# Arthur Rackham - illustrator of Wagner's operas



## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

I belive most of people who listen/listened to Wagner stumbled across his drawings of Wotan and other characters/events from Ring Cycle. Did you like them, did they attract your attention so much that you simply started to browse them and used them in shaping your imaginary vision of Der Ring?

I find his (and illustrations of operas in general) as very valueable and they influenced my visions. These little drawings have more magic in them than most of stage productions.

Let me post some favourites:


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## Herkku (Apr 18, 2010)

Now, this is interesting. When I first acquired Janowski's Das Rheingold on LPs (the first digitally recorded), it came with a magnificent libretto with illustrations that reminded me of the pictures you posted. Only, they looked genuinely old, like l'art déco/Jugendstil. Is this this Arthur Rackham contemporary? With us, I mean. Nowadays I have Janowski's Ring on CDs and only the covers of the boxes have pictures on them, by someone called Franz Stassen. I'm not sure, if he's the same guy I mean. The illustrations in the librettos of the later operas were different, nothing to match and these look more like them.

I hated the scratches and hisses of LPs compared to CDs, but miss the artwork of the covers of even popular music, which is so diminished on a cover of a CD.

Another recording that comes to mind is Solti's Der Rosenkavalier with pictures of the costume design and scenery for the premiere. The olden days!


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

They really are beautifully evocative. I remember first seeing some of them in a musical part-work on famous composers back in the 80s. I wasn't into classical then but I'm sure subconsciously they lit a slow-burning fuse somwhere. Many Rackham copies from his various commissions are available on A****n. My favourite Ring Cycle one is of Alberich overseeing the treasure-laden Nibelungs with malevolent glee.


Herkku - Rackham lived 1867-1939. I think the Ring Cycle drawings date from a few years prior to WW1.


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

Some of the Rackham paintings are on the Dover complete scores of the Ring, which are a great bargain for any one who can read scores. Other editions cost a fortune.
Dover scores are always a great bargain. I have those Dover Ring editions.


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## World Violist (May 31, 2007)

Yes, I love these pictures. I have the Solti Ring in its first CD incarnation, and the liner notes are interspersed with these drawings. Truly magical.

I've also been getting the Dover scores, and they're wonderful also.


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## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

Aramis said:


> I belive most of people who listen/listened to Wagner stumbled across his drawings of Wotan and other characters/events from Ring Cycle. Did you like them, did they attract your attention so much that you simply started to browse them and used them in shaping your imaginary vision of Der Ring?
> 
> I find his (and illustrations of operas in general) as very valueable and they influenced my visions. These little drawings have more magic in them than most of stage productions.


Wow, Aramis, these are truly great! I wish real productions could look like these.
I have a small poster of one of his drawings in my office, showing Alberich and the Rhine maidens.


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## Elgarian (Jul 30, 2008)

This LP was my introduction to Wagner in the 1970s, and sure enough there was the ubiquitous Rackham illustration on the cover, which I'm sure influenced my choice when I bought the record.

CS Lewis has a memorable description of how he first encountered Rackham's illustrations to the Ring. He writes first about how he saw an advertisment in a magazine:

My eye fell upon a headline and a picture, carelessly, expecting nothing. A moment later, as the poet says, 'The sky had turned round.' What I had read was the words _Siegfried and the Twilight of the Gods_. What I had seen was one of Arthur Rackham's illustrations to that volume. I had never heard of Wagner, nor of Siegfried. I thought the Twlight of the Gods meant the twilight in which the gods lived. ... Pure 'Northernness' engulfed me: a vision of huge, clear spaces hanging above the Atlantic in the endless twilight of Northern summer, remoteness, severity ...

Then later, having become captivated by Wagner's music in the meantime, he eventually encounters the book itself:

There, on her drawing room table, I found the very book which had started the whole affair [with Wagner] and which I had never dared hope I should see, _Siegfried and the Twilight of the Gods_ illustrated by Arthur Rackham. His pictures, which seemed to me then to be the very music made visible, plunged me a few fathoms deeper into my delight. I have seldom coveted anything as I coveted that book; and when I heard that there was a cheaper edition at fifteen shillings (though the sum was to me almost mythological) I knew I could never rest till it was mine. I got it in the end, largely because my brother went shares with me...


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## DarkAngel (Aug 11, 2010)

Almaviva said:


> Wow, Aramis, these are truly great! I wish real productions could look like these.
> I have a small poster of one of his drawings in my office, showing Alberich and the Rhine maidens.




Alma before you spend all your opera shopping spree money.........

You can buy this 72 page book of Wagner illustrations for only a few dollars at Amazon sellers in book section


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## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

DarkAngel said:


> Alma before you spend all your opera shopping spree money.........
> 
> You can buy this 72 page book of Wagner illustrations for only a few dollars at Amazon sellers in book section


Done! Thanks for the tip!!! I ended up buying a new version for 10 bucks since I have Prime membership and don't pay for shipping when it's new (I still need to pay for shipping when it's a market vendor), so the difference between the price for the new and used ones was very small.

Still 85 dollars left. I'm saving them for some sort of unexpected wish, like this very one.


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

Here goes the link for free archieve with his illustrations for first two parts of Ring cycle:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=37OHINLA

I don't think there are still any legal issues with copyright, huh?


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## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

Aramis said:


> Here goes the link for free archieve with his illustrations for first two parts of Ring cycle:
> 
> http://www.megaupload.com/?d=37OHINLA
> 
> I don't think there are still any legal issues with copyright, huh?


Thanks, Aramis.


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## World Violist (May 31, 2007)

My copy just arrived today... it appears to be a different edition than the one whose cover is featured on the Amazon page (mine has Loge talking to the Rhinemaidens).

Still, my first read-through of this (it has synopses accompanying each picture by James Spero) was really interesting. I'll have to revisit this a bit more in depth next time.


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## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

World Violist said:


> My copy just arrived today... it appears to be a different edition than the one whose cover is featured on the Amazon page (mine has Loge talking to the Rhinemaidens).
> 
> Still, my first read-through of this (it has synopses accompanying each picture by James Spero) was really interesting. I'll have to revisit this a bit more in depth next time.


I got mine too. Looks wonderful.


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## mamascarlatti (Sep 23, 2009)

I grew up with Rackham illustrations for children's books and fairy tales. I have a limited edition of Aesop's fables signed by him, so the style is very familiar.

I think if I encountered his Ring drawings without having seen so much of his other work I'd love them, but now they look too much like everything else and not specific enough to Wagner's world.


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