an introduction and notes to wagner

An Introduction and Notes to

Richard Wagner's

THE RING OF THE NIBELUNG

By Larry Brown

Lipscomb University, Nashville, Tennessee, USA

Please email comments: [email protected]

Composition

Richard Wagner took 25 years to complete his master artwork of the future (1848-1874) with a 12-year hiatus in the middle. The first complete festival presentation at Bayreuth occurred in 1876.

After completing a full prose sketch of the main narrative in 1848, Wagner first wrote the poetry for the tragedy of Siegfried's Death (Götterdämmerung in its final form) with extensive exposition explaining the mythical past. He soon came to realize that he needed to present the events leading up to Siegfried's death in more detail and in dramatic form, that is, on stage rather than narrated. So next he added a "prequel" Young Siegfried, then eventually composed Rhinegold and Valkyrie to complete the four-part cycle.

Mythological Sources

Wagner created his Ring by adapting the myths from several sources (13th century AD): the Icelandic works Poetic Edda, Prose Edda (by Snorri Sturluson), and Volsunga saga, and in German the Niebelungenlied, are among the major sources. Throughout the notes, we will review how Wagner transformed the original myths to meet his dramatic requirements.

Wagner's major contributions to the mythology of the Ring

I. Rhinegold

A. Wagner invented most of Rhinegold in its present form by combining three unrelated Edda stories:

1. Freia offered in payment to the giants for building the walls around Valhalla.

2. The apples of youth lost (from another goddess named Idunn).

3. Odin and Loki stealing gold from a dwarf named Andvari to pay for the wrongful death of Fafner's brother, after which Fafner murders his father to obtain the gold.

B. Additional new material in the prologue: the Rhinedaughters, the Rhinegold as the source for the ring, the act of forswearing love to obtain the ring's power, Wotan being bound by the contract of runes on his spear.

II. Valkyrie

A. Wagner makes Siegmund and Sieglinde Wotan's children and his intended means to regain the ring.

B. He invented Brünnhilde's rebellion against Wotan by rescuing Sieglinde, and the idea of Brünnhilde acting as Wotan's alter ego.

III. Siegfried

A. Wagner envisioned Siegfried as a "free human being" who can change the world order.

B. He will accomplish this feat with the sword which he reforges himself, breaking Wotan's spear.

C. In this way Wagner links Siegfried's story to Wotan's ultimate plan to regain the ring. This connection is Wagner's major contribution to the entire plot of the Ring.

IV. Twilight of the Gods (Götterdämmerung)

A. Wagner identified Gunther's half-brother Hagen as Alberich's son, linking Siegfried's murderer (with the ring as his ulterior motive) to Wotan's old adversary.

B. Although never suggested in his sources, Wagner also makes the connection between Siegfried and Brünnhilde's deaths and the doom of the gods.

C. The finale with the return of the ring to the Rhine and the restoration of nature.

Overview of the major themes of the four music-dramas:

Rhinegold: Love vs Greed / Power

Valkyrie: Love vs Law

Siegfried: Love = Freedom

Twilight of the Gods: Love = Resignation/Self-Sacrifice/Redemption

Part 2: Rhinegold

By Larry Brown



Credits

Numbers are to pages in the Andrew Porter translation (Norton publishers 1977), unless otherwise noted as SS, which indicates a quote from the translation by Spencer (see bibliography at the end of the notes for full credits).

Midi musical examples were created by Fabrizio Calzaretti.






RHINEGOLD (Das Rheingold)

Scene One

The majestic waters of the Rhine are represented musically with a low E-flat arpeggio, symbol of pristine Nature, undefiled by man, a "garden of Eden" into which the serpent Alberich enters (Wagner's analogy). Soon the Rhine begins rushing along as the motif develops.

Wagner invented the role of the Rhinedaughters as guardians of their father's gold. They are more popularly known as Rhinemaidens but as Fricka notes in scene two (32), they are not maidenly in virtue, having led many a lustful man astray. (In the sources, the Rhinedaughters appear only during Siegfried's fatal hunting expedition.)

Gold stands as a symbol of light, beauty, purity. The Rhinedaughters sing, "Rhinegold, Rhinegold!" rejoicing in the gold as something beautiful and valuable in itself, not as a medium of exchange, certainly not as a means to gaining wealth or power.

Wagner created his own story for the origin of the ring. In the Norse Eddas, Odin (Wotan) and Loki (Loge) kill an otter, who is actually Fafner's shape-changing brother Otr. His magician father demands payment for the wrongful death. Loki coerces a golden hoard and a magic ring from the dwarf Andvari (Alberich) who curses the ring. Fafner and brother Regin (a dwarf) argue with their father over the gold and kill him, Fafner taking all, and transforming into a dragon.

As Wagner describes it, the scene is difficult to imagine on stage: a layer of mist occurs below the waters of the river where the Rhinedaughters are swimming. From this lower region Alberich appears, seeking pleasure from one of these lovely creatures. (The word nebel is old Norse for mist, so Nibelheim may mean "land of mist.")

Woglinde sings of renouncing love as the price for possessing the ring's power (15). This plot device was Wagner's invention. Alberich soon repeats the renunciation motif when he curses love (16).

According to Wagner, the absence of sexual love is the root of all antisocial behavior; without it people turn to materialism or politics/power. Alberich quickly transfers his unsatisfied lust for the Rhinedaughters into lust for power.

Alberich's evil desire transforms the Rhinedaughters' bright Ring motif into the sinister Ring motif, heard from now on.

Alberich: "Though love can't be gained by force, through cunning might I enforce its delights?" (SS). Note that he renounces love, not sexual gratification; later he has a son Hagen by bribing the mother (111).

Bernard Shaw: "Alberich knows that life will give him nothing that he cannot wrest from it by plutonic power."

