Richard Wagner’s “Ring” taken literally, but this is more than just a legal expert’s opinion!
Wagner’s monumental work “Der Ring des Nibelungen” is put to the test by Peter Ernst Küfner on the basis of current German civil and criminal law. What he does is to dissect and analyze all the ins and outs of the libretto and the basic sequences of action precisely, strictly chronologically, and in a manner that is as profound as it is entertaining. The collection of legal cases prepared in this way confirms enduringly and in a fashion that borders on amazing just how relevant this tetralogy, with its four marital tragedies and ten fatalities, still is today. With beautiful illustrations of various “Ring” productions in Bayreuth between 1976 and 2017, the author has produced a book that is not only for aficionados, but is more—it is for anyone interested in Wagner’s great epic, for members of the legal profession, and for the kind of laypeople who have never had anything to do with this colossal four-part work before.