I was intrigued when Boing Boing reported that the CBC is soliciting remixes of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen. That’s a hell of an ask — this is an opera that takes an entire week to perform, is musically and textually complicated and dense (many scholars make their entire careers as Ring experts), and is considered by some to be the greatest work of art ever produced. Only brave and well-funded organizations dare to mount a production of the Ring in its entirety. (The Seattle Opera does it rather frequently and deserves much credit for doing so.)

Despite having seen the Ring cycle twice, I still would have no idea where to start, and probably would not want to touch it because whatever I’d produce would sound like crap. You might be able to play little textual jokes with the leitmotifs, or maybe slice up some of the overture to Das Rheingold and reproduce Wagner’s “building of the world” in a boompty-boomp rave context. But it would be too much work to make it not sound like an incredibly cheesy opera remix.

So I was a little relieved, and also a little disappointed, when I clicked on the link and discovered that they’re only soliciting remixes of “Ride of the Valkyries” — the “Kill the Wabbit” bit that is the only part of the Ring you can count on any normal person to recognize. It’s rhythmic and bombastic and recognizable and lends itself well to really bad trance music, and I sympathize with the CBC producers who will have to slog through hundreds of obvious and terrible versions to find something worth broadcasting.

So, um, let’s just say I’m very curious to hear the winning submissions.