Scene Two

The transition music between scenes rises higher and higher as we ascend to Valhalla. In the sources, Valhalla was the place reserved in the afterlife for noble warriors, who became Odin's elite army. Built to survive Ragnarok, roofed with shields, and spears as rafters, Odin hoped to defeat his enemies at the final battle and avoid his predicted doom. For Wagner, Valhalla became home to the gods themselves (rather than Asgard), symbol of authority and power, built by the giants.

Wotan is a character full of contradictions:

a. He is a seeker of truth (he lost an eye to obtain it), heeding the warnings of Erda (sc 4) and Fricka (in Valkyrie) against his own wishes, but he is also willing to be led by Loge's trickery and cunning.

b. He rules by law, the runes of his contracts engraved on his spear, but he attempts to circumvent it. When he tries to get out of the contract, the spear theme plays but with an incorrect series of notes, symbolizing the distortion of law.

c. He attempts to exert his own free will against fate, while manipulating others to work "freely" for his goals (seen in Valkyrie and Siegfried).

Strangely, Wotan doesn't have his own musical motif, only those concepts associated with him: spear, Valhalla, frustration, wandering, indicative of his complex nature.

Wagner invented the spear's origin as the branch broken from the World Ash Tree (called Yggdrasil in the sources), as a symbol of law and authority, with its engraved runes (in Siegfried I.2).

Wotan has already demonstrated his own willingness to trade love for power, as he offered Freia (whom Wagner depicts as goddess of love and youth) for Valhalla. Fricka makes this renunciation of love clear (21) singing the motif.

In Siegfried Wotan admits that Alberich is only the dark side of his own covetous personality, calling himself "light Alberich" (172).

Wotan's tearing the limb from the World Ash Tree (172) is comparable to Alberich's rape of the gold, both violent acts against nature (Note that Wotan can't always be trusted: he says he lost his eye to win Fricka (21), but later the Norns tell that he lost it when he tore the limb from the tree).

Wagner: "Alberich and his ring would have been powerless to harm the gods had they not themselves been susceptible to evil." (Aberbach 309)

Unlike Alberich, however, Wotan has bound himself by contracts engraved on his spear (Wagner's idea) (24). These laws and Wotan's futile attempts to circumvent them play a crucial role in the next drama.

The only real difference in Alberich and Wotan is the latter's long search for a higher self-consciousness; Alberich never learns anything about himself.

When Wotan tries to get out of his agreement with the giants, Fafner accuses him of deceit, singing a slow version of Loge's cunning motif.

Wagner's character of Loge is actually an amalgamation of two Norse gods: Logi (god of fire) and Loki, trickster and enemy of the gods most of the time. From these two gods, Wagner drew the two major characteristics of Loge, represented by two distinct musical motifs: fire and cunning. In the original myths, Loki mated with a giantess to produce three monstrous offspring: Fenrir the giant wolf whose open jaws reach from earth to heaven, Jormungandr the World Serpent, and Hel, queen of the dead (all except the warriors chosen for Valhalla). These monsters will battle the gods at Ragnarok (the Norse name for the doom of the gods).

Loge is the image of rationalism which Wagner and the Romantics mistrust. Loge provides not wisdom but guile and deceit (22).

Deryck Cooke corrected the long-held misconception of the "flight" motif; actually Freia's motif is a hurried version of the Love motif (heard especially in the love of Siegmund and Sieglinde).

The giants represent the ignorant but hard-working labor class, exploited by the powerful (according to Shaw).

Loge searches the world, but finds no answer to the question, "What means more than woman's love?" (29). Finally he hears of Alberich's story and his gold, tempting both gods and giants.

A thief must steal from a thief (32).

Without Freia's apples, the gods lose their eternal youth and immortality, foreshadowing Götterdämmerung.

Scene Three

Just as the transition music into scene 2 rose up to Valhalla, it now descends to Nibelheim.

The Rhinegold motif becomes the sinister Power of the Ring / Servitude motif as Alberich enslaves his workers with its magic. Likewise, the "Heiajaheia" motif sung by the Rhinedaughters becomes the sound of Nibelungs' hammering. (note: to fully appreciate the ominous sound of hundreds of hammers on anvils, you must listen to an actual recording.)

Mime the craftsman fashions the ring and the Tarnhelm from the raw gold but doesn't know the magic to use them; in Siegfried he likewise fails to reforge the sword. His motif mimics his constant whining and complaining.

Wagner invented the tarnhelm as a transformation device, although transformations do occur in the sources in other ways. In the Eddas Fafner and Otr are natural shape-changers, and Siegfried's disguise as Gunther is never explained except as magic. In the Poetic Edda, Siegfried takes a helmet of terror (all would fear the wearer) from Fafner's hoard; in Niebelungenlied he has a cloak of invisibility.

Loge claims kinship to Alberich, who says he betrayed them (46); this history with the Nibelungs is never explained.

Alberich plots to master the world, but not through magical power alone. He describes the whole world renouncing love for greed: "Enchanted by gold, your greed shall enslave you" (47).

He threatens to take women by force (foreshadowing Hagen's birth, 111).

Alberich's transformation into a dragon also foreshadows Fafner's later change.

Scene Four

The gods drag the unlucky dwarf back to Valhalla. Reluctantly, Alberich gives up the ransom, unshaken as long as he thinks he'll keep the ring.

Alberich deprived himself of love but knows Wotan, upholder of law, will forfeit much more if he yields to the ring's temptation (57); the whole world will be shaken.

Wotan takes the ring by violence, provoking Alberich's curse (58): "Care shall consume the man who commands it, and mortal envy consume those who don't ... whoever owns the ring is its slave."

Once the giants return, love is again bartered for gold, visualized by hiding Freia behind the hoard (somewhat like weighing her on scales).

