Opera and D&D

[aher]

Hoho! Hoho! Hohei!
Schmiede, mein Hammer,
ein hartes Schwert!
--Siegfried (Wagner's Siegfried, Act I)

Wagner's Ring Cycle is produced every 6 years in Bayreuth. The 1976 Boulez/Chéreau production was recorded in 1980 and broadcast on US TV in 1981-1982. This was about the time I started playing Moldvay Basic D&D, and so D&D and opera were mutually reinforcing.

The Ring's got everything a good D&D campaign needs--plenty of gods, giants, dwarves, magic rings, enchanted swords, dragons, gold, heroes, maidens in need of rescue, deceit & treachery,...

One of my favorite scenes was where Siegfried reforges his father's shattered sword Notung in order to slay Fafnir the dragon, while Siegfried's foster parent, the Dwarf Mime, plots against him. There are several renditions of Siegfried's Forging Song on YouTube.

This 13-minute clip is from the 2011-2012 Metropolitan Opera production. Jay Hunter Morris as Siegfried. It's in HD and subtitled in English.


This 18 minute HD, English-subtitled clip is from the 1993 Barenboim/Kupfer production at Bayreuth. Siegfried Jerusalem as Siegfried.


Lance Ryan singing the same scene in two parts, about 15-minutes total. Part 1:

Part 2:


These two clips (approx 16 minutes) are from the 1990 Met production by Levine. Spanish subtitles. Siegfried Jerusalem as Siegfried. Part 1:

Part 2:


And here is a 6-minute clip of the same scene from the 1980 Boulez/Chéreau production, the production I saw first as a kid. Manfred Jung as Siegfried:


Can't stand opera? Couldn't sit through 18 hours of the Ring? There's always Bugs Bunny's "What's Opera, Doc?" which compresses the entire Ring down to a mere six and a half minutes:


Has anyone else found inspiration for their D&D games in Wagner's Ring Cycle?

[DungeonDevil]

Never had the stomach for opera. The closest I came was Debussy's lovely Pelléas et Mélisande over twenty years ago and my now long-gone CD Der Ring ohne Worte.

[stevemitchell]

You could probably get some D&D inspiration from The Magic Flute as well. I know that when I saw Lohengrin, I kept wanting to strap on a sword and go fight the Magyars!

[doctorx]

I adore The Ring, and have D&D to thank for introducing me to it! I vaguely knew the legend from childhood, but had never considered opera to be for me, but then I thought; "Any story with Gods, dwarfs, dragons, magic swords, heroes and valkyries has got to be worth a look, right?"

And so it proved to be! Wagner remains for me the greatest composer when it comes to capturing an emotional state in music.

Thanks for the clips. Great stuff!

[stevemitchell]

Incidentally, Kino Cinema has recently released Fritz Lang's treatment of the Ring material, Die Nibelungen, in Blu-Ray format.

[aher]

Jan 30, 2013 12:05:40 GMT -6 stevemitchell said:

Incidentally, Kino Cinema has recently released Fritz Lang's treatment of the Ring material, Die Nibelungen, in Blu-Ray format.

Thanks for pointing out Fritz Lang's 1924 version of Die Nibelungen. Also a great source of inspirational material for D&D! The digitally remastered Blue Ray version sounds very interesting. I'll have to look into this.

I should point out to others that Lang's Nibelungen differs from Wagner's conception, and it consists of two parts:

• Siegfried
  
• Kriemhild's Revenge
  

There is a complete version of this on YouTube with English subtitles:



In addition, you can find many shorter clips.

Additionally, there are two English translations of "The Nibelungenlied" available for free on Project Gutenberg:

• A prose version by Daniel Bussier Shumway.
  
• A rhymed-verse version by G. H. Needler.
  

[aher]

Jan 30, 2013 9:02:08 GMT -6 stevemitchell said:

The Magic Flute... Lohengrin...

Parsifal (1882) could also be thrown into the mix as well, as a possible inspiration for a D&D campaign. It's a mythic story set in Spain during the Middle Ages about the Knights of the Holy Grail.

