# Favorite Ring Opera by Plot?



## Tchaikov6 (Mar 30, 2016)

This has probably been a poll before, but what is your favorite Ring Opera based solely on plot, not any of the music?


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## JoeSaunders (Jan 29, 2015)

Tricky. Rheingold and Walkure win it for me, with the latter ahead. Die Walkure is very nice indeed. NOW TO RANT ABOUT SIEGFRIED.

Siegfried's plot would be better if the titular character's achievements were more obviously _earned_ or _deserved_, then his winning of Brunnhilde would be worth celebrating, and his death in Gotterdammerung worth crying over. As it stands, he just trundles along with an innate sense of fearlessness and just happens to do 'heroic' things where he ends up, all through someone else's initiative or by accident. It's hard to believe that this guy is in any way an underdog since the first we see of him is as the arch dwarf-tormentor who is also quite loud (but he's friends with bears, which is cute). In Walkure the characters are human and relatable, as are the events they take part in, but Siegfried presents us with someone is very alien - and obviously that was the point, to some extent. It does help emphasise the distance between him and Wotan. But the effect is, in my view, unsatisfying. I reckon Wagner was creative enough to have been able to provide us a satisfying narrative arc to Siegfried's escapades whilst maintaining his spooky alien-like status.

Gotterdammerung's plot fairs much better than Siegfried, but I can't help feel that the events are cheapened by how so much hinges on a combined memory-loss/love potion and it's corresponding antidote. I can't say this is too much of a failing since so many other great operas rely on such tricks, and in a way, it reinforces the gloomy conclusions of the cycle: as soon as we descend into the realm of men and abandon the Gods, Siegfried is betrayed in the most pathetic of ways. I'd tolerate it I found myself liking Siegfried at this point, but as my prior paragraph sets out, this was not the case. When he gets proper potion-faced I have no choice but to think "Well that was dumb, good job jackass". The rest is alright though.


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## pianoville (Jul 19, 2018)

Das Rheingold for me. I think it's the most cohesive of the cycle.


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

Rheingold - just amazing characters, situations, analogies and psychologies in this
monumental music drama.


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

Götterdämmerung - there is something about this end-of-the-world drama that is just incredibly gripping.


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## gellio (Nov 7, 2013)

Götterdämmerung and Siegfried for me. Siegfried, overall, is my favorite of the Ring operas.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

JoeSaunders said:


> Tricky. Rheingold and Walkure win it for me, with the latter ahead. Die Walkure is very nice indeed. NOW TO RANT ABOUT SIEGFRIED.
> 
> Siegfried's plot would be better if the titular character's achievements were more obviously _earned_ or _deserved_, then his winning of Brunnhilde would be worth celebrating, and his death in Gotterdammerung worth crying over. As it stands, he just trundles along with an innate sense of fearlessness and just happens to do 'heroic' things where he ends up, all through someone else's initiative or by accident. It's hard to believe that this guy is in any way an underdog since the first we see of him is as the arch dwarf-tormentor who is also quite loud (but he's friends with bears, which is cute). In Walkure the characters are human and relatable, as are the events they take part in, but Siegfried presents us with someone is very alien - and obviously that was the point, to some extent. It does help emphasise the distance between him and Wotan. But the effect is, in my view, unsatisfying. I reckon Wagner was creative enough to have been able to provide us a satisfying narrative arc to Siegfried's escapades whilst maintaining his spooky alien-like status.
> 
> Gotterdammerung's plot fairs much better than Siegfried, but I can't help feel that the events are cheapened by how so much hinges on a combined memory-loss/love potion and it's corresponding antidote. I can't say this is too much of a failing since so many other great operas rely on such tricks, and in a way, it reinforces the gloomy conclusions of the cycle: as soon as we descend into the realm of men and abandon the Gods, Siegfried is betrayed in the most pathetic of ways. I'd tolerate it I found myself liking Siegfried at this point, but as my prior paragraph sets out, this was not the case. When he gets proper potion-faced I have no choice but to think "Well that was dumb, good job jackass". The rest is alright though.


I think Siegfried's youth as a "wild child" is quite well represented, and that people who reproach him for being a bit of a dumb brute and unkind to the treacherous Mime are hung up on the seven dwarfs. Siegfried intuitively knows that Mime is neither related to him nor friendly to him, and with the help of nature (the forest bird) the nasty bugger gets natural justice in the end. Life in the primeval forest is not a genteel affair, and in primitive circles killing a dragon and walking through fire to awaken a sleeping maiden on a mountain height are heroic achievements indeed. You just try them sometime!

The young Wagner (he was a fiery young anarchist when he conceived this tale) was trying to create a hero based on a concept of the "natural man," his basically noble instincts not yet repressed and distorted, but also not disciplined, by civilization. Unfortunately the natural hero has no time to grow into a mature man before he's trapped in the treacherous world of human society, and he's not ready for it. He is a flower nipped in the bud, and his ignoble end is the end of Wotan's hope that his heroic spawn would save the world from the curse of lovelessness and power-lust. The sense of catastrophe Wagner creates around his death and the tragic power of the funeral march have more to do with Wotan than with Siegfried himself, and you'll note that the funeral music begins not with Siegfried's themes but with the Walsung motif and those of Siegmund and Sieglinde, proceeding through those of Nothung, Siegfried, Brunnhilde, the Rhinegold, and the Curse. It's the history of a noble project gone awry.