When Wotan refuses to surrender the ring, Erda appears. Wagner adapted this character from the prophetess Wala in the Norse sources. Her name means "earth" in German, and she is based more on Gaia in Greek myth than Norse (one of many Greek influences in the Ring). Like her daughters the Valkyries who appear before the death of warriors, Erda announces the gods' impending doom.

Erda's prophecy (65) is unconditional; she doesn't say, "unless you give up the ring, you will die." The doom she predicts is inevitable. Wotan's giving up the ring is not an alternative to the End but his first step in accepting it. Erda's mysterious rising motif (based on the Nature motif) is followed by its inversion, the falling motif of the Twilight of the Gods.

Wagner: "Fear of the end is the source of all lovelessness, and it grows only where love itself is already fading" (Dahlhaus 99).

Alberich's curse motif is first heard again at Fasolt's death (68).

Valhalla motif is based on the ring motif, both symbols of absolute power, repressive of individual freedom (Freia also means free).

When the text says that Wotan is struck with a grand idea (70), the sword theme plays in the orchestra, foreshadowing his future attempts to regain the ring through Siegmund and Siegfried.

Donner invokes his power over the storm clouds to create the Rainbow bridge, symbol of hope (and variation on the Nature motif). In stark contrast to this bright scene, Loge foreshadows the doom of the gods by fire, saying "who knows what I'll do?" (71).

The final cries of "Rhinegold, Rhinegold" by the Rhinedaughters, once joyful, are now sorrowful and longing.

Summary: As a symbol, the Ring has many referents, different for each person who desires it: for Alberich the ring equals power through wealth; for Wotan the ring means securing power already held; for Fricka, power over an unfaithful husband; Fasolt sees it as an unsatisfactory substitute for Freia; Fafner sees only the value of the hoard. Later in the cycle, for Siegfried the ring will only mean the booty won from the dragon, and for Brünnhilde the ring will first be the symbol of Siegfried's love, and later his betrayal (when she sees it on his hand rather than on Gunther's).

Part 3: The Valkyrie

By Larry Brown



Mythological background:

In the Icelandic Volsunga Saga, Siegmund (who is not Odin's son in the original) obtains his sword from the tree, mates with his sister "Signy" but unknowingly (she's in disguise), and kills her cruel husband, but in the end she dies with her husband in a fire. By another wife, Siegmund has "Sigurd." Siegmund is killed in battle when Odin smashes his sword (but not as punishment for incest). Sigurd is brought up at the court of Denmark, with Regin (Fafner's brother) as ward (leading to the story of the dragon slayer).

See more details of the original myths in the notes to Siegfried.






VALKYRIE (Die Walküre)

Act One

Opening storm mixed with Donner's thunder: note how the spear motif's descent on the cellos and basses is checked and moves back upward; the hand of Wotan is present, but the upward turn indicates that his will may be challenged. (see a similar transformation of the spear motif into Wotan's frustration, below)

Siegmund 's first motif is related to the spear, as he was born to be an extension of Wotan's will; later the god will have to deny his own will by sacrificing his hero.

Love theme between Siegmund and Sieglinde is a slower, compassionate version of Freia's motif.

After the renunciation of love by several characters in Rhinegold, Wagner gives us a breathtaking portrait of compassionate love in this opera, holding out the promise that human beings may turn out to be better than the gods.

Hunding recognizes the same "serpent's glance" in both their eyes, foreshadowing their son Siegfried the dragon-slayer (a detail Wagner adopted from the Eddas).

Siegmund's would-be names mean "peaceful," "joyful," but he claims to be Wehwalt "woeful" (81) or Wolfing, as he and his father were forced to live like animals (in Volsunga saga Siegmund is cursed to live as a werewolf for a time). Later we learn Wotan's human name is Walse (86) as father of the Walsungs (or Volsungs).

Siegmund challenges conventional morality: "What I thought right, others thought wrong" (83), a lesson learned from his father? According to Wagner, the true hero of the future will follow his instinct, inner need, not the moral laws imposed by organized religion or society.

Siegmund tried to save a girl from an unwanted marriage to Hunding's kin, just as he will rescue Sieglinde from an unhappy union.

Hunding protects a guest in his house, even though an enemy. This host-guest relationship is more a Greek value than Teutonic (one of many influences on Wagner of Greek culture).

Siegmund's cries to his father, "Walse! Walse! where is your sword?" foreshadow the octave jumps which identify the Nothung motif. Nothung means "sword of need" (Wagner invented the name) left in the tree on Sieglinde's wedding day (88). The Valhalla theme identifies the stranger who left the sword as Wotan.

At first it seems puzzling that Siegmund sings "Holiest love in highest need" (94) to the so-called Renunciation of Love theme. Why does he sing this theme at the moment he is longing for true love? Note that Alberich first put a curse on love (15-16) which is distinct from the curse on the ring he pronounces later in scene four. Siegmund falls under this curse on love, as this new relationship with Sieglinde is doomed because of its incestuous nature, which Wotan by law must punish. Compare this use of the "renunciation of love" motif with a similar case in Götterdämmerung. In Act One, scene 3, Brünnhilde vows, "I shall never relinquish love" (276), set to the "renunciation" theme, but her refusal to give up the ring causes her to fall under its possessive spell at this moment. For these reasons, this motive might better be called the Love Curse. Wagner uses it in this scene in Valkyrie to connect Siegmund's action to Wotan's grand scheme, Siegmund becoming his unwilling means to regaining the ring (Cooke).

The theme of incest is not uncommon to mythology; many gods marry their sisters (Osiris / Isis, Zeus / Hera). Symbolically, it signifies an ultimate closeness between divine pairs, but this relationship is almost always forbidden to humans. However, Wagner didn't think incest was unnatural, otherwise Nature would not bless such unions with children. In his mind the societal taboo against incest was the unnatural restriction.

