Myth and ritual in libretti of opera cycles by Richard Wagner and Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov

The article considers the ways the myth and the ritual are manifested in the libretti of two major opera cycles of the XIXth century: the tetralogy "Der Ring des Nibelungen" by Richard Wagner and "Slavic tetralogy" by Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov (May Night, The Snow Maiden, Mlada, Christmas Eve). Unlike the traditional view of prevalence of the mythological in Wagner's cycle and the ritual in Rimsky-Korsakov's operas, the article presents an integrated approach that allows to identify the regularities affecting the architectonical logic and extending the semantic field of cycles: among them are the relations with the national myth-ritual universe and the complex of important mythologems.