Parsifal is an epic struggle of good versus evil:

• Klingsor couldn't live up to the standards of purity demanded of Grail Knights, so he castrated himself in a misguided attempt to achieve chastity. He was ridiculed and rejected for his pains. In revenge, he learned black magic, built his own castle, and tempted many of the Grail Knights, corrupting them with beautiful women (actually, illusions: the Flower Maidens). The corrupted paladins became Black Knights. The evil wizard Klingsor stole the Lance of Longinus and plots to steal the Holy Grail.
  
• Kundry laughed at Christ on the cross. She was cursed to an endless cycle of rebirth until she could learn compassion. She is a split personality--sometimes aiding the Grail Knights, sometimes aiding Klingsor.
  
• Parsifal is the "pure fool" destined to retrieve the lance, redeem Kundry, and heal the Grail Knighthood.

Friedrich Nietzche wrote that "Parsifal is a work of perfidy, of vindictiveness, of a secret attempt to poison the presuppositions of life--a bad work."

Nietzsche also thought that musically Parsifal was sublime--I agree.

Lots of great info on Parsifal here, including details about its origin as an opera about the Buddha, called Die Sieger (the Victors).

Here is a great pic of the evil wizard Klingsor casting a "charm" spell on Kundry:

[zeraser]

In the early days of my music PhD work, some friends and I decided we should bite the bullet and watch the entire Met Ring cycle on DVD, so we did. Besides confirming the conventional Wagner wisdom for us - i.e., that the music is incredibly slow-moving and encodes some repugnant social attitudes - it furnished us with some musical moments that I have to say were genuinely remarkable. If you're in the business of counting the Great Musical Achievements of the Common-Practice Era (which fortunately few musicologists are), Wagner has to be responsible for several of them. Parsifal remains my favorite of RW's works, though - and it's the slowest-moving of them all!

[Falconer]

My wife and I both have our degrees in voice, and my wife actually makes a living singing opera (which, sorry to brag, but that is VERY remarkable). We’ve occasionally had other players in our games who also sing opera.

But I can’t say that we’ve ever tied opera and D&D together in any significant way, though. Singing snatches for humor during a gaming session is probably the extent of it.

I’m mostly into Mozart and Gilbert & Sullivan, but even The Magic Flute and Ruddigore haven’t influenced my games much. I’m wracking my brain…

I am familiar with Wagner, but I’m also familiar with his literary sources, which are even more fertile founts for gaming ideas, so the operas themselves seem a little bare-bones to me by comparison.

[DungeonDevil]

It's a guy inside a pelvis. A giant pelvis. That is blue.
Now I've seen everything!
The best Wagner is Lindsay!

[krusader74]

Jan 30, 2013 9:02:08 GMT -6 stevemitchell said:

You could probably get some D&D inspiration from The Magic Flute as well.

The opera starts when Tamino is attacked by a dragon. He's saved by the Queen of the Night who then sends him on a quest to rescue her daughter, the Princess Pamina, from the "evil" priest Sarastro. When Tamino finds Sarastro, there is a major plot reversal...

Here is a snapshot of the dragon attacking Tamino from the BBC animated version:


For the impatient, who want to know what this opera is about, there is a quick 3-minute animated plot synopsis of The Magic Flute on YouTube at www.youtube.com/watch?v=-laVXO0IYKY

Unfortunately, the animated synopsis omits the opera's main themes and symbols -- Mozart was a Freemason, and the opera is an allegory for the development of mankind through the stages of

1. Chaos (Dragon)
2. Religious superstition (Queen of the Night)
3. Enlightenment (Sarastro)
4. Trial (Tamino)
5. Error (Papageno)
6. The final stage: "The Earth a heavenly kingdom, and mortals like the gods"

YouTube has the BBC's animated version of Mozart's The Magic Flute. Only 1/2 hour. Broken into three parts. Sung in English. Beautiful animation---

• Part 1 www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7Wp3p3did4
• Part 2 www.youtube.com/watch?v=27wGTorcgvI
• Part 3 www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_rR6fdpMZc

There was also a 46 minute animated ABC Afterschool Special of The Magic Flute from 1994. Done in US English of course. Not really my style, but a prime example of the Disneyfication of art and culture. On YouTube at www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyAtvg3Sufk

