The Steampunk Ring

A tale in images of Der Ring des Nibelungen for which inspiration was sought in Steampunk - that combination of nature and digitless science in a world that can be simultaneously antique and futuristic. The images were generated with AI software.

What images to add to Wagner's opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen? What images to add to music that is already so illustrative of itself, music that already contains everything? Listening to Wagner is like looking with your ears. Not infrequently, as a listener, you discover that the ideal staging of his operas takes place in the theatre of one's own mind. An amorphous collection of images that, in all their diversity, merge into a more or less coherent whole according to the logic of a dream. For the following graphic portrayal of Der Ring des Nibelungen, I dreamed with my eyes open and sought inspiration in the world of Steampunk - that combination of nature and digitless science in a world that can be simultaneously antique and futuristic. For this, ironically, digital techniques were used. The images were generated with AI software.

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The world of the story of Der Ring is a world in which humans, the moment the waters of the Rhine begin to flow (to the tones of a swelling Es chord), have already left their mark. A world in which industrialisation and moral ambiguity go hand in hand (a bit like in the Bayreuther Chéreau Ring). A world in which a desolate landscape is host to gods, giants, dwarves and humans who all seem, in one way or another, to be lost in it. A landscape in which creatures are strangers to the world they inhabit, strangers to each other, and above all, strangers to themselves. 

DAS RHEINGOLD (the preliminary evening of the Steampunk Ring)

First scene
Child of a loveless mother and ugly as hell. Yet, Alberich the Nibelung hopes for romance when, walking along the banks of the Rhine, he hears the singing of three Rhinemaidens.   

Woglinde and Alberich. In a seemingly happy moment, when Alberich does not yet see his illusions of love shattered.

The teasing lasted a bit long. It became clear to the Nibelung that the three water nymphs made fun of him and never considered him a serious partner for their love. Fortunately, they were kind enough to point out to Alberich the Rhinegold and the secret it held: the gold can be made into a magic ring which gives power to rule the world, if its bearer first renounces love. 

​The dwarf does not think twice. He, who has never known love, now knows that he will never need love. Alberich steals the gold, and flees.

Wotan

Second scene
We leave the lowlands and find ourselves in a mountainous landscape where chief god Wotan casts a satisfied glance at the Valhalla that Fasolt and Fafner have built for him. It appeases, for now, Wotan's appetite for megalomania.

Freia and Fasolt

As payment for their services, the giants have already taken Freia. For Fasolt, a giant with a sensitive heart, Freia is more than a deposit. For him, she is the promise of something beautiful in his life.
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But no Freia, no apples, no eternal youth for the gods. Wotan dismisses any concerns his fellow gods may have about this. Loge surely will come up with a solution for this.   

Loge

​Chain-smoking cunning Loge is certainly not without humour. You are never sure what to make of him but if you are susceptible to it you will certainly laugh at his dry remarks. He talks about Alberich, his golden ring and how the dwarf subjugated his fellow Nibelungen to mine treasures for him. Loge suggests the giants to pay them with the Nibelungen hoard. The giants agree, for now. 

To the sound of a droning, dark orchestral interlude, two ominous-looking fellows descend into Nibelheim. One of them, Wotan, can think of only one thing, the ring and the power it holds. Loge and he are not here for business as usual. Their business is theft. 

Third scene
In Nibelheim the Nibelungen are enslaved by Alberich with the power of the ring. Alberich's brother, Mime forged a magic helmet, the Tarnhelm. With this device one can become invisible and take any shape one want.

Alberich as toad.

Fourth scene
Alberich should have known better when Loge dared him to use the Tarnhelm to take the form of a toad. But the dwarf refused to turn down the challenge and now faces the consequences. Loge and Wotan capture the toad and rob him of the ring, the hoard and even the Tarnhelm. Alberich, who once cursed love, now curses the ring - thus condemning all its possessors.

Donner

Once back in the godlike realm, Wotan cannot enjoy the ring for long. The giants won't settle for just the Nibelungen hoard. They want that ring too. Once in possession of it, Fafner, in lust for the ring, beats his brother Fasolt to death. Cain and Abel in the world of the gods. Wotan sees it happen with a certain sense of discomfort. On his way to Valhalla, across a rainbow bridge Donner smashed out of the rocks, the nuisance in him grows. He has been given a preview of the curse the ring carries.

Erda

Not that Wotan was not warned about all this. Erda, the Goddess of the Earth, had addressed the chief god in lyrical yet insistent terms, warning him of the misfortune the ring would bring him. So Wotan gave the ring to the giants, but even more than by her words of warning, he was impressed by Erda's seductive innocent appearance. And as soon as this opera, Das Rheingold, is finished he will impregnate her with eight children: the Valkyries. Those children, Brünnhilde in particular, we will encounter in the following opera.

They had one job. And they miserably failed at it. Now, at the end of Das Rheingold, the daughters ​of the Rhine lament in horror over the loss of the gold they were supposed to be guarding. We leave them alone for now but they will return in the last opera of this tetralogy: Götterdämmerung. But more on that later. Next: Die Walküre.

DIE WALKÜRE >

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Software: StableDiffusion XL, Photoshop

- Wouter de Moor