Ring des Nibelungen, Der

(‘The Nibelung’s Ring’).

Bühnenfestpiel (‘stage festival play’) for three days and a preliminary evening by Richard Wagner
(see Wagner family, (1)) to his own libretto; Bayreuth, Festspielhaus, first performance as a
cycle: Das Rheingold, 13 August 1876; Die Walküre, 14 August 1876; Siegfried, 16 August 1876;
Götterdämmerung, 17 August 1876.

Contrary to Wagner’s claim that he turned away from historical subjects on discovering the
potentialities of myth for his future music dramas, myth and history were interwoven in the Ring
from the beginning. Not only was he working on his historical drama Friedrich I, begun in 1846, as
late as 1848–9, but he was also making speculative connections between the stories of the
Hohenstaufen emperor and the Nibelung hoard. Those supposed connections were formulated in the
essay Die Wibelungen: Weltgeschichte aus der Sage. And although it was previously supposed that Die
Wibelungen preceded the initial prose résumé and libretto for what became the Ring, it is now
considered more likely that it succeeded them, probably about mid-February 1849 (see Deathridge,
Geck and Voss 1986).

The chief sources Wagner drew on for the Ring are as follows: the Poetic (or Elder) Edda, the
Völsunga Saga and the Prose Edda by Snorri Sturluson (all three of which were compiled in Iceland,
probably in the first half of the 13th century); Das Nibelungenlied, an epic poem written in Middle
High German c1200; and Thidreks Saga af Bern, a prose narrative written c1260–70 in Old Norse.
Wagner also read copiously around the subject (see Magee 1990) and was indebted to the work of such
scholars as Karl Lachmann, Franz Joseph Mone, Ludwig Ettmüller and the Grimm brothers.

Greek drama was also a major influence, not least in its use of mythology, its life-affirming
idealism and the religious aura surrounding its performance. The Oresteia suggested not only the
structure of a trilogy (Das Rheingold was merely a ‘preliminary evening’), but also the
confrontations of pairs of characters, the possibility of linking successive episodes with the
themes of guilt and a curse, and perhaps even the leitmotif principle (in Aeschylus’s use of
recurrent imagery). There are also important parallels between the Ring and the Prometheus trilogy,
especially as reconstructed by its German translator, Johann Gustav Droysen.

Wagner outlined a prose résumé for his drama, dated 4 October 1848, which in his collected writings
he called Der Nibelungen-Mythus: als Entwurf zu einem Drama (the original manuscript is headed Der
Nibelungensage (Mythus)). In this résumé the drama centres on Siegfried’s death, and, at the
conclusion, Brünnhilde purges the guilt of the gods by an act of self-immolation, allowing them to
reign in glory instead of perishing. The story at this stage largely follows the order familiar
from the finished work, but in autumn 1848 Wagner next compiled a libretto for Siegfrieds Tod
(originally spelt Siegfried’s Tod). This created so much back-narration of earlier events, however,
that he subsequently, in 1851, wrote Der junge Siegfried (originally Jung-Siegfried), and finally
Die Walküre and Das Rheingold (1851–2). Returning to revise Der junge Siegfried and Siegfrieds Tod
in the light of the whole cycle, Wagner replaced Siegfried as the central figure by Wotan, and
altered the ending so that the gods and Valhalla are all destroyed by fire. Der junge Siegfried and
Siegfrieds Tod were eventually renamed Siegfried and Götterdämmerung. Thus the librettos of the
constituent parts of the Ring cycle were written in reverse order, though the original conception
was in the ‘correct’ order, as was the composition of the music.

The principals in the first three cycles given at Bayreuth in August 1876 included: Franz Betz
(Wotan/Wanderer), Amalie Materna (Brünnhilde), Georg Unger (Siegfried), Albert Niemann (Siegmund),
Josephine Schefsky (Sieglinde), Karl Hill (Alberich), Friederike Sadler-Grün (Fricka) and Luise
Jaide (Erda). The conductor was Hans Richter. The tetralogy was not heard again at Bayreuth until
1896, when it was conducted by Richter, Felix Mottl and Siegfried Wagner. Complete cycles were
given in Munich in 1878, Vienna in 1879 and Hamburg in 1880. Following the success of his
production in Leipzig in 1878, Angelo Neumann took it on a Europe-wide tour with his travelling
theatre, beginning in 1882. The first complete cycle in Britain was given at Her Majesty’s, London,
in 1882, in German, with Anton Seidl conducting, Emil Scaria as Wotan/Wanderer and Albert Niemann
as Siegmund. Not until 1908 was it given in London in English, in uncut performances under the
baton of Hans Richter. The first complete cycle in the USA was given at the Metropolitan in 1889,
with Lilli Lehmann as Brünnhilde; the conductor was Seidl.

Notable Wotan/Wanderers have included Van Rooy, Schorr, Bockelmann, Hotter, Adam, McIntyre, Bailey
and Morris. Brünnhilde has been sung by Lilli Lehmann, Nordica, Turner, Austral, Leider, Lubin,
Flagstad, Varnay, Nilsson, Hunter and Gwyneth Jones. Interpreters of Siegfried have included Jean
de Reszke, Melchior, Max Lorenz, Windgassen, Jess Thomas, Suthaus, Alberto Remedios, René Kollo,
Jung and Jerusalem. Siegmund has been sung by Niemann, Svanholm, Vinay, James King, Windgassen,
Vickers, Alberto Remedios, Peter Hofmann and Jerusalem. Sieglinde has been sung by Lilli Lehmann,
Nordica, Ternina, Jeritza, Lotte Lehmann, Flagstad, Varnay, Rysanek, Crespin and Norman. Notable
conductors of the Ring have included Richter, Mottl, Seidl, Mahler, Nikisch, Bodanzky, Coates,
Walter, Beecham, Furtwängler, Solti, Karajan, Goodall, Böhm, Boulez, Colin Davis, Barenboim,
Haitink and Levine.

Interpretations of the Ring, both literary and dramaturgical, have ranged from those that explore
the work’s social and political context to those that focus on its imagery and mythological
content, denying any political ramifications. Shaw’s classic interpretation of the Ring (1898) as a
socialist allegory has been hugely influential, as has Donington’s radically different analysis of
the work in terms of Jungian psychology (1963). Taking their cue perhaps from Shaw, a series of
radical stagings in the 1970s and 80s attempted to demythologize the work, emphasizing the
corruption and debased moral values by which the gods, and in particular Wotan, are tainted. Recent
productions have also dwelt on feminist and ecological aspects of the Ring.

See also Götterdämmerung; Rheingold, das; Siegfried; and Walküre, die.

Barry Millington