Ring of the Nibelung

noun

1. German myth a magic ring on which the dwarf Alberich placed a curse after it was stolen from him

2. Often shortened to: The Ring. the four operas by Wagner, Das Rheingold (1869), Die Walküre (1870), Siegfried (1876), and Götterdämmerung (1876), based on this myth

Ring of the Nibelung

1. A series of four operas by Richard Wagner, based on stories from Norse mythology; the central story is that of Siegfried and Brünnhilde. As the Ring ends, the gods are about to be overcome. The four operas of the Ring are The Rhinegold, The Valkyrie, Siegfried, and The Twilight of the Gods.

Example Sentences

Stagings of Richard Wagner’s cycle of four interlinked operas, together known as “The Ring of the Nibelung,” are what put Seattle Opera on the international map almost half a century ago.

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But when the Bayreuth Festival Theater opened in 1876, with the premiere of his full “Ring of the Nibelung” — a four-opera, 15-hour mythic tale about nature and power with a cast of gods, warriors, dwarves, giants, talking birds and spitting dragons — Wagner was still unsatisfied.

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On Feb. 27, during the final performance at Teatro Real of Twilight of the Gods – the last opera in Richard Wagner’s The Ring of the Nibelung series – artists on stage wrapped the corpse of the protagonist, Siegried, in the Ukrainian flag.

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For opera lovers, familiarity with Norse mythology eases a gateway into Richard Wagner’s four-piece cycle “Ring of the Nibelung.”

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Richard Wagner’s music, particularly that for his epic, doom-suffused opera, “The Ring of the Nibelung,” could easily supply our brutalist era with its big-screen soundtrack, starting with the exhilarating “Ride of the Valkyries” and closing with the orchestral Sturm und Drang of its over-the-top finale, in which celestial Valhalla goes up in flames, the Rhine River overflows its banks and the age of gods and heroes reaches its apocalyptic end.

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