The Ring of the Nibelung

A superb new translation of one of the greatest nineteenth century poems: the libretto to Wagner’s Ring Cycle, in a Penguin Classics hardcover designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith

The scale and grandeur of Wagner’s The Ring of the Nibelung has no precedent and no successor. It preoccupied Wagner for much of his adult life and revolutionized the nature of opera, the orchestra, the demands on singers and on the audience itself. The four operas—The Rhinegold, The Valkyrie, Siegfried, and Twilight of the Gods—are complete worlds, conjuring up extraordinary mythological landscapes through sound as much as staging. Wagner wrote the entire libretto before embarking on the music. Discarding the grand choruses and bravura duets central to most operas, he used the largest musical… Keep Reading