In the eye of the Ring

Rheingold

In the?beginning?were four elements, air, earth, water and fire.?Air is personified by Wotan, the supreme god in Nordic?mythology.?Wotan is a thinking type inclined to intellectual speculation.?Never satisfied, he seeks?the high ground.?He reasons.?He beats the air.?He represents thought.

Earth is Erda.?The goddess seems to be permanently asleep.?Her?premonitorydreams are?acted out?through her three daughters, the Norns.?They spin the?ominous?thread of individual fate.?The first recalls the past.?The second?lives out?the present.?The youngest hastens the future.?Erda represents intuition.?

Sentiment is often associated with water, the vehicle of tears, of blood.?Water is here represented by the Rhine, mythical river, source of all life, which symbolizes evolution and nature.?Like mother Earth, father Rhine has three daughters.?They are the?Sirens of Greek myth.?They?bewitchand?enthrall?the men who fall for their illusions.

Fire is ambivalent.?It is?at the same time destructive and life-giving,?consuming?and purifying.?It is represented by Loge, a?character?as engaging and elusive as flame itself.

The fire, which runs through?a lover’s veins and devours him, is Loge.?The irresistible impulse which puts an end to all reasoning, that also is Loge.?He encourages immediate irresistible enjoyment.

The world is represented by a gigantic?ash tree.?The ash?bores its roots into the earth and?thrusts its growing branches into the sky.?The?intertwined fibers of its trunk are similar to the Norn’s threads.?It links the past and its roots to the future.?At the foot of this tree of life, a spring?wells upwatering it and murmuring spells.?It is the spring of knowledge.?The tree is an?intermediary?in?contact with the four elements.

Time is?ordained like the sequence of seasons and the thread of destiny.?It is no accident that the Norns spin it at the foot of the tree.

The world is populated.?Above, Wotan reigns and sets about creating the race of the gods.?On Earth two giants, who symbolize two aspects of mankind. Fasolt is?poetic?mankind, a simple good fellow, idealistic. Fafner represents the?clamorousmasses?jealous, suspicious,?destructive?and selfish.

In the depths of the earth are the dwarfs.?They are the Nebelungs, industrious workers.?They excavate to extract metals, steel for swords or gold for ornaments.?Happy as the Seven Dwarfs, they produce by hard work.?One strong individual stands out from their masses. Alberich, a sensual creature motivated by potent sexual appetite.

This?rounds off?our universe.?How long will it stay as it is??No one knows.?And one day the balance is disturbed leading step by step to the great adventure of the Ring.

Rhine gold

Wotan the intellectual is?sated.?He looks for a?substitute?for?sensuality?which no longer holds any attraction.?He goes to the ash tree and drinks from the spring water.?He thereby obtains?scientific and technical insight knowledge and reason.?He has to pay for this through the loss of his left eye the one that sees within.?

He takes as his wife Fricka, the guardian of home, legitimacy and convention.?But Fricka is?argumentative?and?coquettish.?Athinking and sensing type, she lacks feeling and intuition.?The quality is lost with Wotan’s left eye. Fricka is the guardian of home and of law.

Fricka has a sister Freia who is the incarnation of beauty as is her twin brother Froh. Freia grows?golden?apples.?Every morning the gods eat from them which preserve their eternal youth.?These are the apples of the?Hesperides?in Greek mythology.?With rational understanding Wotan takes?cognizance?of?maritallegitimacy, beauty and youth.?There remains violence.?It is personified by the god of thunder Donner who?wields his storm hammer.

Wotan breaks off a branch from the tree of life.?He shapes it into a spear.?He carves on its?shaft?the secrets of this knowledge, the?runes or Nordic?hieroglyphs.

The runes are the?statutes and decree which form the law, his law.?They secure his authority.?They bind him as the Constitution binds the president of a democracy.

Consequences of these two transgressions: the contaminated water ceases to sing as the?spring?dries up.?The tree perishes from its wound.?Time stops flowing.?Soon the thread of destiny will break.?It is the beginning of universal pollutin.

Never satisfied, Wotan draws in Loge who is sudden, thoughtless impulse. Loge advises him to have a fortress built by the Giants. Fricka aids and abets as a home may tie Wotan close to her.?The Giants ask for wages. Loge promises Wotan to find a way of paying them.?When the fortress is built, they will see.

But?Fasolt, the reaming giant and Fafner, the calculating giant demand a pledge. Freia is mortgaged.?One of them?covets her for her beauty, the other because of the golden apples.?Depriving the gods of them guarantees power.

Led on by Loge Wotan signs the contract. Loge will find a way to redeem the pledge.?He only has to look carefully.

The Giants set to work.?Wotan dreams of his?fortress.?Fricka has nightmares. Dawn is near.

It all begins with a note, the E-flat whose harmonies lead into the theme?ofevolution,?the Rhine, the waves, the Rhine maidens.

All the other leitmotif will be born in the same way.

