Warrior women, jealous rage, a dragon and a magic sword - Richard Wagner's Ring of the Nibelung electrified 19th-century audiences. But it's hard to imagine a better age for this epic fantasy than 2024. From Game of Thrones to Minecraft to The Lord of the Rings, our world is hungry for the stuff that came out of Wagner's original binge-watch. This week, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra dips its toe into this vivid fantasy world with The Ring Without Words, an instrumental suite drawn from Wagner's gripping and evocative four-opera cycle. To balance the experience, music director Nathalie Stutzmann conducts a more intimate kind of work, a Sinfonia concertante featuring the stellar musicianship of Atlanta Symphony Orchestra principal players.