That applies to the _Ring_ itself, which didn't end up quite the way Wagner had planned. Wotan's evolution from dreaming heroic dreams to renouncing the world reflects the composer's own philosophical evolution from an optimistic revolutionary out to save the world to one more pessimistic about the efficacy of worldly deeds. It's no accident that the young Siegfried is reborn in the young Parsifal, but is destined to a much different end.


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## Sieglinde (Oct 25, 2009)

Götter. Hagen just steals the show.


Siegfried, on the other hand, is an annoying barbarian Gary Stu who constantly rolls nat 20s. You are never worried for a moment. Dragon? Bitch please, he's so OP he'll one-hit kill it. Mime trying to poison him? He can Detect Evil now!


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## lextune (Nov 25, 2016)

I am giving this topic some thought. It is not an easy choice. As each Drama, interpreted correctly, presents a compelling plot.
Woodduck does a great job of defending (for lack of a better word) Siegfried, which is surely the most maligned of the four, but I couldn't help but notice that he didn't make a choice either.  
...perhaps a choice will prove impossible for me, but perhaps I can collect some interesting thoughts on the matter at the very least.


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## JoeSaunders (Jan 29, 2015)

Thanks for the response Woodduck, I was secretly hoping someone would set me straight on the ins and out of Siegfried's character. It's been a long time since I read anyone on his philosophical underpinnings either (assuming the Magee book I read covered that), so I appreciate your exposition here. 

I'm not entirely satisfied with your first paragraph, however.



Woodduck said:


> I think Siegfried's youth as a "wild child" is quite well represented, and that people who reproach him for being a bit of a dumb brute and unkind to the treacherous Mime are hung up on the seven dwarfs. Siegfried intuitively knows that Mime is neither related to him nor friendly to him, and with the help of nature (the forest bird) the nasty bugger gets natural justice in the end.


I do agree that Wagner's representation of the "wild child" is successful, but note that's not the same as making him likeable! Wagner created a great setting to play with here: the wild untamed youth raised by a treacherous Nibelung. You might think he'd devise a better opening than have the youth harrass Mime with a bear _before _Mime's had a chance to demonstrate his evil deeds! I make a thing of this because I do believe that first impressions count.

Now that I think of it, perhaps the problem (as I see it) goes both ways: it's not just Siegfried being the way that he is, but Mime not being obviously malicious enough from the outset - including Rheingold. Our memory of the gnome is probably quite sympathetic at this point, Mime being the enslaved, toiling, pathetic other half to Alberich, whose efforts in making the tarnhelm come to nothing. I don't like seeing this guy, who has obviously not had the greatest of luck in life, slapped around like he is. Naturally this impression fades as his intentions are made more explicit, but again, first impressions persist.



Woodduck said:


> Life in the primeval forest is not a genteel affair, and in primitive circles killing a dragon and walking through fire to awaken a sleeping maiden on a mountain height are heroic achievements indeed. You just try them sometime!


I get that practically speaking, yes, they are difficult acts, but sheer difficulty isn't the most satisfying thing about heroic achievements. Often what makes them so notable is what it takes to bring oneself to even _try _and attempt these things in the first place. When Bilbo enters Smaug's lair we're amazed he has the guts to be so audacious! Especially since he's just a half-ling. Similarly, in any piece of fiction where there's a standoff between some greater foe and our protagonist, half of the battle is psychological. Because of this (among other things) the protagonist earns our respect.

In Siegfried this element is mostly removed since the key plot point, of course, is that he knows no fear. This is why it comes across to me as unsatisfying, since half the battle has been won already. Add to that his Godly lineage, and his physical prowess does little to impress either.

Of course, as you say, in primitive circles killing a dragon is heroic, full-stop. But we know Wagner was not writing for naive peasants. I'm just a bit surprised he didn't reconfigure the sequence of actions in such a way as to get us on board with this Siegfried chap.



Sieglinde said:


> Siegfried, on the other hand, is an annoying barbarian Gary Stu who constantly rolls nat 20s. You are never worried for a moment. Dragon? Bitch please, he's so OP he'll one-hit kill it. Mime trying to poison him? He can Detect Evil now!


I absolutely ADORE this description of Siegfried. :lol:


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## Byron (Mar 11, 2017)

JoeSaunders said:


> I do agree that Wagner's representation of the "wild child" is successful, but note that's not the same as making him likeable! Wagner created a great setting to play with here: the wild untamed youth raised by a treacherous Nibelung. You might think he'd devise a better opening than have the youth harrass Mime with a bear _before _Mime's had a chance to demonstrate his evil deeds! I make a thing of this because I do believe that first impressions count.


It seems then that the problem for you is that you believe the character of Siegfried is supposed to be entirely likeable. Drop that presupposition and the problem disappears. Instead of projecting our own ideas onto the character about what he _should_ or _could_ be, and then complaining about how far short of that ideal he comes, I believe it is much more insightful to take the character _as he is_, failings and shortcomings and all, and observe how he fits into the drama in this new context that Wagner placed him after revising the ending where he is no longer the redeemer he once was and determining what lessons can be learned from his narrative.