In Opera and Drama, Wagner compares Siegfried to Antigone, both children of incest who defy the law for a higher morality (as they define it). The old world order is life-frustrating and restrictive, whereas the new order will be life-

affirming and spontaneous. Representatives of the old order, Creon and Wotan, can only rule by law and power, whereas Antigone and Siegfried are free to follow the leading of inner necessity. Wagner knew that society would condemn the free individual as immoral and a lawbreaker without recognizing that he lives according to a higher, more human standard of morality (for commentary, see Rather and McCreless in bibliography).

Act Two

In contrast to the two lovers in Act One, Wotan and Fricka's marriage seems loveless. We may agree with her reasoning (that the incestuous lovers are breaking taboo) but we also share Wotan's frustration that she's right. Along with Hunding's example, we are led to view marriage (and the goddess of marriage) in an unfavorable light. We prefer the incestuous love of Siegmund and Sieglinde. Wagner plays our moral judgement against our feelings.

The word Valkyrie (Walküre in German) means "one who chooses from the battlefield." We hear for the first time the familiar Valkyrie theme. Brünnhilde will fight today, but vanquished Hunding will not be worthy to come to Valhalla (97).

Described as a coming storm, Fricka is linked with Erda's motif on her entrance, as another representative of feminine wisdom who counters Wotan's self-deception. She is not simply a shrewish, jealous wife but Wotan's divine counterpart, reminding him of his duties (upholding laws against adultery and incest) which in his right mind he acknowledges.

Ironic that Wotan plays love's defender here, which he was willing to trade in Rhinegold.

Wotan's defense: marriage is unholy if no longer based on love (ironic commentary on Wotan and Fricka's relationship?)

When she counters that this is not just adultery but incest, he claims Siegmund and Sieglinde have set a new precedent, while Fricka is bound by tradition (99).

He tells her that love supersedes all law, but knows that breaking his own laws would make a mockery of all universal statutes. These laws bind him so that he has no true liberty of action. Wotan bemoans the fact that he is the "least free of all living" (105).

Wotan finally reveals his ultimate plan: Siegmund will be his free agent to regain the ring (101), but Fricka suggests if he is to be truly free, Wotan cannot help him now.

Frustration theme is heard frequently after she points out the contradiction of his actions (102), a twisted version of the spear, thus a symbol of his will now thwarted.

Brünnhilde acts as Wotan's will (106), his alter ego; Wagner's original device soon depicts dramatically the god's unconscious will working against his conscious will (note Wagner's insight into modern psychology before Freud made these terms popular).

Wotan's lust for power came when love faded (106). Remember Wagner's comment (Rhinegold) that the absence of sexual love is the root of all antisocial behavior; without it people turn to materialism or politics/power.

Wotan is motivated also by fear: the armies of Valhalla have been collected to fight his enemies at Ragnarok (107).

Wotan: "How can I create a free agent? ... for the free man has to create himself." (SS). His words actually describe the future Siegfried: "foe to the gods, free of soul ... who acts alone by his own design" (109). Of course, Siegfried's freedom will leave him free to defy the god as well.

Frustrated and in despair, Wotan now has only one desire -- for the End to come, as Erda prophesied (111).

Fate motif sounds when Brünnhilde announces to Siegmund that she's come for him (119); only those doomed to die can see the Valkyrie. However, he refuses the glory of Valhalla for the love of Sieglinde. When he threatens to kill her and himself, Brünnhilde has compassion on them both and revolts against the law of god, later claiming she acted according to Wotan's true (if unconscious) desires.

After Siegmund dies, Wotan "dismisses" Hunding with a wave of his hand, having only contempt for him as Fricka's "slave."

Act Three

Brünnhilde's sisters are seen riding through the air. They observe her hurrying toward them with an unusual burden, not a warrior.

Sieglinde wants to die with her husband, but revives when she learns she carries his son. This news gives her the will to live. When Brünnhilde announces the name of Siegfried (137), Sieglinde sings the Redemption motif (which Wagner called "glorification of Brünnhilde"), heard only once more at the end of Götterdämmerung. Sieglinde's statement to Brünnhilde, "Be blessed by Sieglinde's woe" (138) foreshadows the next play when Siegfried will awaken the sleeping Valkyrie.

Notice Brünnhilde's reversal of roles (141): as Wotan's will she defies his will, as his shield-bearer she held her shield against him, etc. When she defends her defiance as acting as he truly wanted (146), we hear the spear motif (symbol of Wotan's will) transformed into "love's triumph" (also called "compassionate love"), its falling notes interrupted twice by rising octave jumps, also transposed from the minor key to major. In this crucial scene, a key turning point in the entire Ring cycle, Wagner demonstrates both musically and dramatically that the will that shows compassionate love toward others now triumphs over the will which seeks only power.

Thomas Mann said that Wagner's work surpassed previous opera in its combining psychology and mythology. Prior to Freud and Jung, Wagner saw myth not merely as proto-science (early humanity's attempts to explain the mysteries of creation) but as proto-psychology (our attempt to understand the mysteries within ourselves).

When Brünnhilde announces to Wotan, "Sieglinde bears the holiest fruit" (148) we hear a combination of motifs: the Volsung theme, Siegfried, sword, fate, and Fafner, musical foreshadowing of the next drama.

The renunciation (love-curse) motif is heard as Wotan turns away from his beloved daughter (151).

Loge as the divine source for fire, both useful (protects Brünnhilde from unworthy suitors) and destructive (seen in the later burning of Valhalla).

Siegfried theme plays when Wotan says he who fears my spear shall never pass through the flames (152), foreshadowing the only man brave enough to challenge Wotan in the next drama.