The dwarf Alberich has emerged from the depths in search of sex of love just when Wotan has tired of them.?He makes advances to three Rhine maidens who jolly working him up, playing with him and making him cruelly aware of his physical ugliness.?He tries in vain to pursue them and threatens them with his fist in his impotent fury.?He becomes more frustrated with feelings of rejection and?inferiority.

Then by the glimmering of dawn, he notices the Rhine gold shining in the waves.?The?Rhine?maidens?unwisely give away the secret: anyone who renounces love and steals the gold will be able to forge it into a magic ring. Runes are inscribed in this rubescent gold ring which are as hard to read as those carved on the spear are easy.?Nevertheless they secure unlimited wealth for its owner.

Confusing love and lust, the Rhine maidens think they have nothing to fear from Alberich: hungry for sex, he will surely never renounce love. Alberich curses love and carries off the Rhine gold.?He will forge the ring.?He will buy pleasure with his wealth.

Before the audience’s?stupefied?eyes the scene shifts from the depths to the peaks of a high mountain range?overlooking the Rhine Valley.?On the other side of the valley stands the airy castle, completed the symbol of Wotan’s?power.

During this time the ring motif transforms itself into that of the castle.?Both emanate from the violation of nature, the renunciation of love for the benefit of power.

“It is not”, read Richard?Wagner,?“the rejection suffered by Alberich at the hands of the Rhine maidens that is the source of this misfortune. Alberich?and his ring could not bring ill to the gods unless this was not previously an accessible evil.”

The giants accept the Rheingold in payment?instead of Freia.?In order to redeem this pledge Wotan?is obliged toseize Alberich’s ring. Loge justifies this:“stealing from a thief is not stealing.”?The?sophism?that entirely suits Wotan.

While they wait, the giants have?gone off with?Freia.?They will come back at the end of the day by which time Wotan will have to have the gold with him.

Whilst Wotan descends into the center of the earth, the sadness of Freia’s theme transforms itself in its turn into that of hard labor, the?anvils.

Sexual frustration has made Alberich hungry for possessions and for the accumulation of wealth for its own sake but also sadistic and?paranoiac?in his behavior. It?represented for Wagner the abstract funds of stock exchange speculators. Alberich is oppressing the dwarfs with?pathological?violence.

Fraud would later associate the ring,?sphincter?with the setal anal complex linking?it with?avarice?and the holding of goods.?Coincidence?

Alberich has entrusted his crafty and cowardly brother Mime with the task of making?a talisman, the Tarnhelm.?This talisman makes its wearer invisible,?ubiquitous?and able to transform himself at will, a miracle which can produce unlimited wealth.

Mime knows how to make the Tarnhelm without understanding its power.?He will be the first victim of Alberich becoming invisible.?In order to?lay hands on?the ring, Loge plays on the?vanity?of the dwarf who?when?challenged changes himself into a dragon and then into a toad.?It’s the story of Puss in Boots.

Pinned down and conquered, Alberich has to give up on by one, the hoard of treasure, the Tarnhelm, the ring.?Having lost both love and wealth, Alberich curses the fateful ring: everyone else who possesses the ring will also have to renounce love and will finally be struck down by one who is?consumed with?envy and prepared to do anything to possess it.

The curse on the ring will be the driving force for a series of violent deaths before the ring ends its deadly career in the Rhine from?whence?it came.

The Giants return and Freia is covered in gold until she disappears. Wotan has to?relinquish?to the Giants the hoard of treasure, the magic helmet, the Tarnhelm, and the ring.

At first, he hesitates to part with the ring, but Erda emerges from the earth and makes up his mind.?The talisman bears a curse.?He must part with it.

Wotan is facing the twilight of the gods.

In actual fact, as soon as the Giants have been paid, one of them seizes the ring on Loge’s advice.?He is immediately killed by his brother who seizes the ring.?The?clamorous?Fafner changes into a dragon and retires to a cave where he jealously sits on his hoard.?The curse is working.

Wotan is terrified.?A?storm symbolizes Wotan’s state of mind.

A?rainbow conveys the gods into the castle Valhalla.?The gods go in, laughing while the Rhine maidens bewail their lost god.?And Lgoe dreams of changing back into flame and comsuming it all.

Valkyrie

Wotan finds himself with no way out.?Either he can return the ring to the Rhine maidens by stealing it from Fafner and loses his power by breaking the treaty or he holds off and falls under?the curse because he has profited from the theft which has paid for the castle.

What is worse??If Alberich who does not suffer the same legal and moral constraints found a?ruse?to take the ring that would be the end of the gods’?power.?The power of the ring?would overcome the might of the spear.

Wotan?considers?two?stratagems.?Bring together brave men in the fortress of Valhalla to defend it against the armies of Alberich.?But men have been?emasculated by Wotan’s laws.?Wotan has revisited Erda in the depths to?replenish?his resources.?She bears him Brunnhilde, the Walkure with her eight sisters.?Their mission is to arouse men to reawaken their aggression and select the boldest and most courageous by competition.?Once dead, the victors will go to populate Valhalla, the Hall of the Elect, the somewhat artificial?selectionprocedure?for what price courage when it is produced by conditioning?

