page_title: Der Ring des Nibelungen
section_title: Story
hierarchical_section_title: Der Ring des Nibelungen / Story
caption_attribution_description: English: Illustration: "Brünnhilde" from Revue Wagnérienne (i.e. Richard Wagner, 1813-1883). Music periodical published in Paris; 8 fév. 1885. TS 40.40, Harvard Theatre Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard University
context_page_description: Der Ring des Nibelungen, WWV 86, is a cycle of four German-language epic music dramas composed by Richard Wagner. The works are based loosely on characters from Norse sagas and the Nibelungenlied. The composer termed the cycle a "Bühnenfestspiel", structured in three days preceded by a Vorabend. It is often referred to as the Ring cycle, Wagner's Ring, or simply The Ring.
  Wagner wrote the libretto and music over the course of about twenty-six years, from 1848 to 1874. The four parts that constitute the Ring cycle are, in sequence:
  Das Rheingold
  Die Walküre
  Siegfried
  Götterdämmerung
  Individual works of the sequence have occasionally been performed separately, and indeed the operas contain dialogues that mention events in the previous operas, so that a viewer could watch any of them without having watched the previous parts and still understand the plot. However, Wagner intended them to be performed in series. The first performance as a cycle opened the first Bayreuth Festival in 1876, beginning with Das Rheingold on 13 August and ending with Götterdämmerung on 17 August.
context_section_description: 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. Wagner described the Ring itself as a Rune-magic taufr ("tine", or "talisman") intended to rule the feminine multiplicative power by a fearful magical act termed "denial of love" (Liebesverzicht). With the assistance of the god Loge, Wotan – the chief of the gods – steals the ring from Alberich, but is forced to hand it over to the giants, Fafner and Fasolt in payment for building the home of the gods, Valhalla, or they will take Freia, who provides the gods with the golden apples that keep them young. Wotan's schemes to regain the ring, spanning generations, drive much of the action in the story. His grandson, the mortal Siegfried, wins the ring by slaying Fafner (who slew Fasolt for the ring) – as Wotan intended – but is eventually betrayed and slain as a result of the intrigues of Alberich's son Hagen, who wants the ring for himself. Finally, the Valkyrie Brünnhilde – Siegfried's lover and Wotan's daughter who lost her immortality for defying her father in an attempt to save Siegfried's father Sigmund – returns the ring to the Rhine maidens as she commits suicide on Siegfried's funeral pyre. Hagen is drowned as he attempts to recover the ring. In the process, the gods and Valhalla are destroyed.
  Details of the storylines can be found in the articles on each music drama.
  Wagner created the story of the Ring by fusing elements from many German and Scandinavian myths and folk-tales. The Old Norse Edda supplied much of the material for Das Rheingold, while Die Walküre was largely based on the Völsunga saga. Siegfried contains elements from the Eddur, the Völsunga saga and Thidrekssaga. The final Götterdämmerung draws from the 12th-century German poem, the Nibelungenlied, which appears to have been the original inspiration for the Ring.
  The Ring has been the subject of myriad interpretations. For example, George Bernard Shaw, in The Perfect Wagnerite, argues for a view of The Ring as an essentially socialist critique of industrial society and its abuses. Robert Donington in Wagner's Ring And Its Symbols interprets it in terms of Jungian psychology, as an account of the development of unconscious archetypes in the mind, leading towards individuation.
caption: Illustration of Brünnhilde by Odilon Redon, 1885
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