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.