Part 4: Siegfried

By Larry Brown



Mythological background:

In the Volsunga Saga, Siegmund (who is not Odin's son in the original) obtains his sword from the tree, mates with Signy his sister unknowingly (she's in disguise), and kills her cruel husband but she dies with her husband in a fire. By another wife, Siegmund has Sigurd (Siegfried). Siegmund is killed in battle when Odin smashes his sword (but not as punishment for incest). Sigurd is brought up at the court of Denmark, with Regin (Fafner's brother) as ward (story of the dragon slayer).

At this point Norse and Germanic versions diverge: Wagner follows Volsunga Saga more closely, concerning Sigurd's discovery of Brünnhilde in the ring of fire, his falling in love with Kriemhild (Gutrune) by the magic potion, and his death except Sigurd is killed in bed by Hogni (Hagen), not during the forest hunt.

In the Nibelungenlied, Siegfried (called Sivrit) is a prince, son of Siegmund and Sieglinde, king and queen of Netherland, who grows up in a palace, marries Gutrune before meeting Brünnhilde (Prunhilt), an Icelandic queen whom he wins in an athletic contest for Gunther (Wagner rejected the medieval chivalry of this account and only borrowed details of Siegfried's death during the hunt from this version.)






SIEGFRIED

Act One

Siegfried represents a new order of human being, independent of the past, as he knows nothing of Wotan's plans or the history of the ring. He is "purely human" as Wagner described him: naïve, boisterous, violent, arrogant, innocent; a man of impulsive action rather than thought. Bears and dragons are nothing but playmates to him, as he doesn't yet know the meaning of fear. This joyful attitude toward life is captured in the sound of Siegfried's horn. By the end of this drama, he has defeated the representatives of the three races (mentioned by the Wanderer 171-2): Fafner the giant, Mime the dwarf, and Wotan the god -- without realizing the significance of his deeds.

Wagner borrowed from a Grimm brothers' story about a boy who wishes to learn fear in order to better motivate this scene between Siegfried and Mime.

From observing animals in the woods, Siegfried knows Mime is not his parent. Mime has repeated his traditional, whining answer so often that Siegfried mimics it (163). Siegfried's impatience with Mime is demonstrated when he breaks the new sword on the anvil.

As Mime tells of Sieglinde's suffering, he claims that Siegfried's mother gave him the pieces of the sword, but later he lets slip to Wotan that he stole them (176).

Wotan's disguise as the Wanderer is symbolic of his self-deception, thinking he's uninvolved with Siegfried's life and efforts to retrieve the ring. His desire to control events conflicts with his need for a free agent to accomplish what he by law cannot: obtain the ring.

Mime wastes his three questions (which serve as exposition for the audience primarily, giving details of the mythical world). Wotan freely tells him what he needs to know: only one who doesn't know fear can reforge the sword.

Just at the point where we might feel sorry for Mime, he shows his true self as cunning and deceitful, mixing the potion to kill Siegfried and fantasizing about being lord of the ring (189). Wagner never intended for Mime to be the feeble, pitiful weakling that most performances make of him; his notes indicate that Mime should show the debasing power of evil, deformed by his desires for the ring (Newman 543).

There's something instinctively right (mythically, dramatically, and psychologically) about Siegfried's reforging the sword himself, not mending the pieces but grinding them down, and remelting them, in this way taking something of his father and mother (who saved it for him) and making it his own. His hammering resembles the servitude of the Nibelungs in Rhinegold, but he works in joyful freedom, building to his mighty cry "Nothung! Nothung!" as he smashes the anvil in two.

Just as later in Act 3, Siegfried's confrontation with Wotan rings true to both myth and psychology, as the god, already resigned to his fate, must in anger make one last attempt to maintain his authority and dignity. Siegfried reverses his father's fate, demonstrating the victory of the new world order over the old. Wagner's invention in these two scenes shows him to be a expert dramatist as well as composer.

Act Two

Old opponents meet again, Alberich instantly recognizing Wotan through his disguise.

Wotan admits that he made no contract with Alberich but defeated him by force (194).

When Alberich threatens to storm Valhalla with Hel's army (194), we hear the Valhalla theme mixed with Loge's fire.

By this time has Wotan truly given up his ambition to regain the ring? Or is he remaining purposefully aloof, taunting Alberich that he can have the ring if he can get it from Fafner? Wotan learned his lesson with Siegmund: only the truly independent hero can help him (195).

Fafner claims that with his death we have seen the last of the giants (206).

In a very clever scene, the dragon's blood magically allows Siegfried to understand Mime's true intentions behind his innocent words (213) and the woodbird's song (same theme as the Rhinedaughters' "Weia Waga" nature sounds in Rhinegold).

Siegfried finds the ring but it means nothing to him. Being ignorant of its history and power, he is "free from greed" (SS), thus not under Alberich's curse at this point.

When he gives the ring to Brünnhilde later, it becomes a symbol of supreme love, not its renunciation.

Siegfried leaves the hoard to the dead Mime, blocking the cave with Fafner's body, thwarting Alberich from getting it.

Act Three

The prelude mixes themes of Erda, Valkyrie, frustration, spear, fate, and the Wanderer (not the pensive version of Acts I-II, but a raging god longing to return to the arena of world affairs), ending with Power of the Ring.

Wotan claims to ask Erda for wisdom, "Can a swift-turning wheel be stopped?" (222) but actually wants to tell Erda his decision to renounce his earlier ambition and resign himself to his doom. He bequeaths the future to Siegfried (224). At Wotan's words, "The god will gladly yield his rule to the [eternally] young" (225), Wagner told the singer in the first production, "It should sound like the announcement of a new religion" (Bentley 158).

