The Ring App

A listening and reading companion for Richard Wagner's four-opera cycle.

iPhone, iPad Requires Apple Music
  1. I.Das RheingoldVorabend
  2. II.Die WalküreErster Tag
  3. III.SiegfriedZweiter Tag
  4. IV.GötterdämmerungDritter Tag
The libretto in German and English, in sync with the music, above the piano score. The outline of the cycle, listing each opera, act, and scene. The leitmotif browser, listing motifs by number of occurrences. A single leitmotif: its Motif Sketches from Burghold, then every occurrence in the opera. Settings, with the recording picker and libretto typography controls.

What it does

Libretto, in two languages

The full German libretto alongside an English translation by Margaret Armour, aligned to the score so the text moves with the music.

100+ leitmotifs

Wagner's recurring musical figures: the Ring, the Sword, the Spear, visualized within the libretto, and browsable on their own as a thematic atlas.

Synced to the recording

Follow along to understand the drama. Tap a line to immediately start listening from a new moment.

Search & history

Find a phrase in either language and step through every occurrence. A back button lets you get back to listening.

Synopses & scholarship

Plot summaries, character lists, and discussion of the music and its making. Provided by Wikipedia, no browser detour required. (Requires live internet connection.)

An art gallery

A century of paintings, set designs, and engravings of the cycle, Rackham, Burne-Jones, Fantin-Latour and the rest, collected for unhurried viewing.

Piano score

See a digital score of a piano reduction by Richard Kleinmichel of the entire opera, synced with the music.

The recordings

Solti · Vienna Philharmonic

Sir Georg Solti's landmark studio cycle, the recording John Culshaw built over seven years at the Sofiensaal concert hall.

On Wikipedia

Motif Sketches (version 1.5+)

Julius Burghold's 1897 guide to the Ring gave each leitmotif as a short musical example, gathered into eight parts: one each for Das Rheingold and Die Walküre, and three each for Siegfried and Götterdämmerung. We encoded his examples as MusicXML, and the app displays and plays them. You can see and hear all of them here.

Apple Music required

The app does not ship with audio. It plays the cycle from your Apple Music subscription, which keeps the experience legal, lossless, and in your pocket. An active subscription is required.

Inspired by The Ring Disc

The 1997 "The Ring Disc" gathered the Solti recording, the libretto, leitmotifs, and commentary into a cohesive software product delivered on CD-ROM. We are following in their footsteps.

The Ring Disc CD-ROM packaging Screenshot of The Ring Disc interface