Ingmar Bergman made a 2hr 10min TV version of The Magic Flute in 1975. Operan sjungs på svenska -- nicht in deutscher Sprache gesungen! And the YouTube upload has no subtitles. Interesting version nevertheless. Very meta- and humorous. Monostatos' henchmen read Donald Duck comic books (speaking of Disneyfication). The Three Ladies Smoke cigarettes under a No Smoking! sign. And Sarastro reads the score of Wagner's Parsifal. On YouTube at www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGVO2hCi15w

Here is Bergman's dragon...


The 1971 Hamburg Opera version directed by Peter Ustinov is an oldie but goodie. 2hr 35min. The upload has no subtitles. On YouTube at www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0cKnC3UvWU

Ustinov's dragon...


Switching gears: For those who like Wagner (and maybe even some who don't), the BBC also had an excellent 1/2-hour animated version of Das Rheingold in English. Check YouTube. Here is the dwarf Alberich, after he uses his magic helmet to polymorph into a dragon:

[derv]

It's a shame these discussions don't sustain more discussion. I personally enjoy others treaties on subjects of art, literature & history.

I can't say that I'm an opera enthusiast, but I'll certainly give Wagner's Ring Cycle a watch because other's have pointed it out. Otherwise, I would have remained ignorant of the material. It looks to be something even my youngest might enjoy and learn from.

[tkdco2]

I'm quite the opera buff. I have been attending some of the San Francisco Opera productions in recent years.

I wrote up a few operatic roles as AD&D characters on Dragonsfoot. Here's a link to the thread.

And on these boards, I adapted some operas to Carcosa.

[Deleted]

Jan 31, 2013 13:11:42 GMT -6 Falconer said:

My wife and I both have our degrees in voice, and my wife actually makes a living singing opera (which, sorry to brag, but that is VERY remarkable).

Crom's hairy nutsack, I'll say. My wife only managed a paying gig or two per year.

[premmy]

It's self-styled as a "musical fable" rather than an opera, but I've always found The Black Rider (written by William S. Burroughs, music by Tom Waits, based on the original Der Freischütz) to be pretty inspiring:



Now there's a lesson on how the greed of PCs can and will lead them into any sort of fall as soon as the DM waves a magic weapon in front of their noses!

[Starbeard]

Brilliant topic. I've never really proactively tied opera to D&D, but I definitely have in the more general sense that 19th-century Austro-Germanic music & aesthetic philosophy are part and parcel of the whole Victorian medievalist movement, which I do directly connect to fantasy gaming.

I've always been pretty adamant that folks should try to understand D&D as a direct outgrowth of 19th-century medievalism, via 'Appendix N', via the earlier generation of fantasy writers (MacDonald, Dunsany, Carroll, etc), via a large body of 19th-century artists and critics (the Pre-Raphaelites, the Palestrina revival, Wagner, Tennyson), via a profoundly interesting marriage between early 19th-century German philosophers like Hegel and the emergence of medieval revivalism and antiquarianism, both of which gained a foothold in social culture through the advent of the professional German university. Obviously that's a very neat and uncomplicated way of looking at things, but if you know where to look you can see the definite chain of influences stretching from Hegel and his predecessors and the political anxieties that spurred early Teutonicism, all the way into the LBBs and beyond. Dungeons & Dragons, had it existed, would probably have been a very different thing without the 19th-century, and in that sense, without Wagner.

I try to keep those themes alive in my games, when I think of them. That is, while I might pull an idea out of a source of ancient or medieval literature for a D&D game, I will probably try my hand at specifically interpreting the story as if I were reading it in the 19th century; so, for example, I'd get inspired by Geoffrey of Monmouth, but would try to put a specifically Tennyson-like spin on it; a character or plot line lifted from Wehrner der Gartenare's poem about Helmbrecht would definitely be given a Wagnerian spin.

[stevemitchell]

Hegel as an influence on D&D. . .you may well be right, but I had to take a D3 SAN loss anyway.