> Now that I think of it, perhaps the problem (as I see it) goes both ways: it's not just Siegfried being the way that he is, but Mime not being obviously malicious enough from the outset - including Rheingold. Our memory of the gnome is probably quite sympathetic at this point, Mime being the enslaved, toiling, pathetic other half to Alberich, whose efforts in making the tarnhelm come to nothing. Of course, as you say, in primitive circles killing a dragon is heroic, full-stop. But we know Wagner was not writing for naive peasants. I'm just a bit surprised he didn't reconfigure the sequence of actions in such a way as to get us on board with this Siegfried chap.


Once again, what you see as a negative, I see as a positive. The fact that Mime _isn't_ some just some malicious, easy to hate baddie like so many other black-and-white cardboard caricatures in other operas is something I think that should be applauded. That we can sympathize for him and his plight to a certain extent makes the character that much more believable, and the fact that we have mixed feelings about both him and Siegfried makes the drama that much more compelling. At the same time, I don't think our sympathy for his character should be taken too far -- he is quite clearly depicted as being conniving, fake, using Siegfried for his own purposes and ultimately plotting to murder Siegfried in cold blood.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Siegfried! I love the way his foster parent tries to suppress and deceive him, but he breaks free, makes his way into the world and wins himself an awesome lady. He reminds me of Jethro in the Beverly Hillbillies in his naivete, strength, and skill.


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## JoeSaunders (Jan 29, 2015)

Byron said:


> It seems then that the problem for you is that you believe the character of Siegfried is supposed to be entirely likeable. Drop that presupposition and the problem disappears. Instead of projecting our own ideas onto the character about what he _should_ or _could_ be, and then complaining about how far short of that ideal he comes, I believe it is much more insightful to take the character _as he is_, failings and shortcomings and all, and observe how he fits into the drama in this new context that Wagner placed him after revising the ending where he is no longer the redeemer he once was and determining what lessons can be learned from his narrative.
> 
> Once again, what you see as a negative, I see as a positive. The fact that Mime _isn't_ some just some malicious, easy to hate baddie like so many other black-and-white cardboard caricatures in other operas is something I think that should be applauded. That we can sympathize for him and his plight to a certain extent makes the character that much more believable, and the fact that we have mixed feelings about both him and Siegfried makes the drama that much more compelling. At the same time, I don't think our sympathy for his character should be taken too far -- he is quite clearly depicted as being conniving, fake, using Siegfried for his own purposes and ultimately plotting to murder Siegfried in cold blood.


Perhaps using the word 'likeable' was a mistake. Siegfried certainly doesn't match that description, nor does he need to, for the matter. And I'm not saying that our characters needn't have any flaws at all (just for clarification).

The reason I don't want to abandon the idea that Siegfried is someone who, in some minimal sense, is _worth rooting for_, and so ought to have proper achievements, is that the music tells its own story. When Siegfried awakens Brunnhilde, the music is ecstatically triumphant. The funeral march, at the end, with the reprisal of Siegfried's horn call, is celebratory. The duet in the prologue is subime. I could go on. Wagner's music is evaluatively biased in Siegfried's favour, and I think it makes sense the character is represented in the plot to roughly match this musical evaluation (of course, the music can deviate from the action, as it does, but it still, in Wagner's idiom, ought to be broadly _congruent _with the action). And this is why I find the plot of Siegfried problematic, his achievements are so traditionally unfulfilling (for the reasons outlined in the previous post) when they're obviously intended to be great accomplishments. None of this is incompatible with Siegfried being a complex character, with vices as well as virtues.

Regarding Mime, I too love the fact that he's not a one-dimensional villain. My problem was that our memory of his character in Rheingold frames our perception of the young Siegfried in an unduly negative light, given the actions at the start of Act 1 of Siegfried. I'm not recommending any changes to his character, per se, but would prefer the events to be recast so as not give misleading first impressions.


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## Byron (Mar 11, 2017)

JoeSaunders said:


> The reason I don't want to abandon the idea that Siegfried is someone who, in some minimal sense, is _worth rooting for_, and so ought to have proper achievements, is that the music tells its own story. When Siegfried awakens Brunnhilde, the music is ecstatically triumphant. The funeral march, at the end, with the reprisal of Siegfried's horn call, is celebratory. The duet in the prologue is subime. I could go on. Wagner's music is evaluatively biased in Siegfried's favour, and I think it makes sense the character is represented in the plot to roughly match this musical evaluation (of course, the music can deviate from the action, as it does, but it still, in Wagner's idiom, ought to be broadly _congruent _with the action). And this is why I find the plot of Siegfried problematic, his achievements are so traditionally unfulfilling (for the reasons outlined in the previous post) when they're obviously intended to be great accomplishments. None of this is incompatible with Siegfried being a complex character, with vices as well as virtues.


I can't really argue with anything you write here -- there is much that is noble and exalted in his music. But I'd simply point out, as you yourself noted, there are other times where there music and the character are brutish and rash...or worse, downright appalling, as when he goes back to the rock disguised as Gunther and rips the ring from Brunnhilde's finger. All of this needs to be taken into account if we are to come to terms with the character and what role he represents in the drama. Now you're right, the drama sets us up to root for Siegfried. He represents the dream of _THE_ Hero as _The_ Answer, and it is a dream that dies hard. Yet die it does, right along with the gods. The Funeral music depicts not just the death of a hero, but with the death of a dream, and perhaps this is why it is so moving: it does justice to the loss it represents, even as it leaves no doubt about the finality of that loss.

