The Rhinemaidens are the three water-nymphs who appear in Richard Wagner’s opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen. Their individual names are Woglinde, Wellgunde and Flosshilde, although they are generally treated as a single entity and they act together accordingly. They are the first and the last characters seen in the four-opera cycle, appearing both in the opening scene of Das Rheingold, and in the final climactic spectacle of Götterdämmerung.
About Rhinemaidens in brief
The Rhinemaidens are the three water-nymphs who appear in Richard Wagner’s opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen. Their individual names are Woglinde, Wellgunde and Flosshilde, although they are generally treated as a single entity and they act together accordingly. They are the first and the last characters seen in the four-opera cycle, appearing both in the opening scene of Das Rheingold, and in the final climactic spectacle of Götterdämmerung. They have been described as morally innocent, yet they display a range of sophisticated emotions, including some that are far from guileless. No indication is given as to how they came into existence, beyond occasional references to an unspecified \”father\”. The various musical themes associated with them are regarded as among the most lyrical in the entire Ring cycle, bringing to it rare instances of comparative relaxation and charm. They do not originate from the Poetic Edda or Prose Edda, the Icelandic sources for most of Norse mythology. Wagner drew widely and loosely from those legends when compiling his Ring narrative, and the probable origin of his Rh Cinemaidens is in the German Nibelundenlied. The key concepts are wholly Wagner’s own invention, and are the elements that initiate and propel the entire drama. The music contains important melodies and phrases which are reprised and developed elsewhere in the operas to characterise other individuals and circumstances, and to relate plot developments to the source of the narrative.
It is reported that Wagner played the Rhinem Maidens’ lament at the piano, on the night before he died in Venice, in 1883. In one part of the Nibelunkenlied narrative Hagen and Gunther encounter certain mermaids or water sprites bathing themselves in the waters of the Danube. According to Þiðrekssaga, it occurred in the confluence of theDanube and the Rhine. This story, itself unrelated to the Ring drama, is echoed by Wagner both in the opening Das R heingold scene and the first scene in Act III of Götter dämmersung. The placement of this scene has several possibilities, but according to þiðsaga it may be Möhringen an der Donau, although Großmehring which is much further east has also been suggested. In the early libretto of Siegfried’s Death, Wagner introduced three unnamed water-maids, and locating them in theRhine, where they warn Siegfried of his impending death. As Wagner continued working on his reverse chronology, he arrived at what he determined to be the Rhich’s theft of the gold. Believing that a simple abduction of the unguarded gold would lack force of force, Wagner made the Rhines the guardians of and he introduced the condition of the love of Bronnlnln. The Rhine River-based German legend of the Rhvelorni, Lorelei becomes a siren who drowns herself in the river.
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This page is based on the article Rhinemaidens published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 05, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
