Opera as Comics: Richard Wagner’s The Ring of the Nibelung in Craig P. Russell’s Graphic Adaptation

Miroslav Urbanec,Michaela Weiss

doi:10.16995/olh.4680

Abstract

The article explores the capacity of the comics medium to represent a complex opera cycle in a graphic narrative. It analyses specific features of transmedial transmission between opera and comics through the example of the most recent graphic adaptation of Richard Wagner’s dramatic tetralogy The Ring of the Nibelung by P. Craig Russell, published by Dark Horse Comics (2000-2001). The adaptation, which fuses the disparate worlds of opera, comics, and fantasy culture, is stripped of Wagner’s controversial ideology. Russell interprets the Ring Cycle as an essential source of inspiration for American comics, thereby making this complex magnum opus attractive and accessible to wider audiences. His chief aim, however, is to reproduce an operatic effect by way of graphic mythic grandiosity. The study explores the visual aspects of the adaptation, addressing the potential of the comics medium to capture Wagner’s original vision. With a focus on illustration style and character depiction, this article discusses Russell’s imagery, which combines the classic illustrations of Arthur Rackham and Carl Emil Doepler, images from American popular culture, and Alan Lee’s illustrations of Tolkien’s series The Lord of the Rings. This article further analyses the methods of transmission of sounds into the silent medium, including both linguistic and visual means of expressing the intensity and quality of sound. Special attention is paid to the meaning and visual form of the Wagnerian leitmotiv as well as the use of colouring in relation to timing.

Highlights

Since the early stages of comics development, there has been a close link between the graphic medium and adaptation, especially of classics, ranging from Homer and Shakespeare to Alexander Dumas
The chief aim of the series was to kindle interest in the classics, not to create an artistic product on its own, as Kanter notes in the inside front cover of The Three Musketeers: ‘It is not our intent to replace the old established classics with these editions of the “CLASSIC COMICS LIBRARY”, but rather we aim to create an active interest in those great masterpieces and to instill a desire to read the original text’ (1941: n.pag.)
There are no major omissions or compressions and the storyline is kept intact. When it comes to the language style, the translation retains the poetic and dramatic nature of the original, and remains accessible without attempting to sound modern or vernacular. This correspondence is further supported by the illustrations that, to a large extent, follow the established visual illustrations of Wagner’s characters, especially those by Carl Emil Doepler and Arthur Rackham, and are complemented by bright colouring, which establishes a reference to the early American superhero comics

Summary

OPEN ACCESS

Since the early stages of comics development, there has been a close link between the graphic medium and adaptation, especially of classics, ranging from Homer and Shakespeare to Alexander Dumas. Wagner’s Ring Cycle has been adapted into the comic form before Russell by Roy Thomas, who, together with the illustrators Gil Kane and Jim Woodring, published a four-issue comics version entitled Richard Wagner’s The Ring of the Nibelung 1–4 (1989) Their adaptation was a result of Thomas’s fascination with Wagner, Thor and Norse mythology in general, which started in 1980, when Thomas began to introduce the Niebelungslied and Wagner’s Ring in Thor magazine, issue 294, ‘New Asgards for Old’ (April 1980), presenting the notion of a cyclic Ragnarok and featuring the dwarf Alberich stealing the gold from the Rheinmaidens.. Even though the publisher and the majority of reviewers do not explicitly mention classical music or opera admirers, the online customer reviews at Amazon. com and Goodreads.com indicate that the readership includes devotees of opera and Wagner, as well as students of music (who might be comics and/or fantasy lovers)

Illustration and Character Depiction

Expressing Sound in a Silent Medium

Concluding Remarks