# Do you prefer Wagner's Ring or Lord of the Rings?



## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

Simple poll. Choose one. Which do you like prefer? And why? (Story about stolen rings and returning it.)


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

I think do you prefer Wagners ring or the Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun by Tolkien? would be a more appropriate question.
Still I don´t think it is fair to compare a novel to an opera. They are different things. A novel is mostly story and substance an opera is mostly form and the largest part of the form is the music which a novel don´t have. It is possible to like Wagner's Ring without caring for dwarfs and magic rings. To enjoy Lord of the Rings it is nearly impossible to not have an interest in dwarfs and magic rings.


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

I like all three: LOTR, Wagner's Ring and the Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun, but I think comparing the first two is quite pointless. LOTR is several hundred pages of excellent writing, Wagner's Ring is some 14 hours of glorious music, they are each a world of its own.


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## Don Fatale (Aug 31, 2009)

The tension is unbearable. I wonder which way this one will go


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

I remember back in high school (early '70s) when Tolkien was all the rage. I read the Hobbit and... meh! I never felt compelled to follow my classmates through all four volumes of The Lord of the Rings. I had outgrown the fantasy stories by my mid-teens. A few years ago, the movies came out. I'd never liked movies with goofy animated characters. I don't think I missed much. Perhaps it is the music, perhaps the old legend: whatever it is, the Nibelungen story has staying power for me.


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## Guest (Dec 28, 2014)

albertfallickwang said:


> *Simple poll.* Choose one. Which do you like prefer? And why? (Story about stolen rings and returning it.)


My dear Albert, you must know by now that on TC there is no such thing as a "simple poll", these being, rather, minefields set up by opposing ideologies.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

There is no option for finding both some kind of dreadful? -- because I find each of them some kind of just awful.


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## Balthazar (Aug 30, 2014)

Lord of the Rings, hands down. (Speaking of the books, of course, not the films.)

It's entertaining, aesthetically pleasing, and presents itself to be judged on its own merits. 

QED


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

Tolkien's writing is quite good, but the films are typical Hollywood fair. I've never paid any attention to the story behind Wagner's Ring Cycle, but I do think there's quality music in there... sandwiched between what seems like interminable tedium.


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

Wagner hands down.
I find the others boooooooooring.


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

TalkingHead said:


> My dear Albert, you must know by now that on TC there is no such thing as a "simple poll", these being, rather, minefields set up by opposing ideologies.


Oh well... so much for my being rather naive about the whole thing.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

That is like comparing apples and tennis balls. But so what? I prefer apples except when playing tennis, which I don't do, and I prefer Wagner except when reading pseudo-Celtic fantasy novels, which I also don't do.


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> That is like comparing apples and tennis balls. But so what? I prefer apples except when playing tennis, which I don't do, and I prefer Wagner except when reading pseudo-Celtic fantasy novels, which I also don't do.


I already compare tennis balls and apples. I can eat one and not worry about the other LOL.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

albertfallickwang said:


> I already compare tennis balls and apples. I can eat one and not worry about the other LOL.


Which one do you eat?


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> That is like comparing apples and tennis balls. But so what? I prefer apples except when playing tennis, which I don't do, and I prefer Wagner except when reading pseudo-Celtic fantasy novels, which I also don't do.


It is like comparing a banana to an apple pie.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Sloe said:


> It is like comparing a banana to an apple pie.


Having never compared those two things, nor even considered doing so, I'm prepared to take your word for it.

I think I may come to regret having brought fruit into the conversation.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Both Tolkien and Wagner could have done with editors. I only know Tolkien's through the film - I have never read it. But I enjoyed the films despite their Wagnerian length. Wagner's Ring is pretty poor as storytelling but then you don't listen for the story - it's the music, the glories outweighing the dull bits.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

The resemblances between Wagner's and Tolkien's tales have long been remarked. Tolkien himself denied any Wagnerian inspiration for his work, but not everyone believes him. Here are a few items on the subject:

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/12/22/the-ring-and-the-rings

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/player/b0375szx

This is particularly good for pointing out resemblances (great site for Wagner studies in general):

http://wagnertripping.blogspot.com/2013/09/wagners-influence-on-jrr-tolkien.html


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

The problem with this comparison is that I have never read or watched the Lord of the Ring, but unless they make an opera out of it, it would be difficult to compare because I will choose the opera.


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## Loge (Oct 30, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> The resemblances between Wagner's and Tolkien's tales have long been remarked. Tolkien himself denied any Wagnerian inspiration for his work, but not everyone believes him. Here are a few items on the subject:
> 
> http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/12/22/the-ring-and-the-rings
> 
> ...


I believe Tolkien was professor of Medieval literature at Oxford. So he had read the Norse Sagas, Prose Edda, Volsunga Saga, Nibelungenlied, Beowulf etc. So Lord of the Rings and The Ring were inspired by the same sources. Though Tolkien used these Medieval texts to create his world, rather than retell their stories.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Florestan said:


> The problem with this comparison is that I have never read or watched the Lord of the Ring, but unless they make an opera out of it, it would be difficult to compare because I will choose the opera.


Same here. ...............


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## Sonata (Aug 7, 2010)

Order of enjoyment:

Lord of the Rings movies, then Wagner's ring to listen to, then Lord of the Rings novels to read, then Wagner's ring to watch.


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## interestedin (Jan 10, 2016)

I prefer
the music that also tells a timeless myth which happens to use a Ring as a way to get the message across 
over 
the novel about a Ring that heavily relies on the rich-in-detail setting in which it tells its story.

But I also prefer Sex over a glass of wine even if both can be done with alcohol.


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

interestedin said:


> I prefer
> the music that also tells a timeless myth which happens to use a Ring as a way to get the message across
> over
> the novel about a Ring that heavily relies on the rich-in-detail setting in which it tells its story.
> ...


But what if you lose your balance and fall on top of the glass of wine? What then?


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## gardibolt (May 22, 2015)

I love them both and am glad I don't have to choose between them.


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## interestedin (Jan 10, 2016)

Barbebleu said:


> But what if you lose your balance and fall on top of the glass of wine? What then?


Hahaha, seems like I should be taking English lessons instead of listening to opera


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

interestedin said:


> Hahaha, seems like I should be taking English lessons instead of listening to opera


Listening to German opera wins over taking English lessons every time


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## Meyerbeer Smith (Mar 25, 2016)

Wagner, easily. I liked LOTR when I read it a couple of times in primary school, but I tried to read it last month. It took a fortnight to trudge my way through the Fellowship, after which I gave up. Prolix and far too many made up names and places.

In Tolkien 's defence, epic fantasy's not my thing. Give me L. Frank Baum, Michael Ende, Walter Moers, James Branch Cabell or Terry Pratchett - whimsical, witty and clever.

The BBC radio series is rather good, though.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

The Lord of the Rings is a better story, but The Ring has much, much better music and the story unfolds operatically.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

LOTR has a better story? We have giant flying eagles, but let's walk to Mordor instead.


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## Reichstag aus LICHT (Oct 25, 2010)

Reminds me of that phone-in on _Norfolk Nights_ with Alan Partridge: "Who is the best lord? Lord of the Rings, Lord of the Dance, or Lord of the Flies?"


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Reichstag aus LICHT said:


> Reminds me of that phone-in on _Norfolk Nights_ with Alan Partridge: "Who is the best lord? Lord of the Rings, Lord of the Dance, or Lord of the Flies?"


In that case: Lord of the Flies.


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## Bettina (Sep 29, 2016)

Wagner's Ring, in large part because I prefer music over literature. Although I do love to read, music (especially opera) gets my vote almost every time!


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## Faustian (Feb 8, 2015)

It's been some number of years since I attempted to read Lord of the Rings, and I made it about halfway through the second book before losing interest. For me it lacks much of the depth and complexity of Wagner's masterpiece. I thought it was a generic quest tale overloaded with extraneous details and long drawn out descriptions of battles and action sequences, a rather schematic plot revolving around forces of "good" versus forces of "evil", and a lot of tedious, dull, and inefficiently worded prose.

The movies on the other hand struck me as little more than standard Hollywood popcorn flicks.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

I think that this poses an impossible choice, at least for me. I read the Hobbit and then The Lord of the Rings Trilogy back when I was in high school, at the recommendation of a teacher. I enjoyed both of these, although I must admit that there is a problem in that the story of The Lord of the Rings seems to end several chapters before the book does. (There is an unusual amount of material after the main crisis has been resolved, which makes for a very lengthy denouement.) The movies are enjoyable as long as one accepts that they have played a great deal with the material, sometime of necessity and sometimes for less justifiable reasons, and the fact that Peter Jackson just cannot stop himself from going too far in pushing the action. It is his weakness, and present in every movie he has done.

I have long enjoyed the music of Wagner's Ring, first the purely orchestral music and over time the fuller context of the opera itself. But I am also finding a very curious thing as I make a concerted effort to better understand Wagner's Ring. In obtaining that understanding, much of the mystique (and therefore the magic) is being lost. Understanding what is happening makes me aware of how drawn out much of the drama is, and the conventions of opera are often awkward even under the best circumstances. (You just have to accept that these two people who have never met before are just meant for each other and that they can be completed devoted to the point of doing all sorts of silly and sometimes disastrous things. You also have to accept that people keep singing about their innermost thoughts and motivations.) These gods are very foolish indeed. It takes very little insight to realize how bad many of their choices are, and to anticipate that they are forcing much worse choices down the road. It is also very hard to actually like almost any of them. Brunehilde is perhaps the most sympathetic, and even she has serious problems. Are we really meant to admire Siegfried as a hero? He is strong, and youthful, and, perhaps, enthusiastic, but is he really brave if he has never known fear? He is also unappreciative, impetuous, selfish, and something of a bully. 

