Opera as Comics: Richard Wagner’s The Ring of the Nibelung in Craig P. Russell’s Graphic Adaptation

Abstract

The article explores the capacity of the comics medium to represent a complex opera cycle in a graphic narrative. It analyses specific features of transmedial transmission between opera and comics through the example of the most recent graphic adaptation of Richard Wagner’s dramatic tetralogy The Ring of the Nibelung by P. Craig Russell, published by Dark Horse Comics (2000–2001). The adaptation, which fuses the disparate worlds of opera, comics, and fantasy culture, is stripped of Wagner’s controversial ideology. Russell interprets the Ring Cycle as an essential source of inspiration for American comics, thereby making this complex magnum opus attractive and accessible to wider audiences. His chief aim, however, is to reproduce an operatic effect by way of graphic mythic grandiosity. The study explores the visual aspects of the adaptation, addressing the potential of the comics medium to capture Wagner’s original vision. With a focus on illustration style and character depiction, this article discusses Russell’s imagery, which combines the classic illustrations of Arthur Rackham and Carl Emil Doepler, images from American popular culture, and Alan Lee’s illustrations of Tolkien’s series The Lord of the Rings. This article further analyses the methods of transmission of sounds into the silent medium, including both linguistic and visual means of expressing the intensity and quality of sound. Special attention is paid to the meaning and visual form of the Wagnerian leitmotiv as well as the use of colouring in relation to timing.