Wagner does introduce into the Ring one version of the hero who most would consider a clear success. Siegmund. But even heroes of this sort, who are entirely real and admirable, cannot be expected to prevail for long, let alone set the world right. Great and creative dramatist that he was, Wagner would have been entirely capable of modifying the plot had it failed to accord with his broader purposes. In the greater context of the ring, Siegfried represents not just "the hero", but heroism of a very specific sort: one who represents an aspect and a supposed solution to Wotan's need for a free being. One who is bold, unfettered, reckless, and unknowing. He is everything that Wotan is not, or cannot be. But these traits render his version of a higher humanity just as unviable as Wotan's are unattainable. The plot is no accident, and reflects no failure on Wagner's part to modify his original design. Perhaps Siegfried's ultimate significance is to make it palpable that his type of heroism is no panacea. It caries with it some that is admirable and preferable to the old order, but the mixture of the naïve and heedless ultimately causes considerable damage and sows the seeds of its own destruction.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

JoeSaunders said:


> Thanks for the response Woodduck, I was secretly hoping someone would set me straight on the ins and out of Siegfried's character. It's been a long time since I read anyone on his philosophical underpinnings either (assuming the Magee book I read covered that), so I appreciate your exposition here.
> 
> I'm not entirely satisfied with your first paragraph, however.
> 
> ...


Wild children aren't expected to be entirely likable, are they? That's what civilization is for. I'd say Siegfried behaves pretty much the way we'd expect him to, and much better than a lot of teenagers. In his case the question "Where the heck are the parents?" has a satisfactory answer.

Our responses to the characters in the _Ring_ need to be moderated by a perception of the parts they play in the whole unfolding drama, in which they are progressively overwhelmed by, and their actions and destinies increasingly determined by, forces larger than they are. Siegfried is, despite his independent spirit, still a creation and tool of Wotan. He's the god's last hope for restoring the ring to its home in the primal waters and cleansing the world of Alberich's curse. It's ironic that Siegfried is also viewed by Mime as a tool for acquiring the power of the ring for himself, but this is the fundamental irony, and tragedy, of the story as a whole, which is, at the level of deep psychology, a parable of the corrosive power of ego and the painful struggle for a higher state of consciousness. No one, no matter how nominally good or evil, escapes that corrosive power, and Alberich and Wotan turn out to be, in the Wanderer's words, "Schwarz-Alberich" and "Licht-Alberich," two sides of the same tarnished coin. The seeds of higher consciousness and the possibility of redemption reside in Brunnhilde, not in Siegfried, in whose natural instincts Wotan places his vain hope and Brunnhlde places a faith that turns out to be naive and ends with her betrayal at his hands. Siegfried is, exactly like Parsifal, a "reine Tor," an innocent fool, and as with Parsifal his naive self-assurance is shaken in the presence of a woman. But, unlike Parsifal, Siegfried has not the prior experience of Amfortas: he is unable to recognize and empathize with suffering when he meets Wotan on the fiery height, and so he succumbs to the illusion that sexual love will fulfill him, forgets his fear, and thus is closed off from the possibility of maturing further and becoming the real hero we would like him to be.

_Siegfried_ is a tale of naive, youthful optimism, and _Gotterdammerung_ is a tale of complete disillusionment. Siegfried himself is the unknowing pawn of forces bigger than anyone in the story except Wotan could imagine, and once the brash and ignorant boy shatters Wotan's spear of power the darkness inevitably descends on everyone. Siegfried's awakening of Brunnhilde and their celebration of love, the most triumphantly sunlit moment in the _Ring,_ is also its most ironic, as the final, apocalyptic words of their morning of love make clear:

Farewell, Walhall's light-giving world!
Thy stately towers let fall in dust!
Farewell, glittering pomp of gods!
End in bliss, o eternal host!
Now rend, ye Norns, your rope of runes!
Dusk of gods in darkness arise!
Night of their downfall dawn in mist!
Now streams toward me Siegfried's star:
he is forever, is for aye
my wealth and world, my one and all:

Brünnhilde lives, Brünnhilde laughs!
Hail, o day that shineth around us!
Hail, o sun that lighteth our way!
Hail, o light that hast risen from night!
Hail, o world where Brünnhilde lives!
She wakes, she lives,
she greets me with laughter:
proudly streameth Brünnhilde's star!
She is forever, is for aye
my wealth and world, my one and all!

Light of loving, laughing death!