This seems to be a somewhat sad pattern for me. The more I get to know about an opera, the more it comes down to earth from the lofty heights of music. Perhaps I am alone in this feeling.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

JAS said:


> I think that this poses an impossible choice, at least for me. I read the Hobbit and then The Lord of the Rings Trilogy back when I was in high school, at the recommendation of a teacher. I enjoyed both of these, although I must admit that there is a problem in that the story of The Lord of the Rings seems to end several chapters before the book does. (There is an unusual amount of material after the main crisis has been resolved, which makes for a very lengthy denouement.) The movies are enjoyable as long as one accepts that they have played a great deal with the material, sometime of necessity and sometimes for less justifiable reasons, and the fact that Peter Jackson just cannot stop himself from going too far in pushing the action. It is his weakness, and present in every movie he has done.
> 
> I have long enjoyed the music of Wagner's Ring, first the purely orchestral music and over time the fuller context of the opera itself. But I am also finding a very curious thing as I make a concerted effort to better understand Wagner's Ring. In obtaining that understanding, much of the mystique (and therefore the magic) is being lost. Understanding what is happening makes me aware of how drawn out much of the drama is, and the conventions of opera are often awkward even under the best circumstances. (You just have to accept that these two people who have never met before are just meant for each other and that they can be completed devoted to the point of doing all sorts of silly and sometimes disastrous things. You also have to accept that people keep singing about their innermost thoughts and motivations.) These gods are very foolish indeed. It takes very little insight to realize how bad many of their choices are, and to anticipate that they are forcing much worse choices down the road. It is also very hard to actually like almost any of them. Brunehilde is perhaps the most sympathetic, and even she has serious problems. Are we really meant to admire Siegfried as a hero? He is strong, and youthful, and, perhaps, enthusiastic, but is he really brave if he has never known fear? He is also unappreciative, impetuous, selfish, and something of a bully.
> 
> This seems to be a somewhat sad pattern for me. The more I get to know about an opera, the more it comes down to earth from the lofty heights of music. Perhaps I am alone in this feeling.


I don't know how old you are, but I'm 67 and have not found that increasing my understanding of Wagner's operas makes them less interesting. May I suggest a book which I read in my twenties and which opened up for me a new world of perception and thought in my appreciation of Wagner's work? It's _The Ring and its Symbols_, by Robert Donington. Donington comes at Wagner from the standpoint of what I'll call "psychomythology," and he does a brilliant job of getting at meanings which lie below the surface of the drama and which show the often strange and even repellent aspects of the plot and characters as superb expressions of deep-seated and universal psychological forces. I found that Donington's approach could be profitably transported to Wagner's other works, and particularly to _Parsifal_, which, on the surface, is the strangest and most baffling of all Wagner's works but which, I've found, turns out to be the most profound and artistically perfect, and which yields extraordinary insights when approached "psychomythically."


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

JAS said:


> I think that this poses an impossible choice, at least for me. I read the Hobbit and then The Lord of the Rings Trilogy back when I was in high school, at the recommendation of a teacher. I enjoyed both of these, although I must admit that there is a problem in that the story of The Lord of the Rings seems to end several chapters before the book does. (There is an unusual amount of material after the main crisis has been resolved, which makes for a very lengthy denouement.) The movies are enjoyable as long as one accepts that they have played a great deal with the material, sometime of necessity and sometimes for less justifiable reasons, and the fact that *Peter Jackson just cannot stop himself from going too far in pushing the action. It is his weakness, and present in every movie he has done.*
> 
> *I have long enjoyed the music of Wagner's Ring, *first the purely orchestral music and over time the fuller context of the opera itself. But I am also finding a very curious thing as I make a concerted effort to better understand Wagner's Ring. In obtaining that understanding, much of the mystique (and therefore the magic) is being lost. Understanding what is happening makes me aware of how drawn out much of the drama is, and the conventions of opera are often awkward even under the best circumstances. (You just have to accept that these two people who have never met before are just meant for each other and that they can be completed devoted to the point of doing all sorts of silly and sometimes disastrous things. You also have to accept that people keep singing about their innermost thoughts and motivations.) These gods are very foolish indeed. It takes very little insight to realize how bad many of their choices are, and to anticipate that they are forcing much worse choices down the road. It is also very hard to actually like almost any of them. Brunehilde is perhaps the most sympathetic, and even she has serious problems. Are we really meant to admire Siegfried as a hero? He is strong, and youthful, and, perhaps, enthusiastic, but is he really brave if he has never known fear? He is also unappreciative, impetuous, selfish, and something of a bully.
> 
> This seems to be a somewhat sad pattern for me. The more I get to know about an opera, the more it comes down to earth from the lofty heights of music. Perhaps I am alone in this feeling.


Agreed. Jackson made a perfect 90 minute movie (King Kong) into a right bore of a 3 hour epic.

Enjoy the music of Wagner but for goodness sake don't try and work out the 'deep' meaning of the operas. I wonder when whether Richard himself knew what they meant!

Funny but I've never got into Tolkien's writing which is perhaps a weakness for me. So I have to go with the redoubtable Richard


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## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

JAS said:


> These gods are very foolish indeed. It takes very little insight to realize how bad many of their choices are, and to anticipate that they are forcing much worse choices down the road.


This is something I have been pondering over recently. I don't see that they have any real choices, at all. Or, rather, I feel like the one real poor decision Wotan made was offering Freia as payment for Valhalla, and that happens before what we see on stage. After that, he is essentially trapped by circumstances and his nature.

What choices are you thinking of? What should they have done differently?


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## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

As for the main question here, I never really got into Lord of the Rings. I had friends that were big into it in high school and college, but for all I read, I never read those books. I saw the Hobbit cartoon as a child and enjoyed it, though.

I tried to read the first book the summer before the first Jackson film adaptation came out, but I could not bear it. I got as far as meeting Tom Bombadil and gave up. I enjoyed the films but that's about it. I think I have seen them each once since The Return of the King was in theaters. I had meant to see Jackson's Hobbit films, but I missed the first one and haven't gone back to it.

As for _Der Ring des Nibelungen_, Wagner is my favorite opera composer. This year I am planning to (and am on schedule to) listen to every recording of the full cycle available to me.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DavidA said:


> Agreed. Jackson made a perfect 90 minute movie (King Kong) into a right bore of a 3 hour epic.
> 
> Enjoy the music of Wagner but *for goodness sake don't try and work out the 'deep' meaning of the operas.* I wonder when whether Richard himself knew what they meant!
> 
> Funny but I've never got into Tolkien's writing which is perhaps a weakness for me. So I have to go with the redoubtable Richard


Do you intend ever to stop advising people not to probe Wagner's operas for meaning, or am I looking at an eternity of requesting that you knock it off and just admit that the subject is above your pay grade, or for some reason puts you off?

If I thought it would do any good, I'd suggest you read Donington too - or even that you read Woodduck; I've said some pretty insightful things about Wagner - quite a number actually - which some people here appear to appreciate. I suspect that your counseling them to ignore me and other thoughtful writers falls on deaf ears.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Woodduck said:


> ...or am I looking at an eternity of requesting that you knock it off


Either way, it is already determined. Or so argues a recent BBC article, based on the strange relativistic happenstance that an observer, depending on his frame of reference, can see your future before it happens to you. Hope this helps!


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

KenOC said:


> Either way, it is already determined. Or so argues a recent BBC article, based on the strange relativistic happenstance that an observer, depending on his frame of reference, can see your future before it happens to you. Hope this helps!


It was a rhetorical question. Sometimes one just can't bear to hear an answer.


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## bz3 (Oct 15, 2015)

If it makes you feel any better, to nearly everyone else the idea that there are no "deeper meanings" in Wagner's dramas is so amusingly desperate in its flippancy that it would be like our friend David stating plaintively that Shakespeare was merely a syllable-obsessed scribbler with a fixation on monarchs. Most other posters are likely just too nice to say it but it's late on a Saturday so oh well.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

DavidA said:


> Enjoy the music of Wagner but for goodness sake don't try and work out the 'deep' meaning of the operas. I wonder when whether Richard himself knew what they meant!


Since he wrote about his works and their "deep" meaning at great length, it wouldn't be hard to find out.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

mountmccabe said:


> This is something I have been pondering over recently. I don't see that they have any real choices, at all. Or, rather, I feel like the one real poor decision Wotan made was offering Freia as payment for Valhalla, and that happens before what we see on stage. After that, he is essentially trapped by circumstances and his nature.
> 
> What choices are you thinking of? What should they have done differently?


It is a bit complicated by the fact that so many of the subsequent bad choices are born from the original bad choice, itself so stunningly ill-conceived as to guarantee nothing but future grief. It is a little like someone getting caught shoplifting and being blackmailed into much more serious crimes for the sake of keeping that embarrassing detail covered up.

There also seem to be odd inconsistencies in the plotting. Alberich threatens if he gets the ring back he will use it to destroy the gods. (Apparently, it is that powerful.) And yet he doesn't use it to any effect at all when he is captured in the first place. Is the power of the ring disarmed by a net?

To some extent, I accept that this is not reality, but a heightened, artistic kind of imitation of reality. We are dealing in the realm of myth, and myth, like folklore, isn't about the accuracy or consistency of details. I think about The Mabinogion, a collection of early British folklore. In that work, there is a giant who is big enough to wade across the channel, and yet he has children with a normal, human wife. (I don't really want to think about how that might work. His size seems to change depending on circumstances.)


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## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

JAS said:


> It is a bit complicated by the fact that so many of the subsequent bad choices are born from the original bad choice, itself so stunningly ill-conceived as to guarantee nothing but future grief. It is a little like someone getting caught shoplifting and being blackmailed into much more serious crimes for the sake of keeping that embarrassing detail covered up.


That is the basic design. That is to say, it is supposed to be clear that Wotan and the gods are more or less in trouble from the outset. I feel like the idea here is that those bound by rules are not able to counter an untempered lust for power, symbolized by the ring. The ring being forged is what happened, but it seems like if it wasn't the ring, it would have been something else that challenged Wotan's power and doomed the gods. Constrained power is not sustainable; it is not absolute.

If Wotan had not overreached to build his castle in the first place, his power would still have waned and died. I said his poor decision was to offer Freia as payment for the castle, but even this choice was made out of necessity, out of poor options. Wither and wait for the end as others grow in power around you, or take a chance at holding your power? Tempted by Loge, he took that chance.

But this is all kind of secondary to your original point, I guess. One has to have some sympathy and/or empathy for at least some of the characters in the opera to be moved by their problems. Thinking on other operas I don't particularly care for, I'm not sure arguments such as this would change my opinion. If I am put off by my thoughts on the composer, various elements of the story, and/or are not moved enough by the music then most specific complaints are just excuses.

That is to say, for another issue you had with the story of the Ring, it makes sense to me that Sieglinde and Siegmund would immediately care for each other, as much (or more than) it ever does; love at first sight is not an uncommon plot device. But we accept that plot device (or not) as much based on our overall thoughts of the work that uses it than the details within.

