The Ring Cycle
I have finally watched all four operas of Wagner’s Ring Cycle: Das Rheingold, Die Walkure, Siegfried, and Gotterdammerung. I had previously seen three different versions of Das Rheingold, so it felt important to watch the rest and complete the cycle. Having watched all 14+ hours, I have thoughts and some questions.
The Ring Cycle begins with Das Rheingold. In Das Rheingold, Alberich, a greedy dwarf, steals the titular gold from the Rhein where it was being protected, but not very well, by water nymphs. The gold can be made to fashion a ring that will make the wearer all powerful, though as events later prove, maybe not all that much all powerful. Meanwhile Wotan (German Odin) who is repeatedly singing about the importance of contracts, is making his first of many efforts to renege on his contracts with the giants, whom he has hired to build Valhalla for him. Loge (German Loki) persuades Wotan to retrieve the rheingold. The two gods trick the dwarf and force him to give them the ring and all his treasure. The dwarf probably should have checked the fine print on that all powerful thing. Rather than return the gold to the nymphs, Wotan uses it to pay off the two giants. One of the giants gets jealous of the other and kills his brother so he can have the ring to himself. Ignoring the problems they’ve created, the gods fuck off to Valhalla and the curtain falls.
In Die Walkure, Wotan has raised a mortal son, Siegmund, to be a hero, without ever letting the child in on who he really is. This is his latest scheme to break his contract and retrieve the rheingold from the giants. Unfortunately his wife is super pissed about the whole fathering children with other women thing, and commands him to kill the child. Wotan commands the Valkyries to do it for him, but the chief of them (and best character in the whole series) Brunhilde, sees that Wotan’s heart isn’t really in it and tries to save the hero instead. Failing at that, she saves the hero’s wife (who is also his sister, ewww), so that she can carry her brother-husband’s baby. Wotan kills his son and breaks his sword in pieces before he catches up with Brunhilde, and despite the fact that she was doing what he really wanted her to do, punishes her anyway by putting her into a coma surrounded by magical fire atop a mountain.
Siegfried starts off with a dwarf who has fostered a human. The dwarf is Mime, the brother of the dwarf who stole the gold and started this mess in the first place. The human is the title character, Siegfried, the baby from the end of Walkure. Mime wants to use Siegfried to steal the gold ring. Wotan thinks this is a pretty good plan, with the one small alteration that the ring should come to him instead. Wotan and Mime engage in a trivia contest about the events of the first two operas, which Wotan narrowly wins. Siegfried reforges his father’s sword (the sword that was broken!) and goes off looking for adventure. Siegfried encounters a dragon who is apparently the giant that whacked his brother in the last act of Das Rheingold. Here I have questions. Is this transformation due to the magic of the rheingold? Or is this part of the normal life cycle of giants? Anyway, Siegfried slays the dragon but absorbs some of its blood and starts either tripping balls or possibly discovers that he can talk to the animals or both? A bird tells him to go look for a woman in a ring of fire on top of a mountain, and Siegfried’s not one to ignore a talking bird. Siegfried gets to the mountain, but Wotan, never one to pass up an opportunity to make a situation worse, gets in the way. Siegfried’s success is all part of Wotan’s plan, but his ego is such that he wants Siegfried, who has no possible inkling of his heritage, to acknowledge how brilliant Wotan was for setting this up. Siegfried breaks Wotan’s staff, and Wotan slinks off maybe possibly to have a moment of clarity on the whole “is he really the wisest of the gods thing.” Siegfried wakes Brunhilde by copping a feel. (He thought she was a man right up until he got a handful.) Brunhilde tells him about his heritage and despite being way too good for him, the couple embrace.
Gotterdamerung starts with a prologue where three women, the Fates?, are reading the story from long threads. They give the backstory that occurred before Das Rheingold just in case people aren’t up on their mythology. With the start of Act 1 we catch up on Siegfried and Brunhilde. He professes his love for her, and then naturally as one does when they are completely in love with someone, leaves her at home so he can go off in search of fuck knows what. He wanders to the court of the Rhine, where Hagen is convincing the king and his sister to con Siegfried into helping the king, Gunther, marry Brunhilde and Siegfried to marry the sister, Gutrune. First things first, they roofie him so he loses his memory. Siegfried, being a massive dope, allows this to happen. I sort of wondered if this wasn’t actually the first time this happened. Like did Brunhilde have to contend with this sort of thing regularly? Siegfried tells her he loves her, goes to the pub, has like one drink and gets into shenanigans? Roofied Siegfried impersonates Gunther, captures Brunhilde, and brings her and the ring to the Rhine. This is part of Hagen’s plan to get the ring for himself. He knows all about this because he’s the son of one of the dwarves… I think Alberich himself, but I have a hard time keeping those two straight. It also struck me that part of the reason these operas get progressively longer is they keep having to recap, and the recap grows as there are more stories to catch the audience up on. The Rhinemaidens spot Siegfried and try to convince him to give up the ring and free himself of the curse. But of course faced with the opportunity to help both himself and others this “hero” ignores it and has a good laugh. Somehow Wagner made me feel bad for him as Hagen returns his memory to him just in time to kill the poor doof. They return the body to the court where Brunhilde has them put it on a pyre. She then takes the ring and returns it to the Rhine! She announces that this will be the end of the gods as she proves that as usual it takes a woman to clean up the mess the men have made. The set then burns and collapses.
Despite my joking it’s pretty easy for me to see how this story has inspired artists over the years. It’s melodramatic, but in the best way. Watching it I felt like my mind was moving at a million miles per second. This is part of why I prefer, at least with tragic opera, for the stories to be rooted in mythology.
The Music is awesome throughout. I love orchestral music when it is bombastic and over wrought, so of course I’d love Wagner’s music. My favorites are the giant’s theme in Das Rheingold or the Ride of the Valkyrie, or much of the second act of Gotterdamerung. The music is so good in Die Walkure, that it felt to me like the four plus hours flew by. Gotterdamerung’s second act has a large chorus. One reason why I like opera so much is hearing the chorus. Much like I prefer an orchestra to a soloist, it’s a good example of how people communally can accomplish more than one lone individual.
The Setting and Costumes vary from production to production of course, but the three versions of Das Rheingold I saw as well as the three other operas in the cycle all lived up to my belief that opera is weird and wonderful.
All in all this was a great experience. And as often happens when I see an opera for the first time, I’m eager to see how other productions do things. It may be a while though before I’m prepared to watch all four of them again no matter how weird and wonderful they are.
