If the visuals left us baffled and disappointed, the musical performance reached toward the stars. The superb soprano Marlis Petersen delivered a sensitive, nuanced Marschallin that captured the character’s emotional dilemmas with a pathos unseen since Renée Fleming gave up the role five years ago.

We create the alternative media to the mainstream purveyors of politically motivated mis- and dis-information. These platforms are robust, growing, and wholly necessary to preserve real freedom and real justice.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is the most prominent political figure to reject such an indiscriminate penalty; it is “not their war,” but that of Russian President Vladimir Putin, he has said.