[My quick defense: The entire point here is that Wotan primed them to fall in love with each other, including putting them in desperate situations. (Wotan's interference with them is the main is the final, crushing reason Fricka makes Wotan yield). Sieglinde is stuck in a loveless marriage, abused and mistreated by Hunding. It makes sense that she'd be eager for a way out and might fall for someone who looked like he could help her. Siegmund is similarly alone in the world. He is running from unsuccessfully protecting a girl from being forced into a loveless marriage; it makes sense that his sympathy here will be with Sieglinde, as she was once in the position the girl was in].



JAS said:


> There also seem to be odd inconsistencies in the plotting. Alberich threatens if he gets the ring back he will use it to destroy the gods. (Apparently, it is that powerful.) And yet he doesn't use it to any effect at all when he is captured in the first place. Is the power of the ring disarmed by a net?


The ring doesn't shoot lasers or anything, but it can be used to compel others to do one's bidding. In Rheingold scene 3 that's what we see, Alberich isn't using the ring to make gold appear, or extract itself out of the ground. He is using the ring to force the Nibelungs to do the work for him. He has similarly forced Mime to fashion the tarnhelm.

We also see that both the tarnhelm and the ring require chants and contact to work. Alberich is powerless when he is tied up. When Loge loosens Alberich's hand, the latter chants to the ring to command the Nibelungs. Perhaps Alberich should have commanded the Nibelungs to attack Wotan and Loge, but he probably thought that had a low chance of being successful, and/or that that plan would have had a good chance of getting him killed. He thought he was going to be able to keep the ring so he was not yet that desperate. He simply does not entertain the idea that Wotan will steal it from him.

And I see your point about myth, and basically agree. We, ourselves, make myth work or not based on how we feel about it. I want to make the myth about the ring make sense, so I find a construction that works. There isn't a line in the libretto that says that explains exactly how the ring's power works, but I can fill in those details (or merely accept that it somehow makes sense) if I want to.

This is in line with one of the major messages of the Ring. Love and right are superior to - and not always aligned with - rules and logic. Fricka is the goddess of marriage, so she ends up aligned against love. Brünnhilde understands Wotan's true desires, so she rebels against him. Siegfried understands nothing, yet is able to do everything. In the end Brünnhilde and Siegfried still die because they remain tied to the rules and rituals of the gods, but she is able to set things aright and cleanse the world. The gods and their rules are gone; perhaps without their constraints the world can heal itself.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

I absolutely abhor complicated, ridiculous sci-fi stories. Nothing puts me to sleep faster.

I would always prefer listening to classical music or music dramas than reading or watching films.

Therefore bring on Wagner's Ring.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

mountmccabe said:


> The ring doesn't shoot lasers or anything, but it can be used to compel others to do one's bidding. In Rheingold scene 3 that's what we see, Alberich isn't using the ring to make gold appear, or extract itself out of the ground. He is using the ring to force the Nibelungs to do the work for him. He has similarly forced Mime to fashion the tarnhelm.


We see a similar demonstration of the ring's limitations in Act I of _Götterdämmerung_. When the disguised Siegfried moves to take the ring from Brünnhilde, she warns him against its power: "The ring makes me stronger than steel: / never shall you steal it from me." Nonetheless, he quickly wrests it from her in a struggle.

Perhaps it's best to keep in mind the ring's origin: gold from the Rhine. Like gold or other forms of wealth, the ring enables its user to wield tremendous power and influence over time. But also like coin or currency, it won't offer much protection when someone physically attacks you to steal it.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

amfortas said:


> We see a similar demonstration of the ring's limitations in Act I of _Götterdämmerung_. When the disguised Siegfried moves to take the ring from Brünnhilde, she warns him against its power: "The ring makes me stronger than steel: / never shall you steal it from me." Nonetheless, *he quickly wrests it from her in a struggle*.
> 
> Perhaps it's best to keep in mind the ring's origin: gold from the Rhine. Like gold or other forms of wealth, the ring enables its user to wield tremendous power and influence over time. But also like coin or currency, it won't offer much protection when someone physically attacks you to steal it.


I noticed that. Also Wotan wrested the ring from the hand of Alberich. And Fasolt from the hand of Fafner. And how is it that Alberich had no power over Wotan or Loge with the ring after he had been captured. He used it while captive to command the Nibelungs from a distance.

A shame Waltraute didn't do the same to get the ring from Brunhilde and then throw it back to the Rheinmaidens to end the curse. Interestingly, in the Levine DVD Brunhilde actually overpowered Waltraute, though I don't think it was over the ring.


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## Faustian (Feb 8, 2015)

amfortas said:


> We see a similar demonstration of the ring's limitations in Act I of _Götterdämmerung_. When the disguised Siegfried moves to take the ring from Brünnhilde, she warns him against its power: "The ring makes me stronger than steel: / never shall you steal it from me." Nonetheless, he quickly wrests it from her in a struggle.
> 
> Perhaps it's best to keep in mind the ring's origin: gold from the Rhine. Like gold or other forms of wealth, the ring enables its user to wield tremendous power and influence over time. But also like coin or currency, it won't offer much protection when someone physically attacks you to steal it.





Florestan said:


> I noticed that. Also Wotan wrested the ring from the hand of Alberich. And Fasolt from the hand of Fafner. And how is it that Alberich had no power over Wotan or Loge with the ring after he had been captured. He used it while captive to command the Nibelungs from a distance.


You could say the ring represents an outlook on the world that disregards the personality of people, and looks upon them as we look upon mere _things_ or _objects_. The ring is the spell that undoes love by dissolving everything desired -- even the object of love -- in a stream of substitutes. Think of when Freia is exchanged by the Giants for the ring. Only one thing can take away the glance of Freia, namely the thing that was forged by renouncing love. Fasolt seizes the ring from Fafner, with the cry "Back thief! the ring is mine - it is due to me for Freia's glance". He is then murdered for the sake of this object, not merely because the ring is wanted by Fafner, but because it has already colonized the soul of Fafner, telling him that the only love known to him, brotherly love, can be exchanged for something better.

The ring is the mark and product of a primordial alienation, a loss of the acceptance of life as an end in itself. It casts itself over all desire and all aspiration, so that everything, the ring included, is demoted from an end to a means. That is what Alberich's kind of power amounts to: a universal restlessness, which can be overcome only in the individual soul by regaining at a higher and more self-conscious level the sense of oneness that was lost when the "natural order" was left behind.

So the ring doesn't offer an immediate power to defend against assault or danger, but a more insidious power, a form of psychological enslavement. And it only has power over those already disposed to submit to it, those for whom the world is place of exploitation. This makes it clear why the ring has no power over Wotan, who rules by law and treaty, and who therefore is committed to relations of free agreement. In the moment when he seizes the ring from Alberich, Wotan acts through the power that he as won with his spear, which is the power to administer justice and to claim the obedience of those who live by law. Alberich's power belongs in another realm, where justice has been extinguished. Those who fall into that other realm are subject to the ring, but free beings, without the lust for domination, are not. When a free being possesses the ring, he does not possess its magic, but he _is_ subject to its curse. This is why it is inert on the fingers of Siegfried and Brunnhilde. Yet the curse still attaches to it, since it can be purified only by the one who willingly returns it to the Rhine; in other words, by the one who reverses Alberich's renunciation of love for power, by renouncing power for love.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Alberich, appearing out of the dark womb of earth at the very beginning of the story, represents the most primitive state of human consciousness, a pre-moral state in which a crude, childish desire for love can, when love is denied, quickly transform into a desire for revenge and brute power (see any two-year-old, or any dictator). Wotan, remember is a god: a higher, more conscious being, with a moral sense which, even if he acts immorally, still informs his thoughts and behavior. The _Ring_ is most profoundly about the evolution of consciousness, moral consciousness in particular. I think this explains rather simply why Alberich can't use the ring against Wotan and keep him from stealing it: Wotan, as a superior awareness, cannot be controlled by an inferior awareness. That would represent a regression in the inevitable development of consciousness traced by the whole story. The _Ring_ of power must pass into the hands of superior beings, and, finally, human hands which will know what must be done with it.


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

hpowders said:


> I absolutely abhor complicated, ridiculous sci-fi stories. Nothing puts me to sleep faster.


Fantasy and sci-fi are two entirely different things.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

bz3 said:


> If it makes you feel any better, to nearly everyone else the idea that there are no "deeper meanings" in Wagner's dramas is so amusingly desperate in its flippancy that it would be like our friend David stating plaintively that Shakespeare was merely a syllable-obsessed scribbler with a fixation on monarchs. Most other posters are likely just too nice to say it but it's late on a Saturday so oh well.


I wish you guys would read what I actually say rather than something you make up out of your own head! What I actually said was "Enjoy the music of Wagner but for goodness sake don't try and work out the 'deep' meaning of the operas. I wonder when whether Richard himself knew what they meant!" Of course I know Wagner meant there to be 'deep meanings' but I sometimes wonder whether he himself knew or believed in just what he was getting at. I mean, did he believe in the 'love death' in practical terms or just a romantic idea? Does anyone here believe it? Willing to try it in practice? I doubt it.
And to imply I would 'state plaintively that Shakespeare was merely a syllable-obsessed scribbler with a fixation on monarchs' is really going over the top! You don't just misquote people but actually make up things for them to say. Thanks, but I am not that inane. But do remember Shakespeare was writing for ordinary people at the Globe, churning out plays for their entertainment - yes entertainment! He would have been astonished if you thought otherwise. Also writing dodgy history to please the monarchs. Of course, being a genius he produced some of the greatest plays ever written in the process. But I sometimes wonder whether he would be surprised to see the 'holier-than-thou' attention his plays have generated over the years. But when looking at (my favourite) Hamlet for the umpteenth time at the RSC I look primarily to be entertained. As Olivier said, it is the greatest play ever written which you will always find something different in no matter how many times you see it. It works marvellously! Just like it did in Shakespeare's day! Just enjoy! And dear old RW too!


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

To answer the OP. If I'm reading then it's LOTR. If I'm listening or watching/listening then it's Der Ring des Nibelungen. Therefore no vote for a preference from me I'm afraid. They fulfil different requirements.


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## znapschatz (Feb 28, 2016)

Just a word of appreciation: I can't tell you how much I have enjoyed this conversation. Thank you all so very much, and that's all I have to say on the subject :kiss: .


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

DavidA said:


> Of course I know Wagner meant there to be 'deep meanings' but I sometimes wonder whether he himself knew or believed in just what he was getting at. I mean, did he believe in the 'love death' in practical terms or just a romantic idea? Does anyone here believe it? Willing to try it in practice? I doubt it.


