A review by eliashelfer
The Ring of the Nibelung, by P. Craig Russell
4.0
Adaptation is quite an art. You must take something painstakingly created to fit precisely in one particular medium, and rework it to fit precisely into another medium that tells its story in a radically different way. And you should do it so that the work is still recognisably the same, and still conveys the same profound understanding as any work made for your medium.
In this book, P. Craig Russell adapts Richard Wagner's epic opera cycle, The Ring of the Nibelung. It's a giant in Western culture, and an inspiration for so much. Reading this book, I was struck by how much of this work has clear paralleles in Tolkien's work - obviously in Lord of the Rings, but more especially in the Silmarillion.
Now, I admit that I have not seen Wagner's works, and so I don't know how the two compare. But throughout the comic, the musicality comes through vividly. In colourings, in visual embellishments, in lettering and speech bubbles, you feel how Russell reframes the special modes of the opera using the special modes of comics.
The result is splendid. A vivid, colourful book, well worth reading, not just out of interest in the opera, but as a comic in its own right. I get the sense that Russell allows himself to use certain techniques by using the opera as a pretext, and more often than not, it works splendidly.
Of course, the comic also carries over some of the ridiculousness of the opera. That most often comes out in the visual appearance of the characters. Voton and the Valkyries wear hats with ridiculous feather ornaments while Donner Froh look a bit like camp He-Man.
I found that easy to overlook, though, and thoroughly enjoyed the book. I went into it as a way to get the story of The Ring of the Nibelung without having to sit through 15 hours of opera. I came out of it actually considering whether I wouldn't be able to withstand at least a bit of opera.
In this book, P. Craig Russell adapts Richard Wagner's epic opera cycle, The Ring of the Nibelung. It's a giant in Western culture, and an inspiration for so much. Reading this book, I was struck by how much of this work has clear paralleles in Tolkien's work - obviously in Lord of the Rings, but more especially in the Silmarillion.
Now, I admit that I have not seen Wagner's works, and so I don't know how the two compare. But throughout the comic, the musicality comes through vividly. In colourings, in visual embellishments, in lettering and speech bubbles, you feel how Russell reframes the special modes of the opera using the special modes of comics.
The result is splendid. A vivid, colourful book, well worth reading, not just out of interest in the opera, but as a comic in its own right. I get the sense that Russell allows himself to use certain techniques by using the opera as a pretext, and more often than not, it works splendidly.
Of course, the comic also carries over some of the ridiculousness of the opera. That most often comes out in the visual appearance of the characters. Voton and the Valkyries wear hats with ridiculous feather ornaments while Donner Froh look a bit like camp He-Man.
I found that easy to overlook, though, and thoroughly enjoyed the book. I went into it as a way to get the story of The Ring of the Nibelung without having to sit through 15 hours of opera. I came out of it actually considering whether I wouldn't be able to withstand at least a bit of opera.