Last night I started reading the German epic The Nibelunenlied. Why? Well, I have diverse interests and I can't read about musicians all the time. The particular translation I have is remarkably easy to understand, as anyone who has tried to read old-world writings will notice that the language is sometimes dense.
Anyway, you may have heard about this story. Sifrid (Siegfried-he is a prince from the Netherlands) is a dragon-slaying hero who has magic things like an invisibility cloak and a magic ring, and after events happen, he dies, and his wife Kriemhilde (a Burgundian) goes on a tirade to avenge his death and the theft of his magic things. The second half of the story is about Kriemhilde's vengeance, but I haven't been able to sort out all of the zillions of characters to figure out how this is carried out. At one point, someone named Gunther loses his head, but that's all I can give you right now.
Anyway, this gigantic story is, in part, the basis for Richard Wagner's (1813-1883) Ring cyle. Der Ring des Nibelungen was written over 26 years, between 1848 and 1874. There are four components: Das Rheingold, Die Walkure, Siegfried, and Gotterdammerung. Each set can stand alone, but it was originally designed to be performed as a complete whole. To perform it in its entirety would require about 15 hours, so it's usually split up over the course of a few nights.
You know that opera cliche with the large, loudly singing woman wearing the helmet with horns? Well, this opera cycle is where that comes from. The character the cliche is based on is Brunnhilde, and actually, she wears a winged helmet, not a horned one. Her big, twenty minute long aria happens in the Gotterdammerung, which, appropriately, is about the end of the world (the end of the world for Norse gods, anyway). It ain't over till the fat lady sings.
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