Germany’s Merkel offers her thoughts on Wagner’s Ring cycle

BERLIN (AP) — Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, a longtime opera fan, is offering her thoughts on Richard Wagner’s Ring cycle. It is the latest in a series of sporadic and sometimes idiosyncratic appearances since Merkel left office a year ago. Merkel joined a former federal court judge to reflect on “greed,” “revenge” and “vanity” in Wagner’s epic and lengthy creation in a three-part special edition of a crime-themed audio podcast. The podcast for public broadcaster SWR went online Sunday. The 68-year-old center-right politician, who led Germany for 16 years, said that the cycle “is so universally applicable to humanity that you keep finding things, from family life to political life, that keep happening among us humans.”