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Byron said:


> I can't really argue with anything you write here -- there is much that is noble and exalted in his music. But I'd simply point out, as you yourself noted, there are other times where there music and the character are brutish and rash...or worse, downright appalling, as when he goes back to the rock disguised as Gunther and rips the ring from Brunnhilde's finger. All of this needs to be taken into account if we are to come to terms with the character and what role he represents in the drama. Now you're right, the drama sets us up to root for Siegfried. He represents the dream of _THE_ Hero as _The_ Answer, and it is a dream that dies hard. Yet die it does, right along with the gods. The Funeral music depicts not just the death of a hero, but with the death of a dream, and perhaps this is why it is so moving: it does justice to the loss it represents, even as it leaves no doubt about the finality of that loss.
> 
> Wagner does introduce into the Ring one version of the hero who most would consider a clear success. Siegmund. But even heroes of this sort, who are entirely real and admirable, cannot be expected to prevail for long, let alone set the world right. Great and creative dramatist that he was, Wagner would have been entirely capable of modifying the plot had it failed to accord with his broader purposes. In the greater context of the ring, Siegfried represents not just "the hero", but heroism of a very specific sort: one who represents an aspect and a supposed solution to Wotan's need for a free being. One who is bold, unfettered, reckless, and unknowing. He is everything that Wotan is not, or cannot be. But these traits render his version of a higher humanity just as unviable as Wotan's are unattainable. The plot is no accident, and reflects no failure on Wagner's part to modify his original design. Perhaps Siegfried's ultimate significance is to make it palpable that his type of heroism is no panacea. It caries with it some that is admirable and preferable to the old order, but the mixture of the naïve and heedless ultimately causes considerable damage and sows the seeds of its own destruction.


Beautifully expressed, Byron.


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

1 Siegfried's back is not baptized because he will never run from battle
2 He kills the dragon, takes the Ring
3 Wotan,"Only the bravest of heroes can penetrate the fire.
4 Siegfried goes through the fire.

Siegfried gives the Ring to Brunhilde out of love. Chooses love over power/material things. In other words, does the opposite of Alberich, who trades love for the Ring.

Anything to this? ^^^^


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Itullian said:


> 1 Siegfried's back is not baptized because he will never run from battle
> 2 He kills the dragon, takes the Ring
> 3 Wotan,"Only the bravest of heroes can penetrate the fire.
> 4 Siegfried goes through the fire.
> ...


Siegfried could only choose love over power and wealth if he knew what they were. To him the ring is just a shiny bauble until Brunnhilde gives him a use for it, so his giving it to her indicates no wisdom or virtue in him and doesn't mitigate the unfolding tragedy. Later, when Brunnhilde chooses to keep the ring despite Waltraute's pleading, her own illusion that "love conquers all" is cruelly undermined by Siegfried's unwitting treachery. Siegfried gets one more chance to return the ring to the Rhinemaidens but again wastes it out of ignorance. Brunnhilde figures it all out in the end, providing the first note of hope for redemption of the whole mess, which can only be achieved by the destruction of the gods. It makes perfect sense that the last thing we hear is the melody Sieglinde sang in praise of her. Love does win something in the end, but it's a love without illusion, wiser than the dream Siegfried and Brunnhilde shared.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Woodduck said:


> Siegfried could only choose love over power and wealth if he knew what they were. *To him the ring is just a shiny bauble* until Brunnhilde gives him a use for it, so his giving it to her indicates no wisdom or virtue in him and doesn't mitigate the unfolding tragedy. Later, when Brunnhilde chooses to keep the ring despite Waltraute's pleading, her own illusion that "love conquers all" is cruelly undermined by Siegfried's unwitting treachery. *Siegfried gets one more chance to return the ring to the Rhinemaidens but again wastes it out of ignorance*. Brunnhilde figures it all out in the end, providing the first note of hope for redemption of the whole mess, which can only be achieved by the destruction of the gods. It makes perfect sense that the last thing we hear is the melody Sieglinde sang in praise of her. Love does win something in the end, but it's a love without illusion, wiser than the dream Siegfried and Brunnhilde shared.


Jethro Bodine! One of my lifelong heros!


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

Woodduck said:


> Siegfried could only choose love over power and wealth if he knew what they were. To him the ring is just a shiny bauble until Brunnhilde gives him a use for it, so his giving it to her indicates no wisdom or virtue in him and doesn't mitigate the unfolding tragedy. Later, when Brunnhilde chooses to keep the ring despite Waltraute's pleading, her own illusion that "love conquers all" is cruelly undermined by Siegfried's unwitting treachery. Siegfried gets one more chance to return the ring to the Rhinemaidens but again wastes it out of ignorance. Brunnhilde figures it all out in the end, providing the first note of hope for redemption of the whole mess, which can only be achieved by the destruction of the gods. It makes perfect sense that the last thing we hear is the melody Sieglinde sang in praise of her. Love does win something in the end, but it's a love without illusion, wiser than the dream Siegfried and Brunnhilde shared.


Fascinating stuff. You always make me think Woodduck.


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## lextune (Nov 25, 2016)

So I am still giving this topic thought, (still no favorite from me though). And I thought I would add more fodder to the Siegfried debate.
Certainly he is often portrayed as a brute, or bully, or just plain dumb. But delving further in Wagner's sources can sometimes be quite illuminating. By way of example, lets look at the very first words Siegfried speaks(sings) to Gunther:

Dich hört' ich rühmen
weit am Rhein:
nun ficht mit mir,
oder sei mein Freund!

I heard you praised
far along the Rhine:
now fight with me, 
or be my friend!

This seemingly needless belligerence actually comes directly from a corresponding moment in the Nibelungenlied, and seems to usually be interpreted as arrogance, that is later punished. But as Friedrich Panzer pointed out; the 'greeting' has precedent in English and Scandinavian history, as the traditional way of asserting territorial rights.

Still aggressive I suppose, but less mindless violence than is usually thought, and more of a declaration of authority.


