Wagner Opera Siegfried

Classical Music / Opera

Wagner Opera Siegfried:  Plot, Synopsis and Character Descriptions of a German Opera

Siegfried is the third of the four operas that comprise Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung). It was first performed at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, Germany, on 16 August 1876, as part of the first complete performance of The Ring.  Hans Richter conducted.

Siegfried, the opera, incorporates an earlier symphonic poem music of Wagner, Siegfried Idyll, which he composed for his wife, Cosima.

This part of Siegfried opera is primarily inspired by the story of the legendary hero Sigurd in the Norse mythology.

Clarino and Clarina

Someone asked me the difference between a Clarino and a Clarina.

Broadly,  Clarino (also in variants, such as 'clarion' and 'clairon') can mean:

• a small piccolo trumpet
• a virtuoso style of trumpet playing that involves the higher harmonics, (those from c'' to c''' and above) on a baroque (valveless) trumpet (e.g., in the second Brandenburg Concerto)
• a reed-stop on the organ  

The term goes back to the 12th century for long, straight trumpets. Later, they apparently refer to shorter, narrower-bore instruments.

By the Baroque period, 'clarin' or 'clarino' or sometimes 'claret', came to stand for the uppermost trumpet part in an ensemble, a term occasionally used by Bach.

It was also used by the Viennese Classical composers.

Clarina is an instrument invented in the second half of the nineteenth century. It is a cross between a clarinet and an oboe.  (refer to resource of clarina below.)


Resources: 

Clarina.  Encyclopedia JRank.org. Accessed August 10, 2015.

Sadie, Stanley, Ed.  The Grove Concise Dicitonary of Music , New Updated Edition. London:  Macmillan Publishers, 1994.