Commentary

IN MY TRANSLATION OF Wagner's summary of the Nibelung myth as the basis of a drama I have followed the text contained in Wagner's Gesammelte Schriften, which was prepared from the early clean copy dated 8 October 1848. I have attempted to retain the sketch character of the original. Where a term that Wagner used or invented has become accepted in its German form in the Wagner literature — such as Tarnhelm — I have retained the German expressions. I have maintained his sometimes questionable interpretations of medieval expressions.

At this point I would like to beg the reader's indulgence. In the introduction to these translations I have tried to bring the reader up to the moment when Wagner first committed the Nibelung myth to paper, followed almost immediately by his first attempt at a Nibelung opera text. This all happened in the fall of 1848. In the following I will discuss how Wagner changed his “myth” in the process of producing the final Ring poem he revised and set to music over the next twenty-six years. I will not attempt an interpretation of the Ring or even of the “Nibelungen-Mythus” here, but I think it is worthwhile to mark out those points in which Wagner deviated from his own version of the Nibelung myth as he developed his concept from a single opera to a grand cycle.

The scenario was designed only to support the composition of Siegfried's Tod, so it treats events before the opera in a more schematic fashion than those that are included in the libretto. The entire first scene of Das Rheingold is skipped over and a much more mythological view of the world, probably derived from the Icelandic sources, is presented. The scenario begins in the world of dwarfs (Nibelungs). Wagner also associated the Norse word “Niflheim” with the Nibelungs, although there is only the most tenuous connection through the root “nifl,” which is probably related to the German “Nebel,” meaning fog or mist. Wagner logically connected the dwarfs, whom he imagines living underground, with the idea of darkness and fog.

Although the Rhine daughters play a role in Siegfried's Tod, they are not yet mentioned in connection with Alberich's theft of the gold in the “Nibelungen-Mythus.”