Wagner may not have sought a literal "love death," but he did revere Schopenhauer, who advocated a negation of the will to live, as the most astute philosopher he had ever come across. I think he took to Schopenhauer's theories as more of an attitude toward life than a blueprint for specific actions.



DavidA said:


> But do remember Shakespeare was writing for ordinary people at the Globe, churning out plays for their entertainment - yes entertainment! He would have been astonished if you thought otherwise. Also writing dodgy history to please the monarchs. Of course, being a genius he produced some of the greatest plays ever written in the process. But I sometimes wonder whether he would be surprised to see the 'holier-than-thou' attention his plays have generated over the years.


The level of critical engagement and analysis you call "holier-than-thou," I would call simply another way to enjoy Shakespeare's plays. If a passing acquaintance with these works can be pleasurable, surely a more intimate knowledge and deeper understanding can take that enjoyment even further.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

Faustian said:


> . . . the ring has no power over Wotan, who rules by law and treaty, and who therefore is committed to relations of free agreement. In the moment when he seizes the ring from Alberich, Wotan acts through the power that he has won with his spear, which is the power to administer justice and to claim the obedience of those who live by law.


While there are clearly differences between Wotan and Alberich, Wagner also takes pains, musically and dramatically, to establish parallels between them. In particular, when the idea of Wotan obtaining the ring is first brought up in _Das Rheingold_, Loge makes it clear how this is to be accomplished: "By theft! / What a thief stole, / you steal from the thief." None of the gods dispute this characterization of the plan. Similarly, when Wotan has captured Alberich and called him a thief, the dwarf repeatedly turns the accusation back against the god--again meeting no counterargument, other than renewed demands for the ring. We see very little pretense that Wotan's claim to the ring is somehow more just than Alberich's.

Not surprisingly, then, Wotan comes to see himself as both culpable and subject to Alberich's curse. In Act II of _Die Walküre_, he cries out, "I touched Alberich's ring: / greedily I held his gold. / The curse from which I fled / still has not left me." Clearly, Wotan's role as keeper of laws and treaties does not prevent him from acting _un_lawfully--or suffering the repercussions of his crimes.


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## DarkAngel (Aug 11, 2010)

Faustian said:


> So the ring doesn't offer an immediate power to defend against assault or danger, but a more insidious power, a form of psychological enslavement. And it only has power over those already disposed to submit to it, those for whom the world is place of exploitation. This makes it clear why the ring has no power over Wotan, who rules by law and treaty, and who therefore is committed to relations of free agreement. In the moment when he seizes the ring from Alberich, Wotan acts through the power that he as won with his spear, which is the power to administer justice and to claim the obedience of those who live by law. Alberich's power belongs in another realm, where justice has been extinguished. Those who fall into that other realm are subject to the ring, but free beings, without the lust for domination, are not. When a free being possesses the ring, he does not possess its magic, but he _is_ subject to its curse. This is why it is inert on the fingers of Siegfried and Brunnhilde. Yet the curse still attaches to it, since it can be purified only by the one who willingly returns it to the Rhine; in other words, by the one who reverses Alberich's renunciation of love for power, by renouncing power for love.


The ring does represent the "curse" of no love mentioned by rheinmaidens when alberich first stole the gold and forged the ring, but the real object of power is the tarnhelm......why all the attention focused on the silly ring when the tarnhelm can:

- allow user to change form
- allow user to become invisible
- travel great distances

This great emphasis on the ring seems not rational when the tarnhelm is so much more valuable, btw what ever happens to the tarnhelm......not mentioned at conclusion of Gotterdammerung when ring is explicitly returned to rheinmaidens, perhaps I missed something?

*Lord of the rings has very interesting twist* where the ring itself has the power of the tarnhlem, so it is both a curse and an object of great power combined setting up all kinds of conflicts and paradoxes


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

amfortas said:


> *While there are clearly differences between Wotan and Alberich, Wagner also takes pains, musically and dramatically, to establish parallels between them. * In particular, when the idea of Wotan obtaining the ring is first brought up in _Das Rheingold_, Loge makes it clear how this is to be accomplished: "By theft! / What a thief stole, / you steal from the thief." None of the gods dispute this characterization of the plan. Similarly, when Wotan has captured Alberich and called him a thief, the dwarf repeatedly turns the accusation back against the god--again meeting no counterargument, other than renewed demands for the ring. *We see very little pretense that Wotan's claim to the ring is somehow more just than Alberich's.*
> 
> Not surprisingly, then, Wotan comes to see himself as both culpable and subject to Alberich's curse. In Act II of _Die Walküre_, he cries out, "I touched Alberich's ring: / greedily I held his gold. / The curse from which I fled / still has not left me." Clearly, Wotan's role as keeper of laws and treaties does not prevent him from acting _un_lawfully--or suffering the repercussions of his crimes.


Recall that in _Siegfried_ the Wanderer refers to himself as "Licht-Alberich," simultaneously expressing his difference from and his identity with "Schwarz-Alberich." Although in its derivation this means, roughly, "spirit of light" and "spirit of darkness" ("albe" is an old German word for a supernatural being, etymologically related to "elf"), it also expresses the parallel and kinship between the two characters, who commit essentially the same crime but differ in their awareness of its moral significance. His moral consciousness makes Wotan, in a way, guiltier than the purely desire-driven Alberich, but it also makes him capable of redemption - redemption coming as a ceding of power to a more enlightened reign of humanity as inaugurated by Brunnhilde.

I love the way Wagner recapitulates this story of psychological-spiritual evolution in _Parsifal,_ where the "Licht-albe" and "Schwarz-albe" are replicated in the "holy" Titurel and the "evil" Klingsor, who, like Wotan and Alberich, seek to possess the same talisman of power (ring or grail) and offend against nature (love or sexuality) in order to do it. Wotan puts his hopes in the innocent fool Siegfried, who fails in his project, while the knights of the grail put theirs in the forest child Parsifal, who succeeds because he finds salvation not in love as desire but in love as compassion.

_Parsifal_ has rightly been called the fifth opera of the _Ring_ - but then all of Wagner's works were way-stations in the evolution of his own consciousness.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

amfortas said:


> Wagner may not have sought a literal "love death," but he did revere *Schopenhauer, who advocated a negation of the will to live, as the most astute philosopher he had ever come across.* I think he took to Schopenhauer's theories as more of an attitude toward life than a blueprint for specific actions.
> 
> The level of critical engagement and analysis you call "holier-than-thou," I would call simply another way to enjoy Shakespeare's plays. *If a passing acquaintance with these works can be pleasurable, surely a more intimate knowledge and deeper understanding can take that enjoyment even further*.


I am always amused by Wagner's thing with Schopenhauer. If ever a man lived a life where he did not negate his own will (including his will to live) it was Wagner. He was utterly determined to do what he wanted - and that's what he did.

I did not dismiss a more intimate knowledge of the plays - I have studied them myself with great enjoyment. What I did say that they were written primarily as entertainment not philosophical tracts.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

DavidA said:


> I am always amused by Wagner's thing with Schopenhauer. If ever a man lived a life where he did not negate his own will (including his will to live) it was Wagner. He was utterly determined to do what he wanted - and that's what he did.


No doubt--though what he wanted changed over time. The political revolutionary of the Dresden days became the more speculative, mystical seeker of peace from worldly cares we see in his maturity. Wagner may have pursued his artistic goals with tremendous energy throughout all these years, but his outlook had definitely become more resigned and pessimistic over time.



DavidA said:


> I did not dismiss a more intimate knowledge of the plays - I have studied them myself with great enjoyment. What I did say that they were written primarily as entertainment not philosophical tracts.


Fair enough. And there's nothing wrong with enjoying them on multiple levels.


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

I'm with the 42


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DavidA said:


> I am always amused by Wagner's thing with Schopenhauer. If ever a man lived a life where he did not negate his own will (including his will to live) it was Wagner. He was utterly determined to do what he wanted - and that's what he did.


We have a conventional view that an artist's work is an expression of his philosophy of life. It's especially tempting to think this way about an artist as philosophically inclined as Wagner. But I think that in his case - and not only in his - it's more enlightening to view the artist's conscious thinking and behavior as consequences or byproducts of his artistic vision. Wagner was a person who thought poetically, symbolically, emotionally, and it isn't only his works that have to be approached in this way in order to make sense, but the man himself, including his conscious philosophies. To a great extent, and not without reason, he was regarded as wildly eccentric and even ridiculous by his contemporaries (he was frequently lampooned in the press), only his musical genius suggesting that he might have to be taken seriously. I believe we can take his thinking on any number of subjects seriously (difficult though it is to wade through his convoluted prose!), but we need to realize that most of what he thought and said was an attempt to rationalize his intense feeling life, and that the vicissitudes of his life in the world were shaped by his need to give those feelings artistic expression.

Wagner's operas arose from a realm of the imagination, and a level of psychological intuition, which could only be expressed in symbol, and they yield their secrets only to those can make contact through feeling - feeling, not philosophy - with the archetypes they contain. In them, dreams become reality; the _Ring_ has been called "the dream we've never dreamed," and it appears that in order to express vividly intimations of things normally below the level of conscious awareness, Wagner's personal reality had to become a dream: irrational, often incoherent, but full of meaning. Squaring his intimations and visions and the compulsion to express them with common reality - the "day world" from which Tristan and Isolde flee in search of bliss - was something Wagner, like many artists, did with difficulty. Common values - such as logic and morality - were sometimes casualties of the attempt. But "the heart has reasons which reason does not know," and the works which are the legacy of Wagner's inmost intuitions are profoundly logical and moral.

So, to Schopenhauer: it's best not to take the "negation of the will to live" too literally. It's better to ask what that means as expressed in Wagner's work. If you understand Buddhism, in which we find the concept of _freedom from attachment_ from which Schopenhauer's idea of the "negation of the will" derives, you'll know that physical death is not the actual goal of the Buddha or Schopenhauer or Wagner - or Tristan and Isolde. The fact that actual death is the only bliss to which Tristan and Isolde could aspire makes their story a tragedy, not a triumph, and after their death Wagner moved on to his comedy of acceptance and reconciliation with the world's folly.


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## Faustian (Feb 8, 2015)

DarkAngel said:


> The ring does represent the "curse" of no love mentioned by rheinmaidens when alberich first stole the gold and forged the ring, but the real object of power is the tarnhelm......why all the attention focused on the silly ring when the tarnhelm can:
> 
> - allow user to change form
> - allow user to become invisible
> ...


