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Until now, when someone mentioned going to see the “Ring” cycle at Lincoln Center, you knew what that meant: four nights of Wagner at the Metropolitan Opera, where a complicated tale of Norse gods and various mortal beings vying for control of the gold from the Rhine unfolds cataclysmically – lately, on an expensive and rather scary piece of stage machinery.

In April, 2015, the phrase will take on a new meaning. “The Lord of the Rings,” Peter Jackson’s film trilogy based on the J.R.R. Tolkien books, will be screened at the David H. Koch Theater, with Howard Shore’s scores for the films performed live by the 21st Century Symphony Orchestra and Chorus of Lucerne, Switzerland, conducted by Ludwig Wicki.

It will be the first time all three films – “The Fellowship of the Ring” (2001), “The Two Towers” (2002) and “The Return of the King” (2003) – will be shown together with live orchestral accompaniments in the United States. The first two films were shown individually, in a concert format, at Radio City Music Hall in 2009 and 2010. The full trilogy was first presented with orchestra in Lucerne in 2011.

The production promises to be suitably grandiose. The 21st Century Symphony Orchestra and Chorus is 250 players and singers strong and has made a specialty of performances with film. Besides the “Lord of the Rings” films, the orchestra’s repertory includes concert-with-film performances of several “Pirates of the Caribbean” films, “West Side Story” and “Fantasia,” as well as selected scenes from James Bond and “Star Trek” films.

The orchestra will play the trilogy, in order, twice between April 8 and 12, with one cycle on three consecutive nights, and one over a weekend, including afternoon and evening screenings.