R. Wagner - Gotterdammerung - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Wagner / Palme / Cristolfoli - Gotterdammerung [COMPACT DISCS] 4 Pack date 01/05/2018

'Gotterdammerung' (Twilight of the Gods) is the epic fourth and final opera of Wagner's great Ring cycle, with a plot that depicts the fall of heroes, gods, and the entire world. As ever with the Ring, the joys of love are all too fragile and fleeting, and the drama of 'Gotterdammerung' revolves around dark and unsettling reversals of fortune and illusions of hope that synthesize thrilling and powerful grand opera traditions with Wagner's revolutionary techniques. Containing all of the Ring's essential elements, 'Gotterdammerung' possesses a profoundly satisfying sense of inevitability that makes it both a towering climax and a unified summation of the Ring's abundant variety.

Comprising four separate operas, Wagner's visionary Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung) took 25 years to complete. Centred around a ring of power and the attempts of various people to acquire it, the Ring cycle explores the relationship between love and earthly power and the themes of yearning and loss, all within a setting of medieval legend. The prologue Das Rheingold deals with the theft and subsequent surrender of the ring forged from the Rhinegold by the Nibelung dwarf Alberich.