The Nibelungs Come to Africa and Wagner Steals the Gold
To attract younger crowds and to create buzz for themselves, stage directors are outdoing each other by outrageously updating operas. Wagner’s operas are notable victims of these directors’ high jacking. Forget all the Eurotrash staging. These days the perfect setting for Wagner’s seventeen hour-long, four-part opera Der Ring das Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung) is Africa, and Mali is the new Valhalla. This suggestion may seem preposterous and I owe you some clarifications, particularly if you are not Africa cognoscenti, let alone Wagner opera lovers! At the beginning of the Ring, led by their diminutive boss Alberich who dreams of conquering the world and renounces his love for loot, the Nibelung thugs steal the gold of the Rhine maidens. The origin of the Nibelungs can be found in Middle Age Norse and Germanic heroic legends. In today’s Mali, they are embodied by the Wagner group, a Russian mercenary organization whi...