[Starbeard]

There's a popular essay by Volker Mertens called 'Wagner's Middle Ages', translated into English in the Wagner Handbook. It's pretty easy to get a copy. Mertens does a really good job explaining not only Wagner's relationship with the source material (which was sometimes tenuous at best), but also his situation within the whole milieu of mid-century German intellectual culture, where the lines that separated ideas behind medievalist romance, the capitalist/Marxist debates, political idealism and nationalism were often very blurry. If you're lucky enough to read German, the subject was updated into a full book by Danielle Buschinger. I've seen people cite another book of essays called Medievalism and Quest for the "Real" Middle Ages, that deals broadly with medievalism before, during and after the Victorian period, but I haven't read it yet.

There's also a great article by the musicologist J.P.E. Harper-Scott on how Wagner adapted the medieval style of 'interlace narrative' structure in his works, which can be mined for ideas on how to organise thematic elements in your game to evoke a medieval or Wagnerian style. Here the link: Medieval Romance and Musical Narrative in Wagner's Ring.

Finally, one of my favourite books on the subject: The Return of King Arthur and the Nibelungen: National myth in nineteenth-century English and German Literature, by Maike Oergel. Absolutely one of a kind.

[kesher]

Thus thread is yet another sterling example of why this board rules the IntraWebs...

[tkdco2]

Nov 29, 2014 12:47:44 GMT -6 kesher said:

Thus thread is yet another sterling example of why this board rules the IntraWebs...

Yes indeed!

Is anyone familiar with Baroque opera? I went to a performance of Partenope last month, starring the lovely Danielle de Niese. 

[Starbeard]

Nov 29, 2014 14:01:20 GMT -6 tkdco2 said:

Nov 29, 2014 12:47:44 GMT -6 kesher said:

Thus thread is yet another sterling example of why this board rules the IntraWebs...

Yes indeed!

Is anyone familiar with Baroque opera? I went to a performance of Partenope last month, starring the lovely Danielle de Niese. 

Absolutely. Just last term I taught a seminar group for a course on Monterverdi's operas and the transition into baroque operatic style. It's seems as though it's been ages since I've seen one, though. It's a shame that now I'm so close to London, I never seem to have time to go see early opera anymore.

[tkdco2]

I know the feeling. Now I have a lot of time, but not much money. I try to save up to see one or two live performances.

[krusader74]

A possible seed for a Call of Cthulhu scenario...

La Bohème II

Tagline: Even Death Can't Kill True Love!

The story begins about 6 months after La Bohème ended.

Log Line: After a night-on-the-town drinking, Marcello, Musetta, Colline and Schaunard return to their rental unit only to discover Mimi drinking Rodolfo's blood!

Act I.

Mimi flees, saying,

Nightly from my narrow chamber driven,
Come I to fulfil my destin'd part,
Him to seek to whom my troth was given,
And to draw the life-blood from his heart.
He hath served my will;
More I yet must kill,
For another prey I now depart.

Rodolfo is weak, having lost a lot of blood. After searching the rest of the apartment complex, the friends find their landlord Benoit dead with fang marks on his neck! Now they must search Paris and hunt Mimi down before she can kill again!

Setting: The Latin Quarter of Paris. June 23, 1848. To make things more complicated, the scenario is set at the very beginning of the June Days Uprising in which "over 10,000 people were either killed or injured, while 4,000 insurgents were deported to Algeria... Large amounts of blood were shed on the streets..."

Notes.

1. In Puccini's opera, Mimi dies of tuberculosis. There was a close link between TB and vampirism, see

• Tuberculosis and the Vampire Myth
• Bioarcheological and Biocultural Evidence for the New England Vampire Folk Belief

2. Mimi's speech (above) comes from the poem The Bride Of Corinth by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The tagline is a variation on the line: "e'en Earth can never cool down love." Since Rodolfo is a poet, Mimi's parting speech will give him a clue that she's become a vampire.

Goethe's poem was in turn inspired by the 2nd century tale Phasma Philinnion by Phlegon of Tralles. Maybe, as in that work, the friends must burn Mimi's body while making a sacrifice to Hermes Khthonios, so that he will guide her soul to the underworld.