Wagner expresses the eternal complexion of the world, both the _prima materia_ of the universe and the temporal realm of conscious beings, through an evocative set of symbols. Three of the four primal elements are directly represented: water, by the Rhinemaidens, earth by Erda, and fire by Loge. The fourth element, air, is also represented, both in the kingdom of the gods and in the wood-bird. The bird song's similarity to the Rhinemaiden's lullaby shows us that she, like them, personify the element in which they swim.

Then the activities that transform the cosmos are also symbolized: the ring that turns nature into an instrument, the sword that turns the raw human being into the free person, the spear that was stripped from the World-Ash Tree and which turns fate into law, but which also causes nature to wither and the pool of her wisdom to dry. In Wagner's symbolism the Tarnhelm seems to represent a primal force as pervasive as any element; mutability, the mysterious ability to assume disguises, to change shape, to undergo metamorphosis from one mode of being to another. The Tarnhelm is an attempt to control this mysterious force, much like the alchemists tried to change "lead to gold", symbolizing their control over the natural order. These magic objects are the signs of the ways in which our deepest needs and longings are imprinted on the world.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

In his 4-CD exploration of The Ring, Speight Jenkins comments that to Wagner the only meaningful love was sexual love. And, he goes on to say, that to Wagner any expression of sexual love was self-justified, meaning that he was not at all concerned about adultery, incest (possibly even rape) or other factors so long as it was passionate and consummated. Such a view, if true, would not include maternal love or whatever else one might consider love in its more noble guises, and strain the idea of the redemptive power of love. Does this change our view of the opera? (My apologies if I have mis-characterized Mr. Jenkins' comments. I have the CD set and can check it if there are questions.)


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

JAS said:


> In his 4-CD exploration of The Ring, Speight Jenkins comments that to Wagner the only meaningful love was sexual love. And, he goes on to say, that to Wagner any expression of sexual love was self-justified, meaning that he was not at all concerned about adultery, incest (possibly even rape) or other factors so long as it was passionate and consummated. Such a view, if true, would not include maternal love or whatever else one might consider love in its more noble guises, and strain the idea of the redemptive power of love. Does this change our view of the opera? (My apologies if I have mis-characterized Mr. Jenkins' comments. I have the CD set and can check it if there are questions.)


Aren't these statements rather broad and presumptuous? Wagner certainly had a preoccupation with sexuality, in life and in art, but that hardly amounts to a dismissal of nonsexual love as meaningless or unimportant. One of the greatest scenes in the _Ring_ glorifies the love of a father for his daughter.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> Aren't these statements rather broad and presumptuous? Wagner certainly had a preoccupation with sexuality, in life and in art, but that hardly amounts to a dismissal of nonsexual love as meaningless or unimportant. One of the greatest scenes in the _Ring_ glorifies the love of a father for his daughter.


Well, it is a broad assertion, and it may be presumptuous, but it may also have some internal merit. (It is actually two questions, and I think I was careful to note that I was presenting the view of S. Jenkins, with which I may or may not entirely agree.) The first question is whether or not the observation is accurate. The second question is whether such a perspective, if it were at least essentially accurate, would affect our interpretation of the opera. The assertion is certainly a provocative question, but that should make it ripe for discussion. For an 17-hour opera series, where love is supposedly at the core, Wagner's Ring cycle certainly is a world with a notable absence of traditional, platonic or familial love.

When I get home, I will try to go through the Jenkins CDs again to see if there is more information than I presented. And even if he is a generally insightful commentator, that does not necessarily mean that he is right in everything he expresses. (He, or one of the other commentators on the operas I was listening to recently stated that it was his view that only Brunnehilda is the daughter of Wotan and Fricka, and not all of the Valkyrie. This is an observation that he supports only with what seems an undue emphasis on a single line, and I am not sure that it holds up to scrutiny.) Still, as I learned long ago in my literary studies, even bad questions sometimes lead to useful insights.


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## Faustian (Feb 8, 2015)

JAS said:


> Well, it is a broad assertion, and it may be presumptuous, but it may also have some internal merit. (It is actually two questions, and I think I was careful to note that I was presenting the view of S. Jenkins, with which I may or may not entirely agree.) The first question is whether or not the observation is accurate. The second question is whether such a perspective, if it were at least essentially accurate, would affect our interpretation of the opera. The assertion is certainly a provocative question, but that should make it ripe for discussion. For an 17-hour opera series, where love is supposedly at the core, Wagner's Ring cycle certainly is a world with a notable absence of traditional, platonic or familial love..


I don't believe the observation is accurate, no. This does not mean that Wagner didn't see sexual love or erotic love as incredibly significant, because he obviously did. Roger Scruton, in his book *Death-Devoted Heart: Sex and the Sacred in Wagner's Tristan and Isolde*, explores _why_ this is so: one vital part of love, for Wagner, and the thing that distinguishes sexual love from mere sexual interest, is the focus on the other person, and the irreplaceable value place on him or her as the true and revealed reason for the lover's own existence. Our falling in love is one of the great transcendental moments of our lives, and the face and the body of the beloved become imbued for us with a peculiar radiance -- an otherness that seems to contain the secret meaning of our life. Such a moment is dramatized in the music of the "look" in Tristan und Isolde. I highly recommend Scruton's book for anyone wishing to go more in-depth into the subject of the erotic in Wagner's works.

So sexual love, the idea of love as a relation between two beings who can say "I" who mutually give themselves to the other is of critical importance in Wagner's dramas. However it is far from the only kind of love explored in The Ring or the only kind of love that's presented as _meaningful_. And to say that for Wagner sexual love is justified in an act like rape, which for Wagner is the exact inverse of everything that makes an act like sexual love sacred is absolutely ridiculous. It is also misleading to suggest Wagner is unconcerned about the _consequences_ of sexual love, because this is refuted by the course of the drama. In a letter to his friend August Rockel, he made clear that he was aware how erotic love could have world-destroying consequences. Indeed, this is made explicit in the Ring cycle, which shows the idealized sexual love between Siegfried and Brunnhilde to be founded in the same capacity for illusion as the world of Valhalla. Moreover, as Woodduck alluded to, the love that endures through all conflicts, which is expressed in cycle's most moving moments, and which achieves peace and reconciliation after all the disasters, is that between Brunnhilde and Wotan -- the father-daugther love which has intruded into all the major turning points of the drama. Then there's the moment in Act 3 of Die Walkure when Brunnhilde has been moved to sympathy and is blessed in a burst of gratitude by Sieglinde. It is a moment purged of all traces of erotic or sexual feeling. And when, at the end of the cycle, the music takes over and it is the recollection of Sieglinde's blessing that brings redemption. In other words, it is _compassionate love_ that heals the cosmic wound.

Love is significant for Wagner because it is the symbol of something else, which is the ability of human beings to discount their own interests, to stand up against the omnipresent forces of destruction and to act from a vision of intrinsic value. Erotic love can have this character, but again it is not the _only_ type of love that matters and if there is one lesson to be taken from The Ring it is that erotic love is love in its most dangerous form, the form in which we are mostly likely to betray our ideals and in which our ideals can turn on us and take their revenge. The ecstasy of sexual love is paid for by the fatal flaw of jealousy and by those hiding inner hatreds. The great outpouring of forgiveness with which Brunnhilde accomplishes her death is directed equally to Siegfried, the lover who betrayed her, and to Wotan, the father whose predicament made this betrayal inevitable. And the concluding music of the cycle seems to say the most important kind of love of all is the love for the unborn, for what is yet to be, that welled in the breast of Sieglinde and was poured out in gratitude on the self-sacrificing Valkyrie who stepped in to rescue a mortal and her unborn child.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

JAS said:


> Well, it is a broad assertion, and it may be presumptuous, but it may also have some internal merit. (It is actually two questions, and I think I was careful to note that I was presenting the view of S. Jenkins, with which I may or may not entirely agree.) The first question is whether or not the observation is accurate. The second question is whether such a perspective, if it were at least essentially accurate, would affect our interpretation of the opera. The assertion is certainly a provocative question, but that should make it ripe for discussion. For an 17-hour opera series, where love is supposedly at the core, Wagner's Ring cycle certainly is a world with a notable absence of traditional, platonic or familial love.
> 
> When I get home, I will try to go through the Jenkins CDs again to see if there is more information than I presented. And even if he is a generally insightful commentator, that does not necessarily mean that he is right in everything he expresses. (He, or one of the other commentators on the operas I was listening to recently stated that it was his view that only Brunnehilda is the daughter of Wotan and Fricka, and not all of the Valkyrie. This is an observation that he supports only with what seems an undue emphasis on a single line, and I am not sure that it holds up to scrutiny.) Still, as I learned long ago in my literary studies, even bad questions sometimes lead to useful insights.


Assuredly my remark was not directed at you. And it isn't clear whether, in saying "to Wagner the only meaningful love was sexual love," Jenkins was talking about the operas, Wagner the person, or both. If the operas, then his statement is overbroad; if the person, then it's also presumptuous.

Your observation that "Wagner's Ring cycle certainly is a world with a notable absence of traditional, platonic or familial love" is interesting and worth discussing. I think the most basic answer is that, on its most fundamental level, the level of psychological symbolism, the _Ring_ traces the development of the most primal human motivations. Note that it doesn't give us a human world, a world of somewhat familiar (yet still primitive) social relationships, until _Gotterdammerung_, and even then one of the members of the "family" is the half-human son of Alberich.

I don't know what you mean by "familial," but parent-child relationships are not absent from the pre-human world of gods, dwarves, and giants. "Parents" are in fact a crucial theme throughout Wagner's operas, and if those parents are often absent from the stage, that probably reflects Wagner's own childhood (but I don't want get into biographical detail and amateur psychologizing here).

I can only add that erotic love is the primary preoccupation of opera as a genre. Platonic love and family life have not been notably inspiring to composers in this art form which, above all others, thrives on the most extreme emotions.


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## gardibolt (May 22, 2015)

> Note that it doesn't give us a human world, a world of somewhat familiar (yet still primitive) social relationships, until Gotterdammerung


Well, there is the the husband and wife relationship of Sieglinde and Hunding that sends Fricka into a tizzy, not to mention the offstage havoc at the wedding in Walküre.


