A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Nibelungen

NIBELUNGEN. Der Ring des Nibelungen—'The Ring of the Niblung'—a tetralogy or sequence of four music-dramas, words and music by Richard Wagner, was first performed in its entirety at Bayreuth, August 13, 14, 16, and 17, 1876, and repeated during the two following weeks. Wagner's libretto is founded on the Icelandic Sagas, and has little in common with the Nibelungenlied, or more correctly 'Der Nibelunge Nöt,' a medieval German poem of the beginning of the 13th century, in which the mythical types of the old Norse sagas appear in humanised modifications. [App. p.730 "Add that the trilogy, or tetralogy, as it is called in the article, was given at Her Majesty's Theatre on May 5–9, 1882. Four performances of the entire work took place."]

[ F. H. ]