According to the title “Ring des Nibelungen” by Wagner, who made a giant work of FOUR operas with a total playing time of 19 hours the biggest opera in history, people are just speaking of the “ring” in reference to the mighty finger-ring.
The word “ring” is so much attached to this cycle that we propose titles for these 5 operas around the Magic Flute of Mozart:
- Schikaneder-Ring (except for Sarastro all libretti are written by him!)
- Magic-Flute-Ring (yes, definitely all 5 are complementing THE one Magic Flute!)
- Magic-Ring (Magics, Mystics is content of all these operas.)
- Magic 6
- MAGIC CYCLE
- Magic 6 Cycle
- other proposals?
In the Wagner ring “Rheingold” is prologue to the rest, this is why I number the magic 6
Z0 for Stein der Weisen and Z1 thru Z5 the rest.