Based on the story of Siegfried the dragon slayer, and the fall of the Burgundian Royal House, against a background of brawling gods and bawdy goddesses, tempestuous heroes and determined heroines, black-hearted villains, and sorcerers and trolls. 'Rhinegold' is a combination of history and legend, family drama and heroic battles.
Richard Wagner’s magnum opus meets the celebrated translator of Jules Verne novels in this colorful and original work. Frederick Paul Walter makes The Valkyrie accessible not only to scholars and opera buffs but also to fans of Tolkien, Star Wars, and Hogwarts through a dazzling new translation in lively modern English and annotations that spotlight the libretto, lyrics, and stage directions. The translation conveys Wagner’s humor, rhymes, alliterative effects, subliminal messages, and inventive tale spinning, plus it also gets the most basic ingredient right: the actual story! It highlights the motives, secrets, and plot twists—what’s really going on and what its narrative shows. The Annotated Ring Cycle includes newly created graphic-novel style illustrations that visually represent the storyline alongside full color photos of classic artwork by Arthur Rackham, Howard Pyle, Aubrey Beardsley, the 1876 costume and set designs, and much more.
Das Rheingold, the opening of Wagner's four-part The Ring of the Nibelung, stands out as more genteel and picturesque than the others. But it immediately establishes the huge scale of the overall work, and the extraordinary musical language that will be displayed throughout. It is a miracle of musical history that Wagner's 1850 conception could be brought to completion, in an organic whole, some twenty-five years later. Stewart Spencer discusses the way in which Wagner fuses genuine mythology with his own invention and John Deathridge places the opera in the context of The Ring and its century.Contents: The Beginning of 'The Ring', John Deathridge; 'The Rhinegold' - The Music, Roger North; Language and Sources of 'The Ring', Stewart Spencer; Das Rheingold: Poem by Richard Wagner; The Rhinegold: English translation by Andrew Porter
The Eisner Award-winning series, finally collected in one volume, presents one of the grandest stories of Western civilisation, one of the most explosive epics in the history of comics. Giants plot against gods, who in turn tear human lovers apart, the lives of great warriors are ruined and countless people are slain in the name of love and gold. This re-telling of the Ring Cycle marks a new high point in the career of this true artist's artist, and features a lavish index of production notes, sketches and commmentaries.
The Ring of the Niblung by Richard Wagner and illustrated by Arthur Rackham. Translation by Margaret Armour.Some critics mention that The Lord of the Rings was directly and heavily derived from Richard Wagner's opera cycle, Der Ring des Nibelungen.This edition includes:- The Rhinegold- The Valkyrie- Siegfried- Twilight of the GodsDer Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung), WWV 86, is a cycle of four German-language epic music dramas composed by Richard Wagner. The works are based loosely on characters from the Norse sagas and the Nibelungenlied.The cycle is a work of extraordinary scale. Perhaps the most outstanding facet of the monumental work is its sheer length: a full performance of the cycle takes place over four nights at the opera, with a total playing time of about 15 hours, depending on the conductor's pacing. The first and shortest work, Das Rheingold, typically lasts two and a half hours, while the final and longest, G�tterd�mmerung, takes up to five hours, excluding intervals. The cycle is modelled after ancient Greek dramas that were presented as three tragedies and one satyr play. The Ring proper begins with Die Walk�re and ends with G�tterd�mmerung, with Rheingold as a prelude. Wagner called Das Rheingold a Vorabend or "Preliminary Evening", and Die Walk�re, Siegfried and G�tterd�mmerung were subtitled First Day, Second Day and Third Day, respectively, of the trilogy proper.The plot revolves around a magic ring that grants the power to rule the world, forged by the Nibelung dwarf Alberich from gold he stole from the Rhine maidens in the river Rhine. The Ring itself as described by Wagner is a Rune-magic taufr ("tine", or "talisman") intended to rule the feminine multiplicative power by a fearful magical act termed as 'denial of love' ("Liebesverzicht"), which is probably an allusion to ritual circumcision.