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## lextune (Nov 25, 2016)

Itullian said:


> 1 Siegfried's back is not baptized because he will never run from battle


I always loved this bit. Wagner's tribute to Siegfried's fearlessness/bravery. Although I don't think baptized is a good word choice. Brünnhilde speaks of a magic spell, a runic lore....

In the Nibelungenlied Siegfried's invulnerability comes from bathing in the nameless dragon's blood. But unbeknownst to Siegfried a lime leaf lands on his back between his shoulder blades leaving him vulnerable in that one spot.

There is a reason it is a lime/linden tree leaf too, but I can't recall it off the top of my head, and I am too lazy to get out any books right now.


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## Tchaikov6 (Mar 30, 2016)

Wow, everyone is blowing my mind with their insight and knowledge. I never looked this deep into the operas. Thank you for the responses!


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## lextune (Nov 25, 2016)

Another point worth remembering concerning plot, is translation, (unless one speaks German of course).

Wagner's poetic gifts are beyond reproach, but can easily be lost, or at least heavily obscured, by poor translations. Many moments that might seem like weak plot-points, can actually seem transcendent or at the least, more poetic, when translated properly.

If English is your native language I highly recommend Stewart Spencer's translation. I do believe I have read every major English translation, and none of them approach the care to Wagner's poetry that Spencer takes. His introductory essay on his translation alone is incredibly illuminating.

Here is but one example I recently experienced. I watched the DVD of Levine's Die Walkure from the Met, the subtitles are from William Mann's 1967 translation. In Act I Siegmund sings:

In Fehde fiel ich wo ich mich fand,
Zorn traf mich wohin ich zog;
gehrt' ich nach Wonne, weckt' ich nur Weh':
drum mußt' ich mich Wehwalt nennen;
des Wehes waltet ich nur.

Mann's translation on the DVD is just awful:

I ran into feuds wherever I found myself
I met disfavor wherever I went
If I hankered for happiness,
I only stirred up misery
So I had to be called Woeful
Woe, is all I possess.

Frederick Jameson's much better version translates it this way:

In feuds I fell wherever I dwelt,
wrath met me wherever I fared;
striving for gladness, woe was my lot:
my name then be Wehwalt ever;
for woe still waits on my steps.

Lastly; here is Spencer:

I was caught up in feuds 
wherever I went
and met by anger
wherever I fared;
though I craved for bliss, 
I caused only woe:-
and so I must call myself Wehwalt;
for woe is all I have known.

Spencer is as literal as possible, unless the literal is obviously terrible, ('hankered for happiness', or other such nonsense, 'go and bite your own bottom, son of a silly person'). It is an enormous task, and art unto itself, to balance the literal with the idiomatic, and maintain the poetic flavor of Wagner's original.

The difficulties of translation to both poetry and prose have occupied my mind for many years. I have always thought that my own interpretations of the piano literature were an art quite comparable to the art of translation (literary interpretation!) 
Here is a blog post I wrote about this very topic back in 2009 using the Schlegel quote Schumann put before his Fantasy:
http://lextune.blogspot.com/2009/06/i-used-to-think-i-had-read-doctor.html


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

lextune said:


> Another point worth remembering concerning plot, is translation, (unless one speaks German of course).
> 
> Wagner's poetic gifts are beyond reproach, but can easily be lost, or at least heavily obscured, by poor translations. Many moments that might seem like weak plot-points, can actually seem transcendent or at the least, more poetic, when translated properly.
> 
> ...


What English translation is in the Goodall Ring, do you know? And is it any good? Here is an interesting quote from Wagner:

"I hope you will see to it that my works are performed in English; only in this way can they be intimately understood by an English speaking audience." Richard Wagner Oct 22 1877

There is another Ring sung in English available at Opera Depot, but having Goodall, I never bothered to pursue it.


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## lextune (Nov 25, 2016)

Goodall is the Andrew Porter translation. 

Porter's work is an entirely different endeavour. He was not attempting to create a poetic translation to be read, but a English translation to be sung. 
It is an amazing accomplishment, with a host of musical difficulties far outside the realm of translation. Metric patterns had to match the German to work with the music. Mr. Porter's fanciful imagination for metaphor, and brilliant alliterations, are an artistic achievement unto themselves that border on genius. And his art is almost as much a musical work as a literary one.


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## lextune (Nov 25, 2016)

Fritz Kobus said:


> There is another Ring sung in English available at Opera Depot, but having Goodall, I never bothered to pursue it.


I don't know any other Ring in English, but Porter's is the only singable English translation.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I don't speak German, and so can't have a personal view on the matter, but it's the general understanding that in the _Ring_ Wagner was trying for an archaic flavor that differed in some respects from modern German and would presumably be impossible to duplicate in translation. Porter, as I read him, didn't try to do that, and I suspect that that was wise. A translation for singing needs above all to be singable and comprehensible.


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## lextune (Nov 25, 2016)

Woodduck said:


> it's the general understanding that in the _Ring_ Wagner was trying for an archaic flavor that differed in some respects from modern German


This is correct. Wagner brilliantly created his own pseudo-archaic form of German, an amalgam of middle high German, and modern German, all in service of the alliterative, (the Stabreim); which would transform his original prose to poetry, creating the underlying metrical structure of the poem, which would in turn help create the structure of the music itself.


