Opera · German opera

Der Ring des Nibelungen

First complete cycle 13–17 August 1876, Bayreuth Festspielhaus

Richard Wagner · libretto by the composer

Wagner's four-opera cycle — Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Siegfried and Götterdämmerung — took twenty-six years to write and runs to some fifteen hours of music. Drawn from the Norse Eddas, the Völsunga saga and the Nibelungenlied, it follows a ring forged from stolen Rhine gold by a dwarf who renounces love, and the curse that destroys gods and heroes until the gold is returned to the river and Valhalla burns.

How to spot them

▸A tetralogy: a 'preliminary evening' plus three full-length music dramas, played over four nights
▸Built from leitmotifs — short recurring themes for the sword, the ring, the curse, the Rhine, Valhalla
▸Opens on a single sustained E-flat chord that swells for 136 bars into the flowing Rhine
▸Wotan, Brünnhilde, Siegfried, Alberich, Fafner the dragon, the three Rhinemaidens and the three Norns
▸Wagner built a whole theatre for it, with a covered orchestra pit and no boxes

Arias & moments — listen

"Siegfried's Funeral March" (1876)

The hero is carried from the stage to a blaze of his own leitmotifs

Recording: Richard Wagner, performed by the United States Marine Corps Band, recorded December 8–11, 1981 at w:Lisner Auditorium , w:George Washington · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons

"The Entry of the Gods into Valhalla", over a rainbow bridge (1869)

Donner clears the storm, Froh builds the bridge, and the gods process into their new fortress

Recording: Richard Wagner (1813-1883) · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons

"Weiche, Wotan, weiche!" — the earth goddess rises to warn a god to give up the ring (1869)

Erda's single scene, the cycle's most famous contralto entry

Recording: Richard Wagner – Ernestine Schumann-Heink · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons

"Forest Murmurs" — a boy tastes dragon's blood and understands the woodbird (1876)

Waldweben: shimmering strings and a solo woodbird lead the hero to Brünnhilde's rock

The Immolation Scene — a woman rides her horse onto her lover's funeral pyre (1876)

Brünnhilde returns the ring to the Rhine; the hall of the gods goes up in flames

"Weia! Waga!" — three river-maidens taunt a dwarf who then renounces love (1869)

Woglinde, Wellgunde and Flosshilde lose the gold in the opening scene

Quick-fire facts

•The four operas are Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Siegfried and Götterdämmerung; Wagner called the first a Vorabend, or preliminary evening.
•Wagner wrote the poem backwards, starting with Siegfrieds Tod (which became Götterdämmerung) in 1848, and composed the music forwards from 1853 to 1874.
•He broke off in the middle of Act 2 of Siegfried for twelve years, writing Tristan und Isolde and Die Meistersinger instead.
•The first complete cycle was given at the first Bayreuth Festival in August 1876, conducted by Hans Richter, with Kaiser Wilhelm I and Emperor Pedro II of Brazil in the audience.
•King Ludwig II of Bavaria had Das Rheingold and Die Walküre staged separately in Munich in 1869 and 1870, against Wagner's wishes.
•Wagner had the Wagner tuba built for the cycle, and the Bayreuth pit is sunk and hooded so the orchestra is invisible.
•The 1876 festival lost so much money that Bayreuth did not stage the Ring again until 1896.
•Anna Russell's comic analysis of the plot ends with the line that, after fifteen hours, you are exactly where you started.

Drill it — 8 cards

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Sources

Grove Music Online (Oxford Music Online) — Wagner, Richard: Der Ring des Nibelungen
Encyclopaedia Britannica — Der Ring des Nibelungen
Barry Millington — The New Grove Guide to Wagner and His Operas