A Pocket Full of Posies
Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelung, the Comic
Part 1

2,546 words

Part 1 of 2 (Part 2 here)

P. Craig Russell, illustrator
Richard Wagners Der Ring der Nibelungen
Vienna: Cross Cult, 2023
(originally published in English by Dark Horse)

Opera and comic book art have in common that they attract large and dedicated followings, but enthusiasts of the one are probably seldom found among enthusiasts of the other. Most people are either enthusiasts or indifferent to them. A moderate reaction is rare, meaning that the number of those who “quite like” opera but not extremely, or who “quite like” comic magazines but not extremely is probably a small one. Those who do enjoy either opera or comic art are usually well-informed about their subject; most opera lovers could recount with ease the plot of Wagner’s Der Ring des Niebelungen, and most comic-book lovers are familiar with Craig Russell’s work. Thus, Craig Russell’s illustrated Ring is likely to appeal to both opera lover and the lover of comic books.

For those not familiar with the legends which Wagner and therefore Russell draw on, or with Wagner’s Ring itself, it may help to familiarize themselves before reading this book, firstly with an introduction to Norse myths and later perhaps with an analytical work, as for example Roger Scruton’s Wisdom of the Ring. For anyone not familiar with the Ring Cycle, an introduction will be helpful — something on the lines of William Berger’s Wagner without Fear, which provides a humorous and easily accessible introduction to Wagner’s operas.

Craig Russell became well-known through his Killraven illustrations for Marvel comics, in which he depicted a “warrior of the worlds” fighting for the good in post-apocalyptic, post-urban landscapes. He also worked with Don McGregor on comic book versions of Elric in a series which first appeared in 1983. The comics were based on British science fiction and fantasy writer Michael Moorcock’s tales of Elric von Melniboné. Like Siegmund in the Ring Cycle, Russell is something of a lone wolf — not in the sense of working alone, for drawing, inking, creating, adapting plots, providing a text, and liaising with those responsible for page layout, size, format, paper thickness, and more inevitably requires team work. He is rather a loner in the sense that he prefers working on commission, only undertaking work of his choosing. He has been self-employed for many years and has long enjoyed a high reputation as a master of his craft, and that reputation affords him the luxury of only accepting commissions on subjects which genuinely interest him.

Russell shuns the Marvel and DC Comics tropes of a superhero flying in to save threatened middle-class folk in urban locations mirroring real-life cities such as New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. He also eschews those typical comic-book scenes familiar to generations of American children growing up from the 1930s onwards: panicking urban masses, tottering skyscrapers and collapsing bridges, overturning cars and exploding tanks, where n’er do wells are defeated by the likes of Thor, Iron Man, Batman, and Superman and superhumans or ancient gods fly in without the need of wings to confound and destroy the fomenters of pandemonium. Craig Russell does not seek to emulate the sadism and often exploitative heroics of Stan Lee’s Spider-Man, nor the exploits of Joe Shuster’s Superman or Bob Kane’s Batman. He also does not compete with artists such as Mike Mignola in the depiction of nightmare adventures inspired by the pulp fiction of the past, nor the kind of film noir comics characterized by Frank Miller’s hugely successful Sin City series. Craig Russell is inspired instead by classic works of European art, both musical and literary.

Mythology, nature, other-worldliness, and classical legends and tales far removed from scenes of contemporary life provide the inspiration for Craig Russell’s art. His 11-part anthology called Night Music contains adaptations of classical operas, novels, and short stories. Night Music includes versions of five operas: Oscar Wilde’s Salome (which Richard Strauss adapted as an opera), Pelleas and Melisande (originally a play by Maurice Maeterlinck, but better known as Claude Debussy’s opera of the same name), Vincenzo Bellini’s La Sollambulla, Paul Dukas’ Ariane et Barbe-bleue, and Wolfgang Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte. Russell also created artwork for Ruggero Leoncavallo’s short opera Pagliacci, and a comic-book adaptation of Wagner’s Parsifal in 1978.

Russell was therefore not venturing into uncharted territory when he set about realizing his long-cherished desire to create a comic-book version of the Ring Cycle. Wagner’s sprawling four-part opera nevertheless presents the graphic artist with particular challenges. Typically for Wagner’s operas, the drama of the Ring develops as much or more through emotional expression than through dramatic interaction; fear, love, anxiety, and ambition are expressed principally in the music and the aria. Furthermore, singers in Wagner’s operas frequently recount past events at considerable length in recitative, events which are necessary to an understanding of events but which are narrated by the singers and not depicted on stage. Russell takes full advantage of the flexibility permitted to him as a graphic artist. For example, he presents Wotan’s sacrifice of his eye to obtain knowledge and the forging of a spear from Yggdrasil, the World Tree, in wordless panels at the beginning of this work. The operagoer is only told about these events at the beginning of the last opera of the cycle, Götterdämmerung.

