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Die Nibelungen Are Back
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18228 |
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Section : |
THE ARTS
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| Issue
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10 / 1990 |
1,491 Words |
| Author
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David Howard
David Howard writes on the arts and lives in Washington, D.C. |
To most of us, Richard Wagner's protean Ring cycle is the alpha and omega of the German national epic, the Nibelungenlied. So it may come as something of a surprise to learn that Wagner's version is probably the least accurate rendering of this ancient tale. In 1924, Fritz Lang took out the gods, added the Huns, restored Kriemhild to her rightful place as Siegfried's bride, commissioned a musical-comedy composer to write a score for full orchestra, and produced a silent film epic of his own, Die Nibelungen. After years of languishing in fragments in various European film archives, Lang's four-and-a-half-hour work was shown earlier this year in all its restored glory at Filmfest DC.
The roots of the Nibelungenlied lie deep in Norse, not German, mythology. But the seafaring Norseman spread the legend as they swept through the early medieval world, from Iceland to Britain to the upper reaches of the Rhine. Unlike the other heroic sagas of the day, Beowulf and the Chanson de Roland, no definitive version was ever written down. Embellished by Icelandic Eddists and German minnesingers its scope was expanded to embrace other heroes' exploits. But as the superstition of the Middle Ages yielded to the rationalism of the Renaissance, this dark tale lost its audience and was gradually forgotten - until the middle of the nineteenth century, when Wagner revived it partly as a hymn to a resurgent Germany, united just about the time he completed his Ring cycle.
And as the twentieth century came to learn, the concepts of Siegfried and his "master race" played a role in the rise of Hitler's Reich.
Lang and his collaborator, Thea von Harbou,
... (1993 of 8401 Characters)
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