Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen draws its dramatic sources from Icelandic sagas, the 13th-century Middle High German Das Nibelungenlied, and the Old Norse Thidreks Saga af Bern.
Composition History
The text for Die Walküre was completed by Wagner in 1854, and the full score was ready by 1856, but it took 14 years for its first performance.
Composition History
Richard Wagner's tetralogy, Der Ring des Nibelungen, was first performed as a whole in August 1876 at the new Festspielhaus in Bayreuth.
Compositional Technique
Leading motifs associated with characters, events, and ideas in the drama recur and interweave throughout Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen to unify the entire conception.
Performer Biography
Jaap van Zweden, the conductor, is also Music Director of the Hong Kong Philharmonic and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, and will become Music Director of the New York Philharmonic in 2018/19.
Performer Biography
Heidi Melton, who sings Sieglinde, has been described as 'the Wagnerian voice we have been waiting for since Flagstad and Nilsson'.
Recording & Production
This recording is the second from the first live performance of the complete Ring cycle by a Hong Kong or mainland Chinese orchestra, following Das Rheingold in 2015.