[tkdco2]

Good one! Whoever thought Mimi would turn out that way?

[krusader74]

Purcell's King Arthur

Recently, I watched/listened to several performances of Purcell's King Arthur. It depicts a battle between the Britons and the Saxons. They've already faced off 10 times prior (with the Britons winning each time), so this will be their 11th battle. With a little work, it might be crafted in a Chainmail scenario. Here are the major players on each side:

BRITONS/Law/Christians

• Arthur, King
• Merlin, Magician
• Philadel, Air Elemental/Fallen Angel/Cupid
• Conon, Vassal
• Emmeline, Conon's daughter, and her attendant Matilda
• Albanact, Captain of the Guard

SAXONS/Chaos/Heathens

• Oswald, King
• Osmond, Magician
• Grimbald, Earth Elemental
• Saxon Priests
• 2 Valkyries

Tactics/tricks used by Saxons

• Before the battle: horse & human sacrifice to Woden, Thor, & Freya to curry favor
• Cast illusions to trick the Britons into drowning in river or falling off a cliff
• Kidnap Emmeline & Matilda
• Sirens, Nymphs and Sylvans used to tempt Arthur

Notes and References

There are several versions of this opera available on YouTube. Unfortunately, none of these does it any real justice. These productions are minimalistic, but a baroque opera is supposed to be a big, expensive production with

• Painted scenery, moveable sets, working fountains
• Elaborate masques and fancy costumes
• Special effects: Trap doors, actors flying around on wires, fireworks
• Animal actors: Horses, trained dancing monkeys

King Arthur was written by Henry Purcell (music) and John Dryden (words). It's in English. (But at least one of the performances I saw on YouTube was translated into a foreign language.) Imslp has a PDF with the libretto, score, and an introduction

Baroque opera differs from later Italian opera. The primary characters speak their parts. Secondary characters sing. There are also divine/mythical characters who also sing. Of these, there are two kinds: Greek/Roman gods, usually Venus, Cupid and Pan. And Germanic/Norse gods, usually Woden, Freya, Thor and the Valkyries. In addition, the "good guys" are Christian. So you have 3 different pantheons operative in the same story.

[tkdco2]

Aren't countertenors more common in Baroque opera?

I saw a production of Andrea Chenier a couple of weeks ago. Definitely some ideas to be mined for D&D, although it's set during the French Revolution instead of the Middle Ages. I'm going to watch The Makropulos Case this Friday, so maybe I can find something there to translate into rpg material.

[krusader74]

Oct 9, 2016 16:00:39 GMT -6 tkdco2 said:

Aren't countertenors more common in Baroque opera?

Yes. In King Arthur, Philidel is a countertenor. I also watched a production of Purcell's Fairy Queen recently, and there had to be a half dozen countertenors.


One more thing I forgot to mention about Philidel -- he was actually conjured up by the Saxon mage Osmond. But Philidel refused to fight the Britons when he saw the Christian crosses on their shields. And he switched sides and joined the Britons.

There are already some rules in Chainmail about Wizards losing control of the Elementals they conjure:

If the Wizard who conjured the Elemental is disturbed (attacked) while the Elemental is still in existence, he loses control of it, and it will then attack the conjurer. (CM, p. 32)

If an Elemental is uncontrolled by the Wizard who summoned it, it will attack the Wizard who conjured it, moving towards him in a straight path, attacking any figures in its path. (CM, p. 36)

But the idea of of an Elemental being converted by a holy symbol is an interesting one that could work in a campaign like this.

[DungeonDevil]

Does anyone have any good sources for a complete catalogue of the leitmotifs in The Ring?

[Starbeard]

Wagnerheim.com has Allen Dunning's list of 178 motifs in the Ring. I know Wagner researchers will quibble over many of the details over his list, and it doesn't provide any context for how the themes are shaped through the music, but from what I understand Wagner scholars still use it often enough as a springboard anyway.

[tkdco2]

Look for the recent MET production of the Ring Cycle, featuring Bryn Terfel as Wotan and Deborah Voigt as Brunnhilde. Here's a trailer:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKsroORVBBQ