Nibelung ring

Brave heroes fight dragons and incredible villains, warlike virgins transfer the fallen to the fairy tale, the greedy rulers weave conspiracies in the struggle for power and wealth, and indifferent gods doom people to suffer to extend their own existence. And all this is necessary - the omnipotence ring damned by the dwarf, which causes countless suffering and the final death of the gods ... The opera tetralogy of Richard Wagner to this day remains the most grandiose scenic action ever created by man, the full performance of the cycle takes more than fifteen hours . Therefore, the task of transferring this work to paper with the help of a pen and carcass could seem impossible and even absurd, if not for the talent of the artist F. Craig Russell, thanks to which we hold this wonderful book in our hands.

The preface: starting from the first performance of the opera tetralogy of Richard Wagner "Ring of the Nibelung", which was in 1876 in Bayrey, its directors invariably encounter difficulties in the presentation of the visual series. When is the action? In mythical times. What clothes were worn in mythical times? We do not know. But in 1876, Wagner put on horned helmets on his gods and tried to follow his own stage instructions as accurately as possible: Frick in Valkyrie arrives in the chariot attracted by the rams, Brungilda owns the magic warfare of the grain, the Fafnir turns into a dragon, and this is only the most picturesque Characters. And everything is crowned with a violent finale with the spill of the Rhine and the predetermined death of Valhalla. The author could not help but understand what requires the impossible ... or ridiculous from the theater.
The desire to overcome these and other difficulties gave rise to many different approaches to the production of the "Ring". In some cases, the directors try to exactly follow the author’s remarks, which incite accusations from critics in the desire to “perpetuate the museum exhibit” (in this regard, the New York Metro-Opera is especially common) Other masters - such as Sir Peter Hall in Bayrete - prefer to focus on the tastes of the modern public, but they do not always and do not immediately find an understanding of the latter. Sometimes the action of all four operas is transferred to the modern era or played out in the decorations of the 19th century, but this only creates new difficulties. Votan can flaunt a bar of a financial gate in a tailcoat, but with him it should still be his spear, Sigmund and Siegfried can not do without swords, and the faphnir should appear in the image of the dragon, since all these elements are an integral part of the plot.
What can be done so that the reader see the "ring" as Wagner saw it? Did he really believe that the production could look exactly the way he imagined it, or did he foresee the time when incredible inventions like cinema would help realize his plan in full? The film adaptation is the only way to reproduce all magical effects, especially in our computer age. But in the absence of an adaptation, the best way to overcome these restrictions is the imagination of the artist.
In the book of F. Craig Russell, we see the whole cycle almost the way, Wagner probably imagined it (I am sure that the drawn "flight of Valkyrie" would make a rather strong impression on him) Like Arthur, Rack, who created almost a century ago, Russell shows the gods, heroes and mortals not by the characters of myths, but ordinary living beings. In the world of Superman and Batman, the images of Siegfried and Sigmund acquire a new dimension without losing their heroic status. And in this Russell, the translation of Patrick Mason, completely retaining the dignity and power of the original without turning to such fashionable and understandable all tricks as modern slang or expansion, helped very thoroughly. The fruit of their joint work deserves the widest distribution, especially among young people, for whom the Nibelung Ring remains just a forgotten brand. I hope the book will help them - how it helped me - to find in the "ring" the source of enduring pleasure, delight and inspiration.
Michael Kennedy, London (Author of the "Oxford Dictionary of Music" and the host of the musical section in the newspaper "Sandy Telegraph")