“When you look at this,” Georges Nicholson, identified as a Wagner historian, said, watching an early stage of the machine’s construction, “you feel like this is finally the ‘Ring’ that Wagner would have wanted all along.”

“We are actually having the vision that Wagner had when he was composing,” Mr. Nicholson added.

Let’s unpack, shall we? First off all, M. Nicholson should be congratulated on his successful completion of a difficult double major, Wagner Studies and Necromancy. I mean, it’s one thing to be an expert on the composer, but what’s really impressive here is that the “historian” can communicate with the dead. (At the next séance, Georges, don’t forget to quiz the Meister on how he feels about exploding statue heads. We’re all eager to get his take on that.)

The second point here is that, at least as presented in the mini-review by James Oestreich, Nicholson—“identified as a Wagner historian,” remember?—could be taken for a disinterested observer; in other words, “here’s what the expert has to say.” In fact, Nicholson is on the payroll of either Ex Machina or the Met (he’s credited as “Musical Consultant” on the program for Götterdämmerung) and therefore essentially selling a product he helped to develop. One might as well ask Don Draper for his unbiased opinion on Cool Whip.

But it’s the Appeal to Dead and Buried Authority that makes me want to scream.

The theater will offer a webcast version of this Rusalka beginning March 27; in the meantime here’s a trailer for the Dresden Semperoper’s presentation.

Photo: Sébastien Forthomme

On Bloomberg, Philip Boroff (he of the “Carnegie Hall Stagehand Moving Props Makes $530044″ shockeroo), spills the beans on NYCO’s finances. Most breathtaking factoid: attendance in the George Steel’s first season (2009-10) stood at less than 25% of attendance in Paul Kellogg‘s final year (2006-07).

At the New York Times, Dan Wakin has gathered the gloomiest group of quotes imaginable, stopping just short of  “O, woe is me, To have seen what I have seen, see what I see,” though I think Cori Ellison probably did say  that while the recorder was paused.

Wakin best catches the apocalyptic tone when he wails, “The anguished expressions of regret came amid a deafening silence from Lincoln Center and City Opera officials, and leaders of other cultural institutions who might serve as hosts for the company in its new peripatetic persona.”

And, Bloomberg again: “The union said it will protest the end of guarantees by picketing outside Steel’s home, among other measures.”

A Met spokesman said that Mr. Levine was not available to discuss the trip. But his manager, Ronald Wilford, said: “Whatever the Met decides, he will do. If the Met administration believes it can go to Japan and not risk things, then he will go, I think. I haven’t talked to him about it, and I’m not going to.”

And Wilford is the sensible one among the Levine team Gelb has to negotiate with!