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## Faustian (Feb 8, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> Your observation that "Wagner's Ring cycle certainly is a world with a notable absence of traditional, platonic or familial love" is interesting and worth discussing. I think the most basic answer is that, on its most fundamental level, the level of psychological symbolism, the _Ring_ traces the development of the most primal human motivations. Note that it doesn't give us a human world, a world of somewhat familiar (yet still primitive) social relationships, until _Gotterdammerung_, and even then one of the members of the "family" is the half-human son of Alberich.


And of course those other types of love, as well as civil society and social relationships, are elaborated upon in Die Meistersinger. Another reason to why the assertion that other forms of love were not meaningful to Wagner is inaccurate.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Faustian said:


> And of course those other types of love, as well as civil society and social relationships, are elaborated upon in Die Meistersinger. Another reason to why the assertion that other forms of love were not meaningful to Wagner is inaccurate.


Yes, and in _T__ristan und Isolde_ as well. As much as the lovers celebrate and yearn for another world where their love can find fulfillment - Tristan's "Wunderreich der Nacht" - and where the pain of their torment at the hands of the "day world" can be forgotten, the opera depicts with real affection and compassion the various relationships among the characters: Brangaene's devotion to her mistress, Kurwenal's to his master, the lifelong love between Tristan and his uncle Marke (virtually a father-son relationship), Tristan's for Melot, whom he trusts as his "treueste Freund," their friendship revealed in its betrayal - and even the touching solicitude of the shepherd for Kareol's lord and his faithful retainer. In every case Wagner's music probes poignantly these characters' feelings for each other, and we can feel for them even as the day world is inundated and seemingly extinguished by the flood of dark and ineluctable passion. I say "seemingly," because Wagner instructs that when Isolde has expired on the body of Tristan, "those standing about are awed and deeply moved. Mark blesses the dead." That final touch of loving humanity, like many such touches in Wagner's own conceptions, has been lost in the directorial "concepts" of modern performances. It shouldn't be. For all it may seem like - and be - a tale of madly obsessed individuals for whom nothing is real but their own subjectivity (which may be our common caricature of Wagner the man as well), _Tristan und Isolde_ is still a human tragedy, not only for the lovers but for the world which could not and would not understand them. Wagner felt that tragedy as his own, but once having exorcised the demon of impossible love from his soul, he was free to move on to Hans Sachs and old Nuremberg.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

I've always felt a contradiction in Gotterdamerung in that Alberich has foresworn love (i.e. sexual love according to the above posts) to get the Ring yet manages to father a son.


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## gardibolt (May 22, 2015)

DavidA said:


> I've always felt a contradiction in Gotterdamerung in that Alberich has foresworn love (i.e. sexual love according to the above posts) to get the Ring yet manages to father a son.


I think the unspoken assumption there is that Hagen was the product of rape.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DavidA said:


> I've always felt a contradiction in Gotterdamerung in that Alberich has foresworn love (i.e. sexual love according to the above posts) to get the Ring yet manages to father a son.


The exclusive emphasis on sex is wrong (see some more of those above posts). "Love" means love, erotic or not. The musical motif called "the renunciation of love," heard first when the Rhinemaidens educate Alberich on the subject, is heard in more poignant form as Wotan is about to kiss Brunnhilde into sleep. Wagner sees love as the great force of attraction that binds us together; it may or may not have a sexual component. The opposite motivation is the desire for power, which arises when the force of love is fractured and which, unopposed, leads to love's, and our, destruction.


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## Faustian (Feb 8, 2015)

DavidA said:


> I've always felt a contradiction in Gotterdamerung in that Alberich has foresworn love (i.e. sexual love according to the above posts) to get the Ring yet manages to father a son.





gardibolt said:


> I think the unspoken assumption there is that Hagen was the product of rape.


As Deryck Cooke insightfully points out in his unfinished study of The Ring:

"But to give up sexual love is not necessarily to give up physical sex, of course...the implication is that, although he could not extort sexual _love_ from the Rhinemaidens, he might at least, if he forges the ring, be clever enough to use its power to extort _pleasure_ from women, in the form of a satisfaction of his desire for _physical sex_, without love at all.

Alberich's later begetting of Hagen is, of course, a different case: a single, loveless, physical coupling, attained by money, for the sole purpose of producing a son who will avenge him by getting back the ring for him."

We learn this from Wotan's monologue in Act 2 of Die Walkure, where he states that he has heard a rumor that Alberich had fathered a son with a woman whom he had enticed with gold.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> The exclusive emphasis on sex is wrong (see some more of those above posts). "Love" means love, erotic or not. The musical motif called "the renunciation of love," heard first when the Rhinemaidens educate Alberich on the subject, is heard in more poignant form as Wotan is about to kiss Brunnhilde into sleep. Wagner sees love as the great force of attraction that binds us together; it may or may not have a sexual component. The opposite motivation is the desire for power, which arises when the force of love is fractured and which, unopposed, leads to love's, and our, destruction.


So, I have had a chance to listen to the Jenkins commentary a bit more, and to try to write down more precisely the points he is making. What he specifically says is that to Wagner "The power of sexual love is the most important of all things" and to support this he quotes from one of Wagner's essays (which I did not quite keep up with in my note-taking, but can go back and get if it is relevant or interesting). He, Jenkins, summarizes that, again to Wagner, "wherever sex pulls it is right." In regard to the relationship between Wotan and Brunnehilde, Jenkins says several times that "Wotan sees her as a part of himself, as only an extension of his will." (If anyone else has the Jenkins CDs, this is mostly near the beginning of the second CD, on Die Valkyrie.)

Closer to the end of this CD, Jenkins says that Wotan, up to this point (at the rock scene) never saw Brunnehilda as an individual, and that now that she has asserted her independence by disobeying his command (although not necessary his intentions) he cannot understand her. Now, suddenly and somewhat contradicting his statements, Jenkins says that Wotan "loves" Brunnhilde, and will "always love her." Perhaps this is legitimate in terms of operatic motivations, but it seems pretty meaningless in terms of tangible expression, other than instead of destroying her he makes her human and leaves her on the rock to be found by a hero. (Even here, he seems more to be setting up his own plots than expressing genuine love.)


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

JAS said:


> In regard to the relationship between Wotan and Brunnehilde, Jenkins says several times that "Wotan sees her as a part of himself, as only an extension of his will."
> 
> Closer to the end of this CD, Jenkins says that Wotan, up to this point (at the rock scene) never saw Brunnehilda as an individual, and that now that she has asserted her independence by disobeying his command (although not necessary his intentions) he cannot understand her. Now, suddenly and somewhat contradicting his statements, Jenkins says that Wotan "loves" Brunnhilde, and will "always love her." Perhaps this is legitimate in terms of operatic motivations, but it seems pretty meaningless in terms of tangible expression, other than instead of destroying her he makes her human and leaves her on the rock to be found by a hero. (Even here, he seems more to be setting up his own plots than expressing genuine love.)


If you think that Wotan does not experience love for Brunnhilde you aren't listening to the music. How can you not be moved, even overwhelmed, by his immense outpouring of adoration, tenderness, and grief? In the whole range of music I know of no such poignant and noble farewell.

The _Ring_ is about the evolution of consciousness. Wotan evolves throughout the tetralogy, and we watch his love for his "will" evolve before our eyes (and doesn't this happen to human fathers as they realize what their offspring are becoming?). Wagner said that his was an "art of transition." I think he was referring specifically to his music, but the concept describes his works in every respect, and indeed sets them apart from most other operas. In every one of them, at least from _Tristan_ to _Parsifal_, we are witness to a spiritual journey as characters pursue their goals and are brought by their errors to realizations which change them. Wotan's punishment of Brunnhilde is a turning point for him; the flood of conflicting emotions released in him by her autonomous act of love, fulfilling what only she can understand as representing his inmost nature, forces his greatest self-confrontation and transformation: he relinquishes finally the reins of power and dons the Wanderer's garb, to travel over the earth and watch in hope that a heroic humanity will restore the balance of a fractured Nature.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

JAS said:


> So, I have had a chance to listen to the Jenkins commentary a bit more, and to try to write down more precisely the points he is making. What he specifically says is that to Wagner "The power of sexual love is the most important of all things" and to support this he quotes from one of Wagner's essays (which I did not quite keep up with in my note-taking, but can go back and get if it is relevant or interesting). He, Jenkins, summarizes that, again to Wagner, "wherever sex pulls it is right."


And Parsifal?...


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Faustian said:


> As Deryck Cooke insightfully points out in his unfinished study of The Ring:
> 
> "But to give up sexual love is not necessarily to give up physical sex, of course...the implication is that, although he could not extort sexual _love_ from the Rhinemaidens, he might at least, if he forges the ring, be clever enough to use its power to extort _pleasure_ from women, in the form of a satisfaction of his desire for _physical sex_, without love at all.


And I recall Alberich actually saying to Wotan and Loge (before they tricked and captured him) that after he builds his horde he will take over the world and come after their women.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Florestan said:


> And I recall Alberich actually saying to Wotan and Loge (before they tricked and captured him) that after he builds his horde he will take over the world and come after their women.


Can't be right all the time.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> If you think that Wotan does not experience love for Brunnhilde you aren't listening to the music. How can you not be moved, even overwhelmed, by his immense outpouring of adoration, tenderness, and grief? In the whole range of music I know of no such poignant and noble farewell.
> 
> The _Ring_ is about the evolution of consciousness. Wotan evolves throughout the tetralogy, and we watch his love for his "will" evolve before our eyes (and doesn't this happen to human fathers as they realize what their offspring are becoming?). Wagner said that his was an "art of transition." I think he was referring specifically to his music, but the concept describes his works in every respect, and indeed sets them apart from most other operas. In every one of them, at least from _Tristan_ to _Parsifal_, we are witness to a spiritual journey as characters pursue their goals and are brought by their errors to realizations which change them. Wotan's punishment of Brunnhilde is a turning point for him; the flood of conflicting emotions released in him by her autonomous act of love, fulfilling what only she can understand as representing his inmost nature, forces his greatest self-confrontation and transformation: he relinquishes finally the reins of power and dons the Wanderer's garb, to travel over the earth and watch in hope that a heroic humanity will restore the balance of a fractured Nature.


Does Wotan really evolve, or does he just get worn down by fate and circumstances that he cannot control? Jenkins seems to take an overly autobiographical approach the Wagner's music. (At one point, he says that Tristan and Isolde was written because he had not consummated his love for Mathilde Wesendonck, and he goes further to say that there is no proof in any of the operas that it was consummated, which is perhaps an odd place to look for such proof.)