However, the comic book artist is obviously spared the major and arguably insurmountable challenge which faces any stage producer of the Ring, namely how to render Wagner’s supernatural scenes or scenes from nature within the confines and technical limitations of an opera house set. A few examples: Der Ring des Niebelungen opens not at or by the River Rhine, but in it. The Gods cross a bridge in the clouds into the huge castle of Valhalla. Dwarves toil in a vast underground mine. There is an ash tree in the middle of Hunding’s home. Brünnhilde is surrounded by a ring of fire. A faithful theatrical performance of the Ring Cycle requires the inclusion of stampeding horses, a ferocious bear, towering giants, a talking bird, a ship, a castle, a bridge in the sky, a chariot drawn by a ram, a mountain, and a fire-breathing dragon which emerges from a cave. Das Rheingold begins with a scene underwater, and Götterdämmerung ends in an all-consuming conflagration. But scenes daunting for a stage producer offer welcome opportunities for a graphic artist to give free rein to his skill and imagination.

You can buy Collin Cleary’s Wagner’s Ring & the Germanic Tradition here.

Craig Russell’s graphic adaptation of Richard Wagner Der Ring des Niebelungen first appeared in English as a series of 14 comic books, the first book published by Dark Horse Comics in the year 2000. Dark Horse Comics, which was founded in 1986 by Mike Richardson, is known for the considerable creative leeway it gives to its artists compared to artists working at Marvel or DC Comics. The 14 original issues were then reissued as a single-volume hardcover book, with English text by Patrick Mason, in 2014. Now, nearly ten years later, the book has been translated back into German and published by Cross Cult, which is based in Ludwigsburg, Germany. Cross Cult had already published some American works: for example, two works by Mike Mignola, Hellboy and Aliens. The latter is a continuation of two films, Ridley Scott’s Alien and James Cameron’s Aliens, and was also originally published by Dark Horse. In the case of the German-language version of Craig Russell’s Ring, one can speak of a “retranslation,” because Stephanie Pannen’s German text follows the sense of Wagner’s original libretto, albeit with a language stripped of both the poetry and depth of the original German.

A few panels at the end of this work showing how Russell worked and providing a brief excerpt from the English version, including a rare challenge by Russell to Mason’s choice of words, show that the banality of the text in the German edition is no more Paul Mason’s fault than it is Wagner’s. Stephanie Pannen’s colloquial and pedestrian German text is a huge weakness of the German edition. It may be that she was obliged to reduce the German text to fit into the speech bubbles drawn by Russell. Certainly, it would have been impossible to squeeze anything approaching the entirety of Wagner’s libretto into the cartoon panels. The fact remains that Stephanie Pannen is woefully unequal to the task entrusted to her. Her German is a mediocre, careless, unprofessional summary of Wagner’s libretto. It is flat, uninspired, and at times reads like a travesty of the original. A few examples will show this.

Firstly, there is the superb and much-loved Freiheitsmusik (Freedom music) in the first act of Siegfried. Siegfried declares that he will break free of the tutelage of the dwarf Mime, whom he rightly knows cannot be his true father. Here is an excerpt of the Freiheitsmusik from the original libretto:

Als dem Wald fort
in die Welt zieh’n
nimmer kehre ich zurück.
Wie ich froh bin
daß ich frei ward,
nichts mich bindet und zwingt! . . .
Wie der Fisch froh
in der Fluth schwimmt,
wie der Fink frei
sich davon schwingt:
flieg’ ich von hier
fluthe davon
wie der Wind über’n Wald
weh’ ich dahin-
dich Mime nie wieder zu seh’n!”

Out of the forest
into the world
never to return.
Full of joy am I
to be free,
nothing holds me and nothing binds! . . .
Happy as the fish
swimming in the current,
as the finch careers away
I fly from here
I surge beyond
Like wind over the forest
I fly away
never to see Mime more!

In Stephanie Pannen’s pedestrian prose, Sigmund’s declaration shrinks into a risible boast that he will fly with the birds and swim with the fish!

Damit ich in die Welt zeihen kann, um niemals zurück zu kommen.

Ich bin Dich los und werde mich nicht mehr zurückgehalten.

Da draussen werde ich mit den Vogeln fliegen und mit dem Fischen schwimmen und niemals Dein hässliches Gesicht wiedersehen müssen!

So I will I go out into the world, never to return. I am rid of you and won’t hold back. . . . Outside there I will fly with the birds and swim with the fish and I will never have to see your ugly face again!