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## lextune (Nov 25, 2016)

_deleted by poster_


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

lextune said:


> I don't know any other Ring in English, but Porter's is the only singable English translation.



Der Ring des Nibelungen (In English) - Kingsley, Herincx, Haywood, de Marseille, Estes, Mangin, Cariaga; Holt. 1977


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

Fritz Kobus said:


> Der Ring des Nibelungen (In English) - Kingsley, Herincx, Haywood, de Marseille, Estes, Mangin, Cariaga; Holt. 1977


According to OperaDepot this version is Porter's singing translation.


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## lextune (Nov 25, 2016)

Yes, Porter is the only singable English translation. It is likely to be the only one there will ever be. It would be a virtual impossibility to improve it. 

Sadly, it looks like that recording has cuts though.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Fritz Kobus said:


> Der Ring des Nibelungen (In English) - Kingsley, Herincx, Haywood, de Marseille, Estes, Mangin, Cariaga; Holt. 1977


I'm not taken with the musical examples from that recording. The voices sound rather lightweight; I remember Raimund Herincx on recordings of Baroque music back in the 1960s, and would never have imagined him as a Wotan. The Hagen here doesn't even sound like a bass!

Knowing Wagner in German for as long as I have, I have difficulty listening to him in translation. Wagner set texts to music with great sensitivity to vowels and consonants, and hearing a long note sung on the wrong vowel is jarring, as in the excerpt from _Siegfried._


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## lextune (Nov 25, 2016)

Woodduck said:


> Knowing Wagner in German for as long as I have, I have difficulty listening to him in translation. Wagner set texts to music with great sensitivity to vowels and consonants, and hearing a long note sung on the wrong vowel is jarring, as in the excerpt from _Siegfried._


I must admit to the same bias....

I feel confident that Wagner would have been amazed at the erudition of Porter's singable translation, and as I have already said; it is a marvel of musical/literary art, but I just can't enjoy it the way I do the original German.

If you are a native English speaker, put on your favorite recording, and read along with Stewart Spencer's translation. It is a revelation. Beautiful. Powerful. Monumental.

https://www.amazon.com/Wagners-Ring-Nibelung-Stewart-Spencer/dp/0500281947


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

lextune said:


> Yes, Porter is the only singable English translation. It is likely to be the only one there will ever be. It would be a virtual impossibility to improve it.
> 
> Sadly, it looks like that recording has cuts though.


Now that you mention it, I recall something about cuts and so again figure *Good*all is *good* enough for me.


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## lextune (Nov 25, 2016)

Itullian said:


> Siegfried gives the Ring to Brunhilde out of love. Chooses love over power/material things. In other words, does the opposite of Alberich, who trades love for the Ring.
> 
> Anything to this? ^^^^


Alberich gives up love for power in the beginning, and it is *Brünnhilde* who gives up power for love in the end.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

lextune said:


> Alberich gives up love for power in the beginning, and it is *Brünnhilde* who gives up power for love in the end.


Brunnhilde never wanted power. She gives up, not her own desire for power, but Wotan's, vicariously. In _Walkure_ she says to him,"Who am I, if not your will?", and she remains faithful to him in doing always what he truly desires, even when it means opposing his official commands. It has been Wotan's struggle to learn to will his fate and to renounce once and for all the rule of the gods. But he, bound by treaty, cannot take back the ring even to renounce it. Brunnhilde alone, inheriting the ring and finally understanding fully the evil that it brings, can give it away once and for all, and thus fulfill his final wish.


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## lextune (Nov 25, 2016)

It is true of course that Brunnhilde follows Wotan's deepest desire, rather than his explicit command, but we all know what happens as a result...

Stripped of her power, the Brunnhilde that Siegfried awakens is no longer the 'will of Wotan'. By Wotan's own runic magic she is cast free, weak, and bound to he who will wake her:

Deinen leichten Sinn lass' dich denn leiten:
von mir sagtest du dich los.
...
Du folgtest selig
der Liebe Macht:
folge nun dem
den du lieben mußt!

"Be guided now
by your own light thoughts:
from me you have cast yourself free.
...
You blissfully followed
the force of love
now follow him
whom you're forced to love"

In Act I of Götterdämmerung Waltraute comes to Brunnhilde and tells her of Wotan's dream:

des tiefen Rheines Töchtern
gäbe den Ring sie wieder zurück,
von des Fluches Last
erlös't wär Gott und Welt!

"if she gave back the Ring
to the deep Rhine's daughters
from the weight of the curse
both god and world would be freed"

She pleads with her sister:

An deiner Hand, der Ring,
er ist's; hör' meinen Rath:
für Wotan wirf ihn von dir!

"Upon your hand, the Ring
that's it: o heed my counsel!
For Wotan, cast it away from you!"


So, even when Wotan still thinks returning the gold might save the gods, Brunnhilde's replies are unequivocal:

Welch' banger Träume Mären
meldest du Traurige mir!
Der Götter heiligem
Himmels-Nebel
bin ich Thörin enttaucht:
...
Geh' hin zu der Götter
heiligem Rath!
Von meinem Ringe
raune ihnen zu:
die Liebe ließe ich nie,
mir nähmen nie sie die Liebe,
stürzt' auch in Trümmern
Walhalls strahlende Pracht!
...
Schwinge dich fort, fliege zu Roß!
Den Reif entführst du mir nicht!

