Inside the Ring: Essays on Wagner's Opera Cycle

by John Louis DiGaetani (editor)

Once tainted by association with Hitler and Nazism, Richard Wagner's work has experienced an international cultural renaissance in the last 25 years. His magnum opus, Der Ring des Nibelungen , which took him over 20 years to finish, is a complex tale with themes of greed, corruption and loss, spun out in more than 16 hours of powerfully moving opera. This book, with provocative essays for both the uninitiated and the seasoned fan, examines Wagner's Ring cycle from a wide array of modern perspectives. Divided into six parts, this anthology first offers a foundation for the Ring, with a chronology and an introduction, along with a look at Wagner as an enterprising marketer. Part Two explores different interpretations of the Ring, with reference to politics, romanticism and international inspirations. Part Three studies the complex relationship between Wagner's Ring and Germany, with a summary of the opera's influence on German culture and a discussion of its Munich premiere. Part Four offers a production history, including studies of the Ring's effects in America and its influence on world literature. Part Five provides a technical examination of language in the Ring, as well as an interview with the famous Wagnerian soprano Jane Eaglen. The book concludes with an essay on the trouble with Wagnerian opera and an overview of the recorded Ring on disc, video and print.

Genres: Music

268 pages, Paperback

First published February 27, 2006

Reviews

[Fred Kohn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a pretty good book that I couldn't rate any higher because of a couple of serious flaws. I thought the introduction, "The Cycles in the Ring," was pretty terrible, and the fuzzy pictures of the Met production alongside the much better pictures from other productions didn't help. But many of the other essays were truly outstanding and worth rereading. For me, the best one was "Romanticism in the Ring." The most serious flaw in this collection IMO was the lack of detailed discussion of the music. Yes, we all know that Wagner discarded the term "opera" for his compositions in favor of the term "musical drama," emphasizing drama over music, but you would think that in 15 essays one might find at least a single bar of printed music.