Another example: When Wotan seizes the ring from Alberich and so as a God commits a “world sin,” he sacrifices his immortality for the power of the ring and in so doing falls under Alberich’s curse. Alberich has sacrificed love for the sake of power. Wotan’s fatal seizure of the ring is expressed in Wagner’s libretto in these words:

Wotan:

Her den Ring!
Kein Recht an ihm
schwörst du schwatzend dir zu

Alberich:

Ha! Zertrümmert! Zerknickt!
Der traurigen traurigster Knecht!

Wotan (den Ring betrachtend):

Nun halt ich, was mich erhebt,
der Mächtigen mächstigsten Herrn!

Wotan:

Here with the ring!
Your prating gives you no right to it.

Alberich:

Ha! Shattered! Broken!
The saddest of sad menials!

Wotan (contemplating the ring):

And here I hold what raises me,
The mightiest of mighty lords!

Stephanie Pannen’s version, very loosely based on Wagner, reduces the exchange to the level of a street brawl:

Wotan:

Genug der Worte. Du Abschaum! Du hast kein Recht an ihm!

Alberich:

Nein! Nein! Nein!

Wotan:

Jetzt, jetzt gehört die Welt mir. Endlich, endlich

Wotan:

Enough talking. You scum! You have no right to it!

Alberich:

No! No! No!

Wotan (contemplating the ring):

Now the ring belongs to me. At last, at last

In the opera Die Walküre, when Brünnhilde appears to Siegmund, she demands solemnly and slowly:

Siegmund!
Sieh ‘auf mich!
Ich bin’s
der bald du folgst

Siegmund!
Look up to me!
I am the one
You are soon to follow

In this book, Brünnhilde only says “Siegmund,” and Siegmund does not look up at all. Instead, Russell writes a point of interrogation in a bubble over his head.

In Wagner’s opera, Siegmund famously responds — a dramatic moment in the opera, the horns blowing and with a very light but ominous sounding of the drums — with these words:

Wer bist du, sag’
die so schön und ernst mir erscheint?

Who art thou, tell me, appearing so beautiful, so earnest, before me?

The Pannen version just gives the first three words and thereby reduces Siegmund’s question to a mundane one anyone might ask a stranger: “Who are you?” Siegmund poses in Russell’s drawing without even turning round to look at her, so he would not be able to say that she appears beautiful and earnest.

Whoever loves Wagner thrills at the moment in Die Walküre when Siegmund’s hope is awoken by the sight of the sword, Nothung. After his desperate call for help, where is the sword of deliverance? Where? He is without a weapon in the house of his enemy. Yet, there is something glimmering in the moonlight. Then there is the thrilling exclamation:

Was gleisst dort hell im Glimmerschein?
Welch ein Strahl bricht aus der Esche Stamm?
Des Blinden Auge leuchtet ein Blitz:
lustig lacht da der Blick.
Wie der Schein so hehr das Herz mir sengt!
Ist es der Blick der blühenden Frau,
den dort haftend sie hinter sich liess,
als aus dem Saal sie schied?

What is gleaming there bright in the glimmering light?
What ray of light breaks from the ash tree’s trunk?
A flash of lightning lights the blinded eye:
joyously laughing the glance.
How the gleam scorches my heart!

Is it the glance of the glowing woman,
That she left lingering
Behind her after
She left the hall?

You can buy Collin Cleary’s Summoning the Gods here.

Siegmund is given no words at all at this moment in the Craig Russell Ring. Instead, the reader is offered three small, wordless panels: one tiny (under an inch broad and long), the first offering a view of Siegmund from behind seeing the silhouette of a sword, and again (!) a point of interrogation. Russell’s point of interrogation makes Siegmund seem foolish, or at least devoid of intuition, yet the opera Die Walküre focuses on intuition, including Siegmund’ s intuition (or in the case of the sword, Wotan’s promise, depending on one’s interpretation of the words “my father promised me a sword which I would find in my hour of need”), which tells him both that Sieglinde is his sister and that he will find a sword with which to fight her husband. He expects to find the sword, for he has already cried out “Wälse Wälse! Wo ist dein Schwert?” , or“Wälse,Wälse, where is thy sword? But he despairs of finding it, and then his hope (literally!) lights up when he sees something glimmering in the ash tree.

In Craig Russell’s pictures, however, he has inexplicably already asked several panels earlier where the sword is in an image showing a supplicant Siegmund on his knees. Russell’s choice of images at this point in the story is confusing both chronologically and in terms of place. Siegmund seems to be in the house, then out again at the portal to see the flash of lightning which indicates to him where the sword is. One is reminded of clues in an escape room. Instead of the reader then being given a depiction of the sword, which is what on stage accompanies the words “Was gleisst dort hell im Glimmerschein? “, the scene in the graphic novel is interrupted by a three-panel depiction of the drugged Hunding collapsing on his bed and a contemptuous Sieglinde looking down at him. The dramatic tension of Wagner’s opera is entirely lost.