Every now and then there is a new reason to fall in love with San Francisco. This time it’s the advancing project of a new San Francisco Opera Ring cycle. After the first part, Wagner’s “prologue” Das Rheingold in 2008, now the curtain went up on part two, Die Walküre, one of the three 4½ to 5-hour mammoths of the cycle that are to follow next summer when the entire Ring des Nibelungen will be performed in Bayreuth fashion, one whole cycle per week. Read more about the new “All-American” Ring directed by Francesca Zambello at

http://www.scene4.com/archivesqv6/jul-2008/html/renatestendhal0708.html