Siegfried - English National Opera Guide 28 (includes libretto)

Wagner wanted Siegfried, the third music drama in The Ring of the Nibelung, to be the most popular of the cycle

Despite its many beautiful and dramatic scenes and its vital part in the drama, it has not fulfilled its composer's aspiration: Professor Ulrich Weisstein examines why

Professor Anthony Newcomb contributes a detailed analysis of Wagner's use of leitmotifs, identifying the different purposes they fulfil

Derrick Puffett takes up the extraordinary fact that Wagner composed Tristan and Isolde and The Mastersingers of Nuremberg in the eight-year hiatus between his beginning and completion of Siegfried's second act

The thematic guide complements those found in the other Opera Guides to The Ring Cycle

REVIEWS

'Brilliantly produced and superb value' ~ Sunday Times

'All these will provide the new opera-goer with food for thought' ~ Daily Telegraph

'Wholehearted recommendation of this valuable new series' ~ TLS