Richard Wagner - Götterdämmerung - Siegfried’s death and Funeral march - Klaus Tennstedt
Götterdämmerung - Twilight of the Gods, WWV 86D, is the last in Richard Wagner’s cycle of four music dramas titled Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung, or The Ring Cycle or The Ring for short). It received its premiere at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus on 17th of August 1876, as part of the first complete performance of the whole work.
In the video are parts of “Siegfried“ which is part of “Die Nibelungen“ (“The Nibelungs“) a two-part series of silent fantasy films created by Austrian director Fritz Lang in 1924 - for the German UFA - consisting of Die Nibelungen: Siegfried and Die Nibelungen: Kriemhild’s Revenge.
The scenarios for both films were co-written by Lang’s then-wife Thea von Harbou, based upon the epic poem Nibelungenlied written around AD 1200. Die Nibelungen received its UK premiere at the Royal Albert Hall in London, where it played for 40 performances between 29th of April and 20th of June 1924. Siegfried was released in the United States on 23rd of August 1925, premiering at the Century Theatre in New York City in the short-lived Phonofilm sound-on-film process. Kriemhild’s Revenge was released in the U.S. in 1928.
Paul Richter as Siegfried the dragon slayer, Margarete Schön as Kriemhild and Hans Adalbert Schlettow as Hagen von Tronje.
Cinematography: Carl Hoffmann, Gunther Rittau and Walter Ruttmann.
Directed by Fritz Lang - 1924.
Author: Richard Wagner - 1876.
Conductor: Klaus Tennstedt and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Live in Tokyo - 1988.
Video created by Torsten Lang OMCLA/LAVA 2023.
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