the book again.