The orchestration of Das Rheingold uses quadruple upper woodwind, three bassoons, eight horns, four tubas, with contra bass tuba, quadruple trumpets and trombones, a percussion section that includes an array of anvils for the Nibelungs, six harps, with a seventh on stage, and a large string section. In his text he made use of a form of Stabreim, the Old High German alliterative verse, familiar to English readers from early English texts. The music of Das Rheingold was completed in 1854 and follows the principles Wagner had laid down in his treatise of 1851, Opera and Drama, principles that he was to follow less rigidly in later works. The sources of the drama were found in Icelandic sagas, the thirteenth-century Middle High German Das Nibelungenlied and the Old Norse Thidreks Saga af Bern, but Wagner had recourse to a wide range of other reading, while the structure of the tetralogy and the underlying theme of the curse owes a strong debt to Aeschylus and Greek tragedy. Leading motifs associated with characters, events and ideas in the drama, recur, interwoven to unify the whole conception. The texts had been completed by Wagner by 1853 and the completion of the music and performance of the whole cycle in a specially created opera-house of novel design represented a summit of creative achievement, the apotheosis of German art. The complete cycle consists of a Prologue, Das Rheingold (The Rhinegold), followed the next day by Die WalkГјre (The Valkyrie), and then by Siegfried, leading up to the final GГ¶tterdГ¤mmerung (Twilight of the Gods). Wagner's tetralogy, Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung) was first performed as a whole in August 1876 at the new Festspielhaus in Bayreuth. Wellgunde - Maria Theresa Ullrich (mezzo-soprano)ДЇloГџhilde - Margarete Joswig (mezzo-soprano) Preliminary Evening of Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung)ДЇricka - Michaela Schuster (mezzo-soprano)ДЇreia - Helga RГіs IndridadГіttir (soprano)

Wagner das rheingold