Sherwin Sloan, ‘Ring’ fan extraordinaire, dies at 72

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As Los Angeles Opera was beginning its first complete ‘Ring’ cycle, perhaps the city’s biggest fan of the epic opera, Sherwin Sloan, died.

In a 2009 interview with The Times, the retired eye surgeon told writer David Mermelstein he had seen 87 ‘Ring’ cycles since discovering Richard Wagner in the mid-1970s.

‘I’m a real Wagner cuckoo,’ he said.

Sloan, who died on Monday at 72, had seen most of the individual operas of L.A. Opera’s ‘Ring’ over the last year.

Here’s more on Sloan from our Afterword blog.

Read the 2009 Times article on the ‘Ring’ enthusiasts and Sloan’s Wagner Society of Southern California.

-- Sherry Stern