Wotan's recognition scene, followed by his confrontation with Siegfried, is the turning point in the entire cycle, all of which Wagner invented: "Wotan rises to the tragic height of willing his own destruction. This is the lesson history teaches us: to will what necessity imposes, and [to will] ourselves to bring it about." (Wagner's letter to Roeckel, in Ewans 50).

Already willing to turn the future over to Siegfried's kind, his grandson's insolence enrages him one last time. Wotan also promised to protect Brünnhilde from all but the bravest of challengers (152).

The text describes Wotan as lord of ravens, his messengers (229; cf 274, 319, 327).

Ironically, the sight of Brünnhilde's feminine form teaches Siegfried fear for the first time (234). Humorously, at Brünnhilde's "Are you blinded by my eye's devouring glance?" (242), we hear the dragon motif.

Brünnhilde gloriously greets the sun as she awakens from her long sleep. She joins Siegfried in praising the mother that gave him birth (235).

Brünnhilde claims that by disobeying Wotan she was acting not by thought but by feeling (236), which mirrors Wagner's aesthetic ideal, that truth is discovered not rationally but through the emotions.

The power of love triumphs as hero and heroine are now free from the influence of Wotan's laws and Mime's greed.

Wagner: "It is only by love that man and woman attain to the full measure of humanity ... only in the union of man and woman by love does the human being exist." (Aberbach 147)

Basking in the light of Siegfried's love, Brünnhilde rejects her past life with the gods. Valhalla may crumble to dust, the Norns' rope may break, and the

Twilight of the gods seize them all in darkness, for all she cares; they laugh at the death of the old order (243).

Part 5: Twilight of the Gods

By Larry Brown








Mythological background of Ragnarok

Norse mythology is unique in that it includes a narration of future events, the end of the gods in a great battle. Ragnarok means "fate / doom of the gods" from which the German gets Götterdämmerung, "Twilight of the Gods."

The great battle is preceded by three year-long winters and general moral decay. Ominous signs appear: wolves that eat the sun and moon, and the stars fall. At Ragnarok, Loki escapes his chains (his punishment for plotting Balder's death), captains the ship Naglfar (made of dead men's nails) to attack Asgard along with the giants, riding on tidal waves created by the loosing of Jormungandr, the world serpent, from the ocean bottom. Fenrir the giant wolf breaks his bonds, and Surt and the fire-demons attack from the south.

Heimdall, guardian of the Rainbow Bridge (Bifrost), who never sleeps and sees and hears everything, sounds his trumpet as warning, but it's too late to avoid the final battle. In the battle all the gods meet their end: Odin is swallowed by Fenrir, who in turn is torn asunder by Odin's son Vidar. Thor kills Jormungandr but dies of its venom. Loki and Heimdall kill each other. Surt kills Freyr, then destroys the world by fire.

Some things manage to survive: Valhalla itself, Thor's hammer and his two sons, Odin's favorite son Balder returns to life, and two humans, protected under the World Ash Tree Yggdrasil, who repopulate the world.

Wagner's innovation was to link the story of the gods' end (modified to suit his purposes) with the death of the hero Siegfried and Brünnhilde.

TWILIGHT OF THE GODS (Götterdämmerung)

Prologue

This scene mirrors the opening of Rhinegold with the three Rhinedaughters and the rape of the gold. Here three Norns tell of Wotan's tearing the limb from the World Ash Tree (248), whose death was the result of Wotan's abuse of power, perverting his wisdom (symbolized by the stream of wisdom drying up). They tell of the final collapse of the old world order which has become rotten at its 'roots.' The tree now provides the funeral pyre for the waiting gods, resigned to their doom.

Mythological background to the World Ash Tree: Yggdrasil (old Norse name) lies at the center of the world, its three roots separating Asgard (land of the gods), the land of the Frost Giants, and Hel (name for both the place of the dead and its queen). The World Tree represents and sustains life, and its fate determines life's end (Ragnarok). A serpent gnaws at its roots; three Norns (Fate, Being, Necessity) sit at its base at the well of Urd and carve runes in its trunk telling the future of each person. Also at its base lies Mimir's well of wisdom (Mimisbrunn) where Odin came for a drink and left one eye as payment. One cryptic reference in the Poetic Edda implies that Odin hung himself on the tree for nine days, pierced with his spear, in order to gain control of the magic runes (one of his names is "God of the hanged"). Some critics think this might be a late Christian influence. Wagner invented the ideas of Wotan's tearing a branch from the tree, causing it to wither and die, and using its wood for kindling at the fiery end of Valhalla.

As the Norns weave their rope around the rocks, it breaks, signifying the end of Erda's foreknowledge, but does this mean no more fate/destiny, that man is now completely free?

Fate (or lot) is mentioned infrequently in the text of the Ring, mostly in Valkyrie (pp. 83, 104, 119, 141, 143), but the Fate motif is heard frequently (ex: when Brünnhilde enters to prepare Siegmund for death, before the Wanderer/Erda confrontation, at Siegfried's discovery of Brünnhilde, her confusion at his later betrayal, at Siegfried's last breath, at the immolation scene).

When the rope breaks, the themes of the Ring's Curse and Siegfried's horn and sword predict a future that the Norns can no longer see. Later (311) Siegfried boasts to the Rhinedaughers that his sword can sever the Norn's thread into which the curse is woven. Fate is closely associated with the ring and its curse throughout, so breaking the rope may not mean the end of fate itself but the end of the curse and the gods' foreknowledge and influence in the world. Siegfried doesn't escape the curse, but his actions, along with Brünnhilde's devotion unto death, eventually break it.

When we next see Siegfried and Brünnhilde, both of them receive new motifs (Siegfried's is derived from his horn call), signifying their new relationship and new beginning. Unfortunately, the hope heard in these themes won't last long. Both of them are still caught up and manipulated by the old order. They too must perish before mankind can be truly free.

