‘Ring’ cycles slated for L.A.’s circumference

Wagner’s great tetraology, “The Ring of the Nibelung,” is the biggest undertaking in opera. But companies everywhere -- from Seattle and San Diego to small towns in Germany and Brazil -- have managed to mount it. Only Los Angeles, among arts centers, remains “Ring”-less. But the cycle is closing in.

Earlier this year, the Orange County Performing Arts Center announced that it would import the Kirov Opera’s “Ring” from St. Petersburg, Russia, in fall 2006. And now Long Beach Opera has announced that it will beat them to the punch with a special “Ring” cycle to be staged in January.

This will be a chamber version created in 1990 by the lively British composer Jonathon Dove and the controversial director Graham Vick for an experimental opera company in Birmingham, England. It was enthusiastically received by the British press.

The cycle will be performed twice, in English, in the 820-seat Center Theater in downtown Long Beach, remarkably over two days. “The Rhinegold” and “The Valkyrie” will be presented on Jan. 14, followed by “Siegfried” and “Twilight of the Gods” on Jan. 15. That order will be repeated Jan. 21 and 22. Singers have not been named, but the company’s director, Andreas Mitisek, will conduct, and it will be staged by Jonathan Eaton.