The opera cycle, The Ring of the Nibelung, by Richard Wagner, stands as one of the great achievements in the history of music.

Wagner based his Ring cycle on tales from Norse and German mythology. He studied ancient legends of gods, half gods, and earthly beings and he spent years writing and shaping his material. The Result was an exciting and monumental story, heroic and exalted, told through impassioned and stirring music.

In this book Clyde Robert Bulla tells the stories that make up The Ring of the Nibelung cycle: The Rhinegold, The Valkyrie, Siegfried, The Dusk of the Gods. The stories are magical and mysterious—larger than life, yet based on the human emotions that motivate life. Mr. Bulla is a skilled storyteller and, in his hands, Wagner's great tale of love and hate, greed and goodness, come to life simply, yet dramatically. 

Mr. Bulla includes musical themes from the four operas and tells the story of Wagner's life and of his struggles to break with the tradition of the time and create a new form of opera, the "music drama."

Readers who love legend and mythology, and readers who delight in Wagner's music, will welcome the clarity and simple beauty of Clyde Robert Bulla's words as he unfolds these powerful stories of gods and people.

From the dust jacket