Brünnhilde lost her strength and wisdom along with her virginity: "the maidenly source of all my strength was taken away by the hero to whom I now bow my head" (SS); in the Niebelungenlied she loses it involuntarily, raped by Sivrit/Siegfried in the guise of Gunther (in this source she wasn't married to Siegfried previously).

Act One

Siegfried's Rhine journey includes these themes: Siegfried, Adventure (or Freedom), Rhine, Erda, Rhinegold, Loge (fire), Lovelessness (foreshadowing betrayal), Rhinedaughters, power of the ring. At his arrival: the curse, the god's destruction, sword.

Gunther mistakes cunning in his half-brother Hagen for wisdom (258), similar to Wotan's reliance on Loge. Gunther is not completely blameless in this affair; he seeks to increase his fame by marrying the glorious Brünnhilde, not for true love (257).

Hagen says that with the ring Siegfried now can command the Nibelung army, but he's unaware of power he wields (259); this detail is left over from the prose draft with little purpose in the final version.

As Hagen explains his plans to trick Siegfried, the tarnhelm motif transforms into the magic potion motif (260), revealing the means by which the deception will take place.

Ironic that Siegfried drinks to Brünnhilde's memory, then promptly forgets her. The potion of oblivion has been criticized as being too melodramatic (although Wagner follows his source in the Volsunga Saga), but it can be interpreted as a symbol of the tragic paradox in which Siegfried is caught: to be free from Wotan's laws and influence, he must also be ignorant of his past (no memory), thus falling unwittingly to Hagen's scheme, a victim of his own innocence (Dahlhaus 91).

We first learn of Hagen's true identity as Alberich's son at the end of the scene (270), although the curse theme when he meets Siegfried gives us a hint (262).

Waltraute visits her sister with desperate news about their father. She tells Brünnhilde that Wotan no longer collects warriors to fight off the final battle (273). When Waltraute repeats Wotan's words, "If the ring returns to the Rhinedaughters, from its curse both gods and world will be released," she is hopeful, failing to see the double meaning (275).

Brünnhilde defiantly sings, "I shall never relinquish love, though Valhalla's glittering pomp should crumble into dust" (SS), at which point we hear the Renunciation of Love theme, which is odd unless we understand the motif more appropriately as the "love-curse" which Alberich first stated (as earlier discussed). Note similar sentiments at the end of Siegfried, where the two lovers laugh at the death of the gods. Selfish love becomes a destructive

power, "love a fundamentally devastating force" (Wagner, in SS 370). She has now fallen under the ring's curse of possessiveness.

Siegfried's brutal stealing of the ring from her hand reminds us of Wotan's treatment of Alberich. Failing to protect her from Gunther/Siegfried, Brünnhilde's ring has no power over one who does not fear it (279).

Siegfried promises to separate himself from her during the night with his sword, which becomes a later point of debate between them.

Act Two

Alberich visits Hagen in his dream; Hagen is not happy to be his son (282). Alberich says the curse has no power over Siegfried, as long as he is ignorant of its power (283)--at least by this point; see further discussion below.

Loge's flames surrounding Brünnhilde's mountain were apparently an illusion, as Siegfried says Gunther could have passed through them unharmed, but was afraid (286); also Wotan no longer stands as her protector.

Note Siegfried's ambiguous responses to Gutrune (286-7), setting up the later tension between his denial of sexual relations with Brünnhilde and her claims of rape.

The vassals are the first appearance of a traditional operatic chorus in the Ring. They are surprised that disagreeable Hagen is happy, not knowing the real reason.

Siegfried kept the ring he stole from Brünnhilde, a sign of possessiveness in him as well, making him susceptible to its curse.

Hagen is the first to suggest treason (295), hastily taking control of the situation; he later invents the cover story of the hunting accident (304).

When Brünnhilde claims she's been tricked by Siegfried, Hagen's motif underneath her words may indicate she's lying about the sexual encounter. For her, however, one betrayal is much like another (i.e. he might as well have raped me).

The fateful swearing on Hagen's spear appears to seal Siegfried's fate, if he is lying. However, as we learn at the end, it is Brünnhilde who in her anger has sworn falsely. Siegfried will die, but not because of this oath.

Nibelungenlied tells of Siegfried bathing in dragon's blood, making him invulnerable except for one spot on his back where a linden leaf fell. Wagner invented the idea of Brünnhilde not protecting his back because of his bravery (301), perhaps inspired by Achilles (the subject of a possible opera at one time).

Act Three

The Rhinedaughters taunt Siegfried (as they did Alberich in the first scene). At first Siegfried is willing to trade the ring for love (the reverse of Alberich), but when they threaten him with its curse, he refuses (311), unlike Wotan who heeded Erda's advice. This show of pride and possessiveness places him under the ring's curse for the first time, leading to his first and only defeat by Hagen. When he says, "you'd still not get it from me," Power of the Ring motif plays.

From another perspective, he also falls victim to Hagen's cursed desire to possess it, so the fault lies outside the hero himself. By the end of the composition, Wagner didn't consider Siegfried a tragic figure, as he is too unselfconscious. Some critics claim that he falls because of his false oath on the spear, but this assumes he was lying, a misunderstanding which Brünnhilde clears up in the finale.

Siegfried's death during the hunt is taken from the German source Niebelungenlied. Wagner followed the Volsunga saga mainly up to this point.

Siegfried refers to events in the third drama as happening long ago, in my boyhood days (316), which suggests that the three acts of Siegfried represent years of growing up, not just an afternoon's events. There is little sense of time in the myth, as he and Brünnhilde may have lived a long time on the

mountain, and he seems to have had many other adventures before coming to Gibichung hall.

There is a minor recognition scene as Siegfried's memory returns, but no time for remorse. He dies thinking of their first meeting.

