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 5
• other proposals?

In the Wagner ring “Rheingold” is prologue to the rest, this is why I number the magic 5 Z0 for Stein der Weisen and Z1 thru Z4 the rest.