#The Rheingold

[girl4music]

Xena and Gabrielle’s love and devotion to each other. By the Gods you can’t beat it. You cannot fucking beat it. They are so God damn intense: so much ride or die.

Never have I ever seen a relationship this damn deep. Therefore, that’s why they’re the greatest love story.

[mysterious-secret-garden]

Franz Stassen - “Das Rheingold” (The Rheingold) by Richard Wagner, 1914.

[7of9ers]

Coming this fall!

[thefugitivesaint]

Knut Ekwall (1843-1812), 'Alberich and the Mermaids', ''Всемирная иллюстраци'', #404, 1876 Source

[nederlandsespoorwegen]

Look at the beauty I spotted today!!!

[chipartwork]

"May I see?"

Severus and Dawn in Light of Mine commissioned by @sanctuary-angel.

[dduane]

In the TIL (Thematically Peripatetically) dep't

In the classic British war movie Ice Cold in Alex, one character who blames himself for a drinking problem that may have cost someone else their life declares he's not going to take another drink until he and the people fleeing across the African desert with him can sit down and have "an ice cold lager in Alex[andria]." This promise he keeps.

The interesting part lies in how the promise plays out on film.

A background issue (from the production standpoint) of what makes this scene so interesting is that it's always hard to get any scene right in just one take. There were apparently a fair number of takes on this shot.

The producers apparently tried hard to substitute something non-alcoholic for the beer, but this proved impossible, as there was no way to fake the head. So they used real beer.

John Mills, professional that he was, drank them one after another in multiple takes. As a result, co-star Sylvia Syms describes him as having been "a little heady" when they were done with that scene.

Another less problematic problem (as such things go...) was that the novel by Christopher Landon on which the film was based has the actors drinking a US beer called Rheingold... which the producers ruled out. They they felt there was no way the characters would willingly be drinking a German (or German-sounding) beer after being pursued across North Africa by the Afrika Korps. So Carlsberg was substituted.

...And it's at this point that things start to veer. @petermorwood was telling me about this, some of which I knew... but not about the Rheingold.

"Really?" I said. "You're kidding me!"

"Why?" he said.

At which point I did what any New Yorker of a certain age might very likely do under such circumstances: I burst into song. (And frankly, because you don't need to hear me doing that, here are the Golden Girls doing it.)

Rheingold was the best-selling beer in the New York metropolitan area, and apparently in New York state as well, at least partly due to numerous aggressive advertising campaigns on radio and then on TV. That jingle was known, in many permutations—including one in 6/8 time that appears in this stop-motion-animated commercial—by lots and lots of people.

Including me. So I sang it (at least some of it: I couldn't remember the final couple of stanzas) and Peter and I looked at each other in mild bemusement. "You think your mind's full of useless garbage," I said, "try mine sometime!" And we laughed and went back to whatever we'd been doing.

Out of curiosity, I then went over to YouTube to see (as I sometimes do) whether I was anywhere near the original key of the best-known version of the jingle while singing. Turns out I was pretty close. But along the line, I stumbled across the blog of a retired librarian who clued me in on something startling:

That jingle's music was ripped off, in whole cloth, from a French composer... whose authorship is apparently routinely obscured by the name of the music's (possibly better-known?) arranger.

Here it is, and apparently misattributed as above, in full classical glory: the Estudiantina Waltz. (Warning: the main chorus is a bit of an earworm, and you may not be able to get rid of it easily. I know I won't be, for the day anyway...)

...So that's the local installment of Today I Learned. May yours (if you have one) be way more useful and interesting. :)

[postcard-from-the-past]

German vintage postcard about the Rheingold, first drama of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen

[enchantedbook]

Aubrey Beardsley - Third Tableau of Das Rheingold, ca, 1896

[coolthingsguyslike]

[girl4music]

ODINi: “I am Odin. King of the Norse gods. It is my duty to bring peace to the Norse country. Yet as I sit in Valhalla, and watch the bitter struggle called life on this Earth, I ask are we doomed to live in a constant state of endless conflict?!”

XENA: “Damn straight. That's what makes life so worth living. You know, every day I wake up and I feel pumped by the knowledge that there is always someone around the next corner. Someone for me to challenge, to fight, and to conquer."

ODIN: “Someday someone may conquer you."

———————————————————————

BRUNHILDA: “Weaklings don't like you. I have nothing but the utmost respect for you and your philosophy. From the very first story I ever heard I knew I wanted to be a warrior like you. Live for battle. Die with valor.”

XENA: “Well, I’ve gotten a lot smarter since then. I’ve learned to respect life, love, and peace.”

[mysterious-secret-garden]

Franz Stassen - “Das Rheingold” (The Rheingold) by Richard Wagner, 1914.

[exlibrisseverus]

‧⊹₊ ⋆ ͙⁺˚*･༓☾✧Dawn Rheingold✧☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙ ⊹₊ ⋆

It’s just a simple sketch but I’m very happy you like it

for dear @sanctuary-angel 🤍

♡₊˚ 🦢・₊✧₊˚⊹ִ ࣪𖤐

[illustratus]

Walhalla by Hermann Burghart

Design for the 1878 staging of "Das Rheingold" by Richard Wagner

[cmonbartender]

Das Rheingold (1910) - Arthur Rackham

[gluecookie]

Opera stream alert!!

What? Das Rheingold, the Copenhagen production

Time? 6th march 19.00 CET

English subs? Yes!

Naked man in aquarium? Yes! You will see his dongdong and everything!

Who is welcome? Everyone and anyone, as long as you're polite. :)

I saw this production when I was a teenager, it was.... a formative experience. Rewatching it was superfun. You will get mad scientists, Albrecht turns into a marshmallow, Wotan is a bit too much into torture, and these people really shouldve made sure they had the funds to build their house before contracting some guys to build it.

Also taking potshots at Wagner is welcomed and appreciated. I'm all for getting new reasons to hate the guy.

EDIT: forgot to add kosmilink