I don't know that I am completely convinced by Wotan's sudden profession of love for his daughter. (Motherly love in particular seems to be missing from The Ring.) It has been an interesting discussion, however, and I will watch/listen more carefully for it on my next pass of The Ring.


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## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

JAS said:


> (Motherly love in particular seems to be missing from The Ring.)


I'd say motherly love effects an immediate change in Sieglinde's outlook and desires in act 3 of Die Walküre:



> *SIEGLINDE*
> Do not plague yourself with worry about me. Death is all I want....
> If I am not to curse you, maiden, then hear my solemn plea: plunge your sword into my heart.
> 
> ...


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

But she dies in childbirth (we are told), and never really gets to be a mother. And her child never gets to know his mother. It is hardly an invocation of motherly love in any normal sense. (And let us not comment on the only sibling love we see depicted in the opera.)


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

JAS said:


> Does Wotan really evolve, or does he just get worn down by fate and circumstances that he cannot control? Jenkins seems to take an overly autobiographical approach the Wagner's music. (At one point, he says that Tristan and Isolde was written because he had not consummated his love for Mathilde Wesendonck, and he goes further to say that there is no proof in any of the operas that it was consummated, which is perhaps an odd place to look for such proof.)
> 
> I don't know that I am completely convinced by Wotan's sudden profession of love for his daughter. (Motherly love in particular seems to be missing from The Ring.) It has been an interesting discussion, however, and I will watch/listen more carefully for it on my next pass of The Ring.


I must confess at this point to a feeling of exasperated amusement.

What is the difference between "evolving" and "getting worn down" (whatever that means) by circumstances? The Wanderer who evokes Erda in _Siegfried_ is clearly not the Wotan who wheels and deals and steals in _Das Rheingold_, and in that powerful scene he doesn't sound particularly "worn down" to me. But then I'm hearing not only his words but, above all, his music, which over the course of three operas has passed through a dark night of the soul and acquired a radiant, transfigured humanity we had never heard from him before he realized what the loss of his daughter meant. And in _Gotterdammerung_ we will hear Waltraute describe the god, sitting on his throne, awaiting the inevitable end of his reign, remembering Brunnhilde, with the orchestra singing softly a deeply poignant reminiscence of his farewell to her in _Die Walkure:_ "Once more today, lured by their light, my lips shall give [your eyes] love's farewell!"

It's in the music, man! It's all in the music!

Here are the words of Wotan's farewell to Brunnhilde, together with Wagner's stage directions:

_(Wotan, overcome and deeply moved, turns
eagerly toward Brünnhilde, raises her from her knees
and gazes with emotion into her eyes.)
_

*Wotan:*

Farewell, thou valiant, glorious child!
Thou once the holiest pride of my heart!
Farewell! farewell! farewell!
(very passionately) Must I forsake thee,
and may my welcome
of love no more greet thee;
may'st thou now ne'er more ride as my comrade,
nor bear me mead at banquet;
must I abandon thee, whom I loved so,
thou laughing delight of my eyes?
Such a bridal fire for thee shall be kindled
as ne'er yet has burned for a bride!
Threatening flames shall flare round the fell:
let withering terrors daunt the craven!
let cowards fly from Brünnhilde's rock!
For one alone winneth the bride;
one freer than I, the god!

_(Brünnhilde, deeply moved, sinks in ecstasy on
Wotan's breast: he holds her in a long embrace. She throws her head back again and, still
embracing Wotan, gazes with deep enthusiasm in his eyes.)_
*
Wotan: *

Thy brightly glittering eyes,
that, smiling, oft I caressed,
when valor won a kiss as guerdon,
when childish lispings of heroes' praise
from sweetest lips has flowed forth:
those gleaming radiant eyes
that oft in storms on me shone,
when hopeless yearning my heart had wasted,
when world's delights all my wishes wakened,
thro' wild wildering sadness:

once more today, lured by their light,
my lips shall give them love's farewell!
On mortal more blessed once may they beam:
on me, hapless immortal,
must they close now forever.
(He clasps her head in his hands.)
For so turns the god now from thee,
so kisses thy godhood away!

So love is in the words too. But the music is where we find its heart.


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## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

JAS said:


> But she dies in childbirth (we are told), and never really gets to be a mother. And her child never gets to know his mother. It is hardly an invocation of motherly love in any normal sense. (And let us not comment on the only sibling love we see depicted in the opera.)


I think it's depth and power makes up at least some for it's short duration. We could say the same of the examples of romantic love in the cycle. Is the love of Sieglinde and Siegmund not a love story because he dies less than 24 hours after meeting her and we don't see them grow old as a couple? And is the love of Siegfried and Brünnhilde not a depiction of love in a normal sense because they both die shortly after meeting? (I suppose one can add a time gap, if one assumes there to be one between _Siegfried_ and _Götterdämmerung_). How many love stories include such a thing?

Also there's a lot more siblings in the opera than just Siegmund and Sieglinde. Fricka, Donner, and Froh try to protect Freia. The eight Valkyries try to protect Brünnhilde. Gunther and Gutrune seem to have a decent relationship, too, though their half-brother Hagen isn't as loving.

Fasolt and Fafner do great work together, but are torn apart by the power of the ring. Alberich and Mime seem to kind of hate each other, but we don't see them together until after Alberich has the ring.


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## Faustian (Feb 8, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> It's in the music, man! It's all in the music!


I'm with you. This is the greatest difficulty with discussions like these, and engaging with the works through a simple synopsis of the story, as though the text alone were sufficient to present what happens. Moments of inner reflection, such as Wotan's confession to his daughter in Act 2 of Die Walkure, or Siegfried's soliloquy in the forest in Act 2 of Siegfried, are easy to skim over if you think the schematic words uttered by the characters contain a full account of their emotion. In fact these are moments of transition, in which the profoundest and most far-reaching psychic changes are accomplished -- but accomplished in the music, with little or no help from the words.

Anyways, I'm afraid I'm beginning to be confused as to where all this dissection and questioning of every detail of the story is leading.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> What is the difference between "evolving" and "getting worn down" (whatever that means) by circumstances?


Evolving usually suggests an improvement, a development towards something higher.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

mountmccabe said:


> I think it's depth and power makes up at least some for it's short duration. We could say the same of the examples of romantic love in the cycle. Is the love of Sieglinde and Siegmund not a love story because he dies less than 24 hours after meeting her and we don't see them grow old as a couple? And is the love of Siegfried and Brünnhilde not a depiction of love in a normal sense because they both die shortly after meeting?


Right. Operas are not novels. We don't follow these characters as they go about their day. Wagner condenses his stories to dramatically significant scenes and moments, and relies on music to fill the dramatic outlines with meaning.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

JAS said:


> Evolving usually suggests an improvement, a development towards something higher.


Wotan learns the implications of his actions. Learning is improvement.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> Wotan learns the implications of his actions. Learning is improvement.


But he wont'/can't do anything about it, so it is learning with no real purpose. I don't know that it really rises to the level of improvement under the circumstances, although I will grant that it is not an indefensible position.


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## Faustian (Feb 8, 2015)

JAS said:


> Evolving usually suggests an improvement, a development towards something higher.


I think from the beginning, in the case Brunnhilde Wotan displays an attachment that while in a sense is initially calculating, is qualified by a poignant sense of identity, and he allows himself to express his vulnerability and hunger for understanding in his memorable confession to her in Act 2 of Die Walkure. When Brunnhilde does what she thinkis Wotan _really_ wants, his anger with her is also anger at himself, and at the frustration of a scheme that could never have worked in any case. And when, glimpsing in her the new vehicle for his own and the world's rescue, he allows his love to be reborn; his anger is overcome in a flow of tenderness as moving as anything in the cycle. During this music, we see the extent of Wotan's transformation. A new serenity has entered his soul: it as though Wotan has stepped down from the immortal throne, and is losing himself in the flow of mortal emotions.

The music of the scene shows the _existential_ change that occurs in Wotan, confronted by his daughter's purity of spirit and by her decision to act for another's good. Henceforth he will not try to trick his way to security, using his mortal offspring as instruments. He will bequeath to mortals the business of maintaining the sacred order.

But much of this has already been covered by Woodduck: it seems we are just running in circles, so I think I will bow out of the discussion.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

JAS said:


> Evolving usually suggests an improvement, a development towards something higher.


Sorry to disagree. Evolution mostly involves becoming more competitive in a given environment. If the environment changes, and if there's enough time and luck, organisms will evolve to be more suited to that new environment. It does not imply "improving" in any other sense, becoming a "higher" kind of organism, more complex, etc.

For instance, organisms living in a lightless environment (cave fish for instance) have evolved to lose their eyes entirely. They have likely developed other attributes more useful to them.

Music works the same, competing in an environment. Just think what the evolution of rap music says about its environment -- which is of course us!


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

You are speaking of evolution in a purely biological sense. And RAP music is hardly any kind of improvement.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

JAS said:


> You are speaking of evolution in a purely biological sense. And RAP music is hardly any kind of improvement.


Rap music is certainly a successful evolution, being far more successful in its environment than classical music. Fact!

But sticking with classical music: If music has evolved since Bach, then by your definition music written today must be superior to Bach's. Some may find that just a bit doubtful.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

Popularity does not equate to quality. RAP is bad music, and often worse poetry. Yes, that is, of course, opinion, as would be any assertion that it is good music and good poetry. 

In regard to classical music, I would say that the evolution from Bach to later forms involves many improvements, greater sophistication in forms and in the instruments used to convey it. But most importantly, you don't evolve to a lower state, and merely giving in to despair would be such a lower state.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I'll only say that, historically, the development of new musical styles has seldom pleased fans of the styles displaced.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

JAS said:


> *But he wont'/can't do anything about it, so it is learning with no real purpose.* I don't know that it really rises to the level of improvement under the circumstances, although I will grant that it is not an indefensible position.


Is an advance in consciousness not an advance that matters? It's the most important advance there is, regardless of what actions must proceed from it. It's the only thing that gives actions - or the cessation thereof - meaning. Wotan learns the limits and failings of his exercise of power, and sees that beings who are freer than himself, beings whose moral and political life proceeds from nature rather than the violation/domination of it, must inherit the world. It goes to the central message of the _Ring_, and Wotan's realization of it is immense and ennobles him.

