OK, I take back everything bad I’ve said about the L.A. Times.

They’ve just put up a laudatory article about the Ring production I’m peripherally involved in, so they’ve bought a bunch of goodwill. Until Hiltzik writes something silly again.

Call it an opera-tizer. With an intimate, condensed version of Wagner’s ‘Ring’ cycle, Long Beach Opera aims to please purists and tempt the wary as it ushers in a series of Southland stagings of the saga.

Yes, it’s a “Ring”-let, a pocket “Ring,” the Short Cycle, the Semi-Cycle. And the condensation — which will be performed twice in its entirety, in English instead of German, over two weekends, next Saturday and Sunday and Jan. 21 and 22 — is, of course, a great way to Ring in the new year.

But then, untold opera fans have deemed “The Ring” a life-enhancing experience since 1876, when it was first performed in its entirety at the theater in Bayreuth, Germany, that Wagner built specifically to showcase it.

So I guess I’ll keep my subscription for another month or so…seriously, click over to the Long Beach Opera website, and if you have any interest at all, order some tickets. There aren’t many of them, and I think with this it will sell out.