# How should we interpret the end of Gotterdammerung?



## Bellerophon (May 15, 2020)

'How are we to interpret the end of Gotterdammerung'?

Percy Scholes in The Oxford Companion to Music concludes his entry on the Ring, 'Valhalla is seen in the distance in flames - final illumination of that twilight of the gods which is now to darken into eternal night'. But I have also heard it suggested that it is the end of the gods only, not of the world, and that Wagner intended this to mark the beginning of a new world of humanity without gods. 

Is there any unambiguous record of what Wagner himself intended, or did he intend to leave the question open, or perhaps modify his intentions for the conclusion of the Ring over the twenty plus years of its creation?

Any thoughts would be welcome.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Bellerophon said:


> 'How are we to interpret the end of Gotterdammerung'?
> 
> Percy Scholes in The Oxford Companion to Music concludes his entry on the Ring, 'Valhalla is seen in the distance in flames - final illumination of that twilight of the gods which is now to darken into eternal night'. But I have also heard it suggested that it is the end of the gods only, not of the world, and that Wagner intended this to mark the beginning of a new world of humanity without gods.
> 
> ...


Wagner seems explicit here, it's just the hall of the gods which burns, presumably the gods with it, and Hagen drowns. The men and the women remain. In my opinion that's the point of the opera -- the men and the women are left to build a world without the gods' rule, or the rule of the likes of Hagen. What such a world looks like is an interesting question: that's what Wagner wants his audience to think about.



> (Woglinde and Wellgunde embrace his neck with
> their arms and draw him with them into the depths
> as they swim away. Flosshilde, swimming in front of
> the others toward the back, holds up the regained
> ...


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

Mandryka said:


> Wagner seems explicit here, it's just the hall of the gods which burns, presumably the gods with it, and Hagen drowns. The men and the women are left to alive. In my opinion that's the point of the opera -- the men and the women are left to build a world without the gods' rule, or the rule of the likes of Hagen.


Except that there are still plenty of people the likes of Hagen.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

JAS said:


> Except that there are still plenty of people the likes of Hagen.


Well, when they watch it in Bayreuth they'll see that his way is not the best way, they'll be transformed.

I wonder if the POTUS is a Hagen type.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

Mandryka said:


> Well, when they watch it in Bayreuth they'll see that his way is not the best way, they'll be transformed.


Or stay away from burning Valhallas . . .


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

I've never thought about it, since by then I'm usually asleep...:lol:


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

We know Wagner wrote multiple endings, for instance the atheistic "Feuerbach Ending" which is less ambiguous, and Brunnhilde states plainly that the world is redeemable only through power of mankind's humanistic love (Gods all die in irrelevance), to the "Schopenhauer Ending" which would give it the same essential ending as Tristan, Brunnhilde undergoes a sort of "enlightenment", and it's a Buddhistic end-of-the-world-as-suffering. He seemed to want to give it the Buddhist/Schopenhauer treatment as that greatly underscores his thinking later in life, but couldn't make it mesh with the rest of the Ring already completed, so he lands somewhat more ambiguously between the two.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

mbhaub said:


> I've never thought about it, since by then I'm usually asleep...:lol:


My behind is at any rate! :lol:


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

Ask the mods moving this towards the Opera section, more traffic there.


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## Bellerophon (May 15, 2020)

I’m happy to go with that if it will generate more interest.

Dear Moderators, could you move this to the Opera section please?


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

Bellerophon said:


> I'm happy to go with that if it will generate more interest.
> 
> Dear Moderators, could you move this to the Opera section please?


You must send them a P.M .
You can find them at the end of every thread.


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