Seeing the weakness of this strategy Wotan comes down to earth under the name of Walse, wolf and couples with a wolf woman.?Two twins are produced: Siegmund and Sieglinde,?the Walsungen.?Siegmund is his wolf-cub.?Wotan brings up the boy to be secretive and to hold laws in contempt, he aims to make him an accomplice who will instinctively kill the dragon and return the ring to the Rhine maidens of his own accord whilst leaving?Wotan?uncompromised.

One day when Siegmund returns to his home he finds it reduced to ashes, his mother slaughtered and his twin sister Sieglinde carried off. Much later Sieglinde has?been given in marriage?to a wealthy landowner Hunding against her will.?On the day of this legal but odious wedding Wotan appears, disguises as a traveler and thrusts the sword Nothung into the trunk of the ash which holds up Hunding’s great hall.?He declares: he who can draw the sword?from the?ash will become?invincible.?Siegmund is abandoned, desperate.?His father has disappeared.?Everywhere he goes he is driven on outside the law.

Master of Donner and thus master of?tempests Wotan creates a violent storm which drives Siegmund towards Hunding’s abode and the sword.?As expected, he finds his twin sister there.?He does not recognize her but finds a kindred soul in her not without reason.

Hunding has unmasked?Siegmund as the wolf cub, the?hereditary?enemy of dogs and?assailant?of his allies.?He threatens him with death in the morning. Night is sacred while he is his guest.

According to plan, Siegmund draws the sword promised for his?distress.?The unplanned part is the?incest.?The two?lonely people fall head over heels for each other.?By the time they recognize each other, it’s too late.?They accept their incest and flee into the forest by night.?There they will?live out?the Ring’s first love story.

Wotan entrusts Brunnhilde with protecting Siegmund when it comes to the fight against the husband Hunding.

Brunnhilde, the Walkure born of Erda is all feeling and?prophetic?intuition.?But the other projection of Wotan’s feminine soul is Fricka, the guardian of marriage and convention.

Jealous and scandalized Fricka angrily demands Siegmund’s head. Wotan points out that if it is?inspired by deepest?loveeven?adulterous?and?incestuous?union is more legitimate than a marriage?based on?coercion?and custom.

But Fricka replies that that would be to create precedents and lead to Wotan’s downfall since his power is based on the rule of law.?Now with a?conspiratorial?air,?Wotan reveals his plan: Siegmund is to save the gods.?As a free man he can defeat the dragon with the sword.?He has won and return the ring to the Rhine maidens.?Wotan would not be?sullied?because Siegmund acts for himself.

Fricka?triumphantly?destroys the plan: Siegmund is not independent, he is a creature manipulated by Wotan.?She reminds him of his futile schemes: the conditioning, the storm, the sword.

Torn between his two?animas: Brunnhilde, the sentiment and Fricka, logic.?All Wotan is able to?turn out is slaves.?All he encounters are images of himself.?The free creature he needs has to be created of his own accord.?But then he would risk not carrying out the plan.?The breach has widened.?The dilemma has become worse.

In despair, he countermands the Walkure’s orders.?She is to protect Hunding.

To the fate motif in the music Brunnhilde appears to Siegmund who is watching over the sleeping Sieglinde.?She announces his forthcoming death and the future birth of their child.?But in despair the?hero would rather kill his sister and himself than leave her in the hands of strangers.?Overwhelmed with emotion, the Walkure disobeys.?She will protect Siegmund.?Thus she wins her autonomy from Wotan.?She?exists.?But during the mortal combat Wotan emerges and his spear breaks the sword leaving his son defenseless before the thrusts of Hunding.

Brunnhilde has gathered up the remains of the sword carried off the swooning Sieglinde and fled to rejoin her sisters on a wild rock.?She begs them for a horse to help Sieglinde escape.?In vain, for they all cravenly refuse.

Sieglinde begs for death but when Brunnhilde declares that she has conceived a son.?She is?transformed?and wants to live. Brunnhilde tells her to head east where the dragon Fafner lies in watch over his gold.?This is a place Wotan avoids.?The Walkure names the future child Siegfred and prophesies that he will be the noblest hero of them all.?She covers Sieglinde’s flight by confronting the angry Wotan.?Overwhelmed, Sieglinde blesses Brunnhilde.?A?fundamental and?culminating?theme appears that of compassionate love of selfless sacrifice.

But debts have to be paid.?Brunnhilde will be put to sleep by Wotan on the rock underneath a fir tree surrounded by a circle of fire.?Wotan is in torment.?He has caused the death of his beloved son; Sieglinde is a fugitive and he must?part from his favorite daughter who is his double, his anima once again, intuition and feeling are repressed.?It is the price of the curse.?But there is one hope.?Wotan?utters an?incantation: only he who knows no fear may cross the circle of fire and waken the Walkure.

Siegfried’s theme rings out prophetically.?He is a free creature, will he kill the dragon??Will he return the ring to the Rhine maidens??Will he raise the curse??Over the questioning fate theme, fire continues to encircle the rock.

Everything stops for 17 years.