17 Facts About Das Rheingold

1.

Wagner wrote the Ring librettos in reverse order, so that Das Rheingold was the last of the texts to be written; it was the first to be set to music.

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2.

The 1869 Munich premiere of Das Rheingold was staged, much against Wagner's wishes, on the orders of his patron, King Ludwig II of Bavaria.

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3.

Das Rheingold was Wagner's first work that adopted these principles, and his most rigid adherence to them, despite a few deviations – the Rhinemaidens frequently sing in ensemble.

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4.

Das Rheingold has forced his brother Mime, a skillful smith, to create a magic helmet, the Tarnhelm.

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5.

Das Rheingold then asks for the return of the Tarnhelm, but Loge says that it is part of his ransom.

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6.

Das Rheingold finished his prose plan for the work in March 1852, and on 15 September began writing the full libretto, which he completed on 3 November.

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7.

The Das Rheingold score is structured around many such motifs; analysts have used different principles in determining the total number.

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8.

Das Rheingold finished the first draft in mid-January 1854, and by the end of May had completed the full orchestral score.

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9.

However, Ludwig, who possessed the copyright, was insistent that Das Rheingold be produced at the Munich Hofoper without further delay.

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10.

London followed suit in May 1882, when Das Rheingold began a cycle at Her Majesty's Theatre, Haymarket, under the baton of Anton Seidl.

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11.

In Budapest on 26 January 1889, the first Hungarian performance of Das Rheingold, conducted by the young Gustav Mahler, was briefly interrupted when the prompt-box caught fire and a number of patrons fled the theatre.

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12.

American premiere of Das Rheingold was given by the New York Metropolitan Opera in January 1889, as a single opera, with Seidl conducting.

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13.

Many of this production's features were highly controversial: the opening of Das Rheingold revealed a vast hydro-electric dam in which the gold is stored, guarded by the Rhinemaidens who were portrayed, in Spotts's words, as "three voluptuous tarts" – a depiction, he says, which "caused a shock from which no one quite recovered".

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14.

Otto Schenk's staging of Das Rheingold, first seen at the New York Met in 1987 and forming the prelude to his full Ring cycle two years later, was described by The New York Times as "charmingly old fashioned", and as "a relief to many beleaguered Wagnerites".

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15.

Das Rheingold was Wagner's first attempt to write dramatic music in accordance with the principles he had enunciated in Opera and Drama, hence the general absence in the score of conventional operatic "numbers" in the form of arias, ensembles and choruses.

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16.

Since it was written as a prelude to the main events, Das Rheingold is in itself inconclusive, leaving numerous loose ends to be picked up later; its function, as Jacobs says, is "to expound, not to draw conclusions".

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17.

Since then Das Rheingold has been recorded, as part of the cycle, on many occasions, with regular new issues.

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