The funeral march contains all three Volsung themes, father, mother, son, the end of the "race."

Tension mounts at the ominous moment when dead Siegfried raises his arm to prevent Hagen from taking the ring.

Brünnhilde's final speech (the last of 6 versions which Wagner wrote) explains the truth about Siegfried's betrayal of her love, but not her sexuality that night. He was false, yet true.

She accuses the gods of guilt of Siegfried's wrongful death, the curse meant for them falling on him. She gains wisdom through suffering (a common theme in Greek tragedy). She understands how their fate is intertwined with the gods, symbolically hurling the torch heavenward to light Valhalla's pyre.

Before this final scene, the Rhinedaughters have spoken to Brünnhilde (312, 326) who in death returns the ring to the Rhine, restoring Nature (full circle). Hagen is pulled down by the Rhinedaughters to his death. When Hagen leaps to his death for the ring, the curse motif is heard but breaks in half.

Thus Brünnhilde's sacrificial love, willing to forgive Siegfried and be eternally united with him in death, brings redemption from their mutual betrayal, and redeems the natural order by returning the ring's gold to the Rhine. We shouldn't read the redemption of the gods or all humanity into this final theme, as some critics do. Wagner's title for the redemption motif "the glorification of Brünnhilde" is probably more appropriate.

Although Siegfried and Brünnhilde fall victims to the curse of the old order, they are also the first representatives of the new.

Alberich is the only major player to survive at the end; does this hint that the cycle of evil will begin again? The closing music suggests that this isn't a return to the beginning but a transformation to a new world (even the key changes from the original E-flat to D-flat in the last few minutes).

The final music weaves together motives of the Rhine, Rhinedaughters, Valhalla, Power of Gods, Siegfried, Twilight, Redemption.

Conclusion: Ring Transformations

Wagner first saw Siegfried as a revolutionary hero, "the man of the future whom we long for but cannot ourselves bring into being, who must create himself by our destruction" (Bentley 158). "In Siegfried I have tried to portray the most highly developed and complete human being I can conceive of" (Wagner to Roeckel, in Ewans 167). Nietzsche at first called him the Superman, beyond good and evil.

In early plans for an opera on Achilles, Wagner wrote that Man was intended to surpass God, just as Achilles was destined to surpass Thetis: "Man is the perfection of God. The immortal gods are only the elements which beget mankind. In Man creation achieves its end." (Ewans 77).

But the Superman is not complete without the Superwoman. Wagner: "Siegfried alone is not the complete human being; he is only half. It is only with Brünnhilde that Siegfried transforms the world." This sentiment suggests the early influence of Ludwig Feuerbach on Wagner's thought (he dedicated "Artwork of Future" to Feuerbach). This philosopher taught that the meaning of existence was defined in terms of sexual love; one must love and be loved to exist truly and completely.

In his first prose draft (1848), Wagner ends with Brünnhilde taking Siegfried victoriously to Valhalla, which isn't destroyed by fire. His wrongful death redeems the gods from their crimes, and he will live on gloriously after death.

However, this optimism is not reflected in the final 1952 poem. Wagner decided to combine Siegfried's tragedy with the Twilight of Gods, a connection never suggested in the sources. Siegfried is now seen not as the gods' redeemer, but instead repeats Wotan's mistakes: possessiveness and trusting in his own power (seen in his stealing the ring from Brünnhilde by force and his defiance of the curse) and betraying love (although unwittingly).

Typical of the period, Wagner's Romanticism was both idealistic (infinite longing) and fatalistic (inevitable disappointment). Attempting through abuse of power to hold onto what we cannot keep causes us to hurt and destroy others and is ultimately futile.

With the emphasis now on freedom from the will rather than freedom of the will, the heroic center of the cycle shifted from Siegfried to Wotan and Brünnhilde, who both learn that redemption comes through renunciation of self.

In Act 3, scene 2 of Siegfried (the turning point of the cycle), the will that once ruled the world now wills to renounce its claims. The death of Siegfried and Brünnhilde is now seen not so much as ultimate love as an earthly image of Wotan's own renunciation, their funeral pyre reflecting the burning of Valhalla.

Wagner finally chose not to rely on words to express the poem's final meaning but on his music which speaks of beauty and harmony in a new world order despite the death of heroes and gods.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aberbach, Alan. The Ideas of Richard Wagner. 1988. (Buy it on-line in English)

Barzun, Jacques. Darwin, Marx, Wagner: Critique of a Heritage. 1958. (Buy it on-line in English)

Bentley, Eric. The Cult of the Superman. 1969 ed.

Cooke, Deryck. I Saw the World End. 1979.

Culshaw, John. Reflections on Wagner's Ring. 1975.

Dahlhaus, Carl. Richard Wagner's Music Dramas. 1979. (Buy it on-line in Italian)

Donington, Robert. Wagner's Ring and its Symbols. 1963, 1974.

Ewans, Michael. Wagner and Aeschylus. 1982. (Buy it on-line in English)

Garten, H. F. Wagner the Dramatist. 1977.

Gutman, Robert. Richard Wagner: the Man, his Mind, and his Music. 1968. (Buy it on-line in English) - (Buy it on-line in Italian)

Holman, J. K. Wagner's Ring: A Listener's Companion. 1996. (Buy it on-line in English)

Magee, Bryan. Aspects of Wagner. 1988. (Buy it on-line in English)

McCreless, Patrick. Wagner's Siegfried. 1982.

Rather, L. J. The Dream of Self-Destruction: Wagner's Ring and the Modern World. 1979.

Shaw, Bernard. The Perfect Wagnerite. 4th ed. 1922. (Buy it on-line in English) - (Buy it on-line in Italian)

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Spotts, Frederic. Bayreuth. 1994. (Buy it on-line in English)

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an introduction and notes to wagner

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