User:Sjones23/Der Ring des Nibelungen

Lead
Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung) is a cycle of four epic operas (or "dramas" to use the composer's preferred term) with music and libretto by the German composer Richard Wagner.The works are based loosely on characters from the Norse sagas and the Nibelungenlied. The four dramas, which the composer described as a trilogy with a Vorabend ("preliminary evening"), are often referred to as the Ring Cycle, Wagner's Ring, or simply the Ring. The four operas that constitute the Ring cycle are Das Rheingold (The Rhine Gold), Die Walküre (The Valkyrie), Siegfried and Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods). The complete work premiered at the Bayreuth Festival on 22 August 1876.

Although individual operas of the sequence are sometimes performed separately, Wagner intended them to be performed in series.

Background
Richard Wagner (1813–83) was the son of Carl Friedrich Wagner, a clerk in the Leipzig police service, and his wife Johanna Rosine, née Paetz, the daughter of a baker.