"What tales of fearful dreams
are you telling me, sad sister?
Poor fool that I am,
I have risen above
the mists of the gods' hallowed heaven:
...
Go hence to the gods'
hallowed council,
of my Ring
tell them only this:
I shall never relinquish love,
they'll never take love from me
though Valhalla's glittering pomp
should moulder into dust!
...
Betake yourself hence
fly off on your horse
you'll never take the Ring from me!"


You are right that she never desires power. And "inherit" is the right word for how she acquires it. (She speaks of the Ring as "her inheritance" as the funeral pyre is being built). But acquire it she does, (as Hagen recoils, terrified, by the dead Siegfried's outstretched hand!), and she gives it up. Not for Wotan, but for her love of Siegfried. In fact, just before the immolation she speaks of her grief, and Wotan's guilt. 


Ächter als er schwur Keiner Eide;
treuer als er hielt Keiner Verträge;
lautrer als er liebte kein And'rer:
Und doch, alle Eide, alle Verträge,
die treueste Liebe, trog keiner wie Er!
Wiß't ihr, wie das ward?
(nach oben blickend)
O ihr, der Eide ewige Hüter!
Lenkt euren Blick auf mein blühendes Leid;
erschaut eure ewige Schuld!
Meine Klage hör', du hehrster Gott!
Durch seine tapferste That,
dir so tauglich erwünscht,
weihtest du den, der sie gewirkt,
dem Fluche dem du verfielest:
Mich mußte der Reinste verrathen,
daß wissend würde ein Weib!

Never were oaths
more nobly sworn:
never were treaties
kept more truly:
never did any man
love more loyally:
and yet every oath,
every treaty,
the truest love-
no one betrayed as he did!
Do you know why that was so?-
Oh you, eternal
guardian of oaths!
Direct your gaze 
on my burgeoning grief:
behold your eternal guilt!
Hear my lament, 
most mighty of gods!
By the bravest of deeds
which you dearly desired
you doomed him
who wrought it to suffer
the curse to which you in turn succumbed
it was I whom the purest man
had to betray,
that a woman might grow wise.


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## lextune (Nov 25, 2016)

To be fair, as I review what I've written, I can see in other passages, text that could be seen as Brünnhilde finally fulfilling Wotan desires again too....I won't post more long quotes, (and essentially have a debate with myself, ha!). Suffice to say that I wish Woodduck and I were producing the next big production of The Ring! 

Interestingly though, the contradictions that do exist in some character motives, (just like in real life), did not escape Wagner's notice of course. And I think they were left in with great purpose, to great dramatic effect.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

^^^ I think you're right in suggesting that even Brunnhilde is not entirely immune from the curse of the ring, but she doesn't attempt to use it as a tool of domination. Her single exercise of power over another is in having Siegfried killed, and that is arguably an act of justice for the most inexplicable and terrible of crimes, the betrayal of love. But both she and Wotan must learn that love itself can be selfish, and thus can contain the very egoism that at a less evolved level of consciousness engenders the desire for power.

Alberich shows at the very beginning of the _Ring_ how the desire for power arises from the same basic egoism that powers the yearning for a purely selfish love and blossoms when that yearning is frustrated. The raw power which Alberich covets and exercises reveals an infantile state of being in which ego reigns unchecked and a sense of morality has not yet arisen. Wotan represents a consciousness in the process of evolving morally, and he is thus capable of acquiring wisdom as the corrosive implications of desiring and possessing power dawn on him. Brunnhilde represents the wisest part of Wotan, the part of him motivated by love, and it isn't her inmost nature to desire dominion over others (which enables her alone to perform the final sacrificial, redemptive act). She refuses to give up the ring at Waltraute's bidding not because she desires any power it might bestow but because it represents Siegfried's love. But the notion that she can escape the curse by, in effect, neutralizing it, making the ring itself into a symbol of love, the very thing Alberich renounced in order to forge the ring, is a fatal illusion, an illusion she can't recognize as such because she is blind to the egoism in sexual love. Her illusion is that of "redemption by eros," which is one of the themes of Wagner's work as a whole; in opera after opera he shows how the pursuit of that illusion results in disaster and death. Brunnhilde paradoxically represents, then dispels, then fulfills at a higher level of moral consciousness Wagner's dream of the salvation of man by woman's love, showing that love is necessary but not sufficient by showing, at least implicitly, that in order to be salvific it must be sacrificial and not selfish.

Once the world of Wotan/Alberich and the reign of power have gone up in the purifying flames of Siegfried's funeral pyre, Wagner is ready to offer his final, more explicit, representation of this problem which he wrestles with throughout his work. Siegfried, reborn as Parsifal, is able by dint of compassion to reject the selfish love promised by Kundry and so redeem, in full consciousness, the world from Wotan and Alberich's reincarnations, Titurel and Klingsor.


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## lextune (Nov 25, 2016)

Thanks for the reply. It is very well said. 

I can't help but notice that neither of us has picked a "favorite plot", ha! I don't think I'll be able to. So, apologies to the original poster. :cheers:


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

lextune said:


> Thanks for the reply. It is very well said.
> 
> I can't help but notice that neither of us has picked a "favorite plot", ha! I don't think I'll be able to. So, apologies to the original poster. :cheers:


No, the _Ring_ is all one story. No favorite plot for me.


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