About the work
Die lustigen Nibelungen ("The Merry Nibelungs") is a "burlesque operetta" in three acts by Oscar Straus, to a text by Rideamus (Fritz Oliven). It was first performed in 1904. The work parodies, with cheeky wit, the Nibelungenlied and the national Wagner cult, while also taking aim at the Wilhelmine bourgeoisie and its formulas of heroic pathos.
Plot
Siegfried, Gunther, Kriemhild, Brünhild and Hagen appear as comically disenchanted figures: the heroic epic becomes a bourgeois social satire full of anachronisms. Instead of mythic grandeur, greed, vanity and gossip rule; the radiant hero Siegfried turns out to be a boastful braggart, and the tale of the Nibelung hoard becomes a farce about speculation and false honour. With a wink, the operetta presents the world of heroes as a mirror of its own present.
Cultural significance
Die lustigen Nibelungen is among the most ingenious operetta parodies of the early twentieth century and boldly mocks the national Wagner cult of the imperial era. Oscar Straus, later world-famous through "A Waltz Dream" and "The Chocolate Soldier", shows here his sharp satirical wit. At the Komische Oper Berlin the rarely performed piece was recently rediscovered and celebrated for its satire of authority and heroism, still apt today.