The Bayreuth Festspielhaus was opened with performances of Richard Wagner's The Ring of the Nibelung, that enormous music-drama which consists of three huge music-dramas and a shorter one. Now, it was the Ring more than any other of Wagner's works which led to him being misunderstood, and afforded opportunities for misrepresentation. When the libretto was published, long before the music was written, it was called a monstrosity, and one professor implored Wagner not to set it.
At first sight it seems so hopelessly involved and intricate, the main dramatic idea works its way so sinuously through such a maze of subsidiary ideas, that intellectually honest and intelligent people can hardly be blamed if they are unable to see at a glance what it is all about. Yet the plot is not more complicated than that of many a novel, and the real trouble is that we won't take the pains over it that we do over a novel, or, perhaps, do not apply our intelligence in the best way. At this time of day no one, I hope, will condemn a work of art because it cannot be grasped in a glance.
There are four music-dramas, or operas (I use the terms indiscriminately, now that there is no danger of the Wagnerian opera being confused with the older forms). Wagner made each self-contained, complete and comprehensible by itself, and yet he carried the main action on from one to the next until the final catastrophe; but he did this at the cost of much repetition, whence another charge brought against the work — that of its interminable tedium.
I will therefore first disentangle the main idea, which is simple. Let it be granted that Wotan is ruler of the world — not a first cause, but a god, limited in his powers, conditioned, ruling only so long as he obeys the laws inscribed in Runic characters on his spear. How he arrived in this position we do not know, any more than we know the origin of the Greek gods; indeed, in this respect and others there are parallels between the Greek and the Northern mythology.
Wotan goes in fear lest the powers of the nether world usurp his domination, which he wants to make absolute. He makes a pact with the giants — the Titan forces of the earth — that he will give them Freia if they build him a castle, Valhalla, which he intends to fill with slain warriors in sufficient numbers to keep down his foes.
This is his primary, essential, fatal blunder; for unless the gods eat of Freia's apples every day they must wither and their powers decay. But Wotan means to cheat the giants, and Loge, the deceitful god of fire, who is ultimately to destroy the whole of the present régime, has been sent off to find a means of doing it.
It is when so much has been accomplished that Wagner raises the curtain on the first scene of the first drama. The Rhinegold is entirely devoted to an exposition of the main drama.
Wotan's position is more tragic than he knows. His brilliant idea is the sword, and it has its own theme, one of the most important in the work.
Wotan will raise up a breed of heroes, let them fend for themselves in the world — even heap pains and trials upon them; and in the end a fearless hero will arise, find this sword, and of his own absolute free-will slay the dragon and take the ring. He is trying to jump out of his own shadow, as we see immediately in The Valkyrie.
Siegmund, his son, the hero, takes the sword, and then commits adultery and incest with Sieglinda, his sister, the wife of Hunding. Fricka, the punisher of matrimonial crimes, compels Wotan to let Hunding slay Siegmund.
This is done, though Brunnhilde, the incarnation of love, tries to save the hero. She has to be punished — the laws that bind Wotan are inexorable — and he has to put away love; in order to rule, love must have no place in his thoughts nor influence his actions. Brunnhilde is put to sleep, and a hedge of fire set blazing round her. There she must sleep until a hero arrives who has no fear of Wotan or his spear, and will pass through the fire and take her for bride.
The hero is the son of Sieglinde and Siegmund; he kills the dragon, takes the ring, shatters Wotan's spear, passes the fiery hedge, and weds Brunnhilde. The details we shall examine when we deal with the drama of Siegfried.
Wotan's part is now ended; he retires to Valhalla to await the inevitable dénouement. He willingly abdicates, and wills his own destruction and the destruction of Valhalla and all that existed under his rule.
If power involves the compulsion to renounce himself, to destroy all that he loves and all that makes life sweet, then he rather renounces life. So he waits during the Dusk of the Gods, until Siegfried has been slain and the ring restored to the Rhine. His own power being broken, and the power that lay in the ring being again in the hands of the innocent Rhine-maidens, there is nothing to control Loge, who blazes up in sheets of fire, and Valhalla is consumed, while the Rhine maidens swim joyfully about in the bubbling, roaring Rhine.
Richard Wagner's The Ring of the Nibelung continued...