What you're missing is the fact that Wotan is only a thread in the fabric, even if a (the?) primary one. The _Ring_ is not a biography of Wotan, or Brunnhilde, or Siegfried. The various characters all represent aspects of the developing consciousness which plays out in the work as a whole. This is Wagner's most radical dramatic innovation: the center of awareness, the primary agency driving toward the work's central realization, passes constantly back and forth between the characters, and as we are made to focus on one character and then another, we enter the stream of consciousness in an "overmind" in search of enlightenment. Thus we participate in, and are made to live, on the level of feeling (music), the evolution of the whole through experiencing its individual parts.

This dramatic concept is brought to perhaps a still more concentrated realization in _Parsifal,_ and, not accidentally, that work takes up the same fundamental theme of our alienation from nature - our own nature - and our quest to recover it.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

I don't really know Wagner's Parsifal. I know the literary tradition, and some of the incidental music, but not the full opera. I have just ordered a CD set, and I am finding that if there is a good performance with a not too crazy production, a DVD has the advantage of letting you see the English text in real time, which is easier than following a printed libretto. 

And it is interesting to see how much passion these operas still seem to inspire more than a century after their initial creation. That must surely be some sign of innate greatness.


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## gardibolt (May 22, 2015)

> It's in the music, man! It's all in the music!


Truer words were never spoken.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

JAS said:


> Popularity does not equate to quality. RAP is bad music, and often worse poetry. Yes, that is, of course, opinion, as would be any assertion that it is good music and good poetry.
> 
> In regard to classical music, *I would say that the evolution from Bach to later forms involves many improvements, *greater sophistication in forms and in the instruments used to convey it. But most importantly, you don't evolve to a lower state, and merely giving in to despair would be such a lower state.


You are joking of course! :lol:


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## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

Faustian said:


> The music of the scene shows the _existential_ change that occurs in Wotan, confronted by his daughter's purity of spirit and by her decision to act for another's good. Henceforth he will not try to trick his way to security, using his mortal offspring as instruments. He will bequeath to mortals the business of maintaining the sacred order.


This is exceptionally well stated. It is absolutely evidence of a positive change in Wotan's character that he is no longer going to try and force his will via more wild schemes. The Wotan of _Das Rheingold_ would have decided to father another batch of offspring, and put them in even more awful circumstances to make them want to get the ring.

This is budding maturity. This is the toddler realizing that tantrums aren't a good approach to life. This is the entitled teenager realizing that while the world may be unfair, flailing about is just going to bring more hurt to the people that care about you.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

mountmccabe said:


> This is budding maturity. This is the toddler realizing that tantrums aren't a good approach to life. This is the entitled teenager realizing that while the world may be unfair, flailing about is just going to bring more hurt to the people that care about you.


I am thinking of a different context in which we could really use such a sudden realization right about now.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

DavidA said:


> You are joking of course! :lol:


In the context stated, no, I am not joking at all.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

JAS said:


> In the context stated, no, I am not joking at all.


Just incredible that anyone thinks can improve on Bach. Mozart, Beethoven and Wagner all learned from him! He was the master of every form he did.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

DavidA said:


> Just incredible that anyone thinks can improve on Bach. Mozart, Beethoven and Wagner all learned from him! He was the master of every form he did.


You are not reading my comment in context. I am in no way denigrating Bach. Are you suggesting that there have not been new instruments, and improved instruments since Bach's time? Was Mahler's orchestral palate available to Bach?


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

JAS said:


> You are not reading my comment in context. I am in no way denigrating Bach. Are you suggesting that there have not been new instruments, and improved instruments since Bach's time? Was Mahler's orchestral palate available to Bach?


You said music had been 'improved'. It certainly developed but I don't think anyone would say Bach had been improved upon.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

DavidA said:


> You said music had been 'improved'. It certainly developed but I don't think anyone would say Bach had been improved upon.


What I actually said was "In regard to classical music, I would say that the evolution from Bach to later forms involves many improvements, greater sophistication in forms and in the instruments used to convey it." Would you really argue that there were no improvements in, for example, the piano, after Bach's time. (It is interesting that the first thing that might be called a piano was created about 1690, but it did not initially catch on, and even when it did begin to get attention not much at all in Italy, where this creation took place.) You are clearly getting hung up over the implied value judgement. Would you also argue the same from early Greek music and Gregorian chant and Bach? Should a Palestrina fan be offended at your Bach advocacy?


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

JAS said:


> What I actually said was "In regard to classical music, I would say that the evolution from Bach to later forms involves *many improvements*, greater sophistication in forms and in the instruments used to convey it." Would you really argue that there were no improvements in, for example, the piano, after Bach's time. (It is interesting that the first thing that might be called a piano was created about 1690, but it did not initially catch on, and even when it did begin to get attention not much at all in Italy, where this creation took place.) You are clearly getting hung up over the implied value judgement. Would you also argue the same from early Greek music and Gregorian chant and Bach? Should a Palestrina fan be offended at your Bach advocacy?


I am not getting hung up at all. You should really say what you mean. The problem what you said implied that the music had improved. The word 'improvements' was wrongly used. 'Development' would have been the better word. But not to worry.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

Perhaps only somewhat related to his topic is the fact that Wagner was an major early influence on British writer C. S. Lewis. (It is, I think, at least somewhat related since Lewis was a friend of J. R. R. Tolkien, and himself wrote The Narnia Chronicles, although not, in my opinion, nearly in the same league as The Lord of the Rings.) In his autobiography _Surprised by Joy_, Lewis says that Wagner's music became the center of his creative and philosophical life when he, Lewis, was in his school years. Perhaps interestingly, he first became enamored of Wagner through the text and non-musical presentation, such as the Arthur Rackham illustrated edition of The Ring. It was only a bit later when the family bought a gramophone and he was able to request records as presents, and to buy his own as he had money to do so that he actually heard the music. (Imagine first hearing Wagner on records that could only fit a few minutes on each side and hardly had the range or fidelity of sound that we would expect today. I think back to my own introduction to classical music, borrowing records from the library and copying them to tape. These records generally had terrible sound, with scratches and pops galore, all dutifully enshrined on the cassette copies, in some cases to a degree that they almost seemed to be part of the music, if a rather undesirable part. Oh, we are spoiled today!) He was interested in Lohengrin and Parsifal, but primarily in The Ring. For a long time, it even formed the basis of a substitute religion for him, leading on to a study of Norse mythology and folklore that would still serve him well during his career as a teacher.

What I think is interesting is the demonstration of how overpowering Wagner's influence could be even long after his death. I am hard-pressed to think of a modern equivalent.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

DavidA said:


> I am not getting hung up at all. You should really say what you mean. The problem what you said implied that the music had improved. The word 'improvements' was wrongly used. 'Development' would have been the better word. But not to worry.


I did say what I meant, and I repeated it with a clear conscience and full intent as I meant it. You should read what people actually say, and not get all into a fury over what you think the use of one word implies.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

JAS said:


> I did say what I meant, and I repeated it with a clear conscience and full intent as I meant it. You should read what people actually say, and not get all into a fury over what you think the use of one word implies.


My dear friend, I am not in a fury at all. Please do not project your own feelings on to me. I did actually read what you said and disagreed with it. No fury at all! Just did not agree with you.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

JAS said:


> Perhaps only somewhat related to his topic is the fact that Wagner was an major early influence on British writer C. S. Lewis. [...] In his autobiography _Surprised by Joy_, Lewis says that Wagner's music became the center of his creative and philosophical life when he, Lewis, was in his school years. Perhaps interestingly, he first became enamored of Wagner through the text and non-musical presentation, such as the Arthur Rackham illustrated edition of The Ring. It was only a bit later when the family bought a gramophone and he was able to request records as presents, and to buy his own as he had money to do so that he actually heard the music. [...] He was interested in Lohengrin and Parsifal, but primarily in The Ring. For a long time, it even formed the basis of a substitute religion for him, leading on to a study of Norse mythology and folklore that would still serve him well during his career as a teacher.
> 
> *What I think is interesting is the demonstration of how overpowering Wagner's influence could be even long after his death. I am hard-pressed to think of a modern equivalent.*


I don't think there is an artist whose influence has been felt in so many areas of the culture. His musical influence was obviously immense, but his operas may have had as important an impact on literature as on music, inspiring the symbolist poets Baudelaire, Mallarme and Verlaine, and resulting in a virtual Wagner cult among French writers of the late 19th century. The mythical archetypes and symbolism of Wagner's operas preceded, and sometimes inspired, the exploration of these subjects by 20th-century psychologists, anthroplogists, philosophers, writers, and filmmakers. The continuous orchestral texture of his scores, in which a stream of ever-evolving leitmotifs articulates meaning, directly inspired the stream-of-consciousness concept in the modern novel through the works of Proust, Woolf and Joyce. His influence on philosophy is evident in Nietzsche, who began as an ardent disciple but later went his own way both personally and philosophically. Wagner's ideas and practice as a conductor, expressed in his essay "On Conducting," enlarged the concept of the conductor as a creative interpreter. His innovative theater in Bayreuth is directly responsible for many aspects of modern theatrical production, and the extraordinary staging demands of his works inspired the seminal innovations in stagecraft made by Adolphe Appia and Alfred Roller, leading to the abstract productions of Wieland Wagner.

Wagner's influence on politics is inescapable but controversial and often misunderstood and exaggerated. That can of worms shall (I hope) remain unopened here!


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> Wagner's influence on politics is inescapable but controversial and often misunderstood and exaggerated. That can of worms shall (I hope) remain unopened here!


Hah! Fat chance Woodduck.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


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## DarkAngel (Aug 11, 2010)

JAS said:


> Perhaps only somewhat related to his topic is the fact that Wagner was an major early influence on British writer C. S. Lewis. (It is, I think, at least somewhat related since Lewis was a friend of J. R. R. Tolkien, and himself wrote The Narnia Chronicles, although not, in my opinion, nearly in the same league as The Lord of the Rings.) In his autobiography _Surprised by Joy_, Lewis says that Wagner's music became the center of his creative and philosophical life when he, Lewis, was in his school years. Perhaps interestingly, he first became enamored of Wagner through the text and non-musical presentation, such as the Arthur Rackham illustrated edition of The Ring. *It was only a bit later when the family bought a gramophone and he was able to request records as presents, and to buy his own as he had money to do so that he actually heard the music. (Imagine first hearing Wagner on records that could only fit a few minutes on each side and hardly had the range or fidelity of sound that we would expect today.* I think back to my own introduction to classical music, borrowing records from the library and copying them to tape. These records generally had terrible sound, with scratches and pops galore, all dutifully enshrined on the cassette copies, in some cases to a degree that they almost seemed to be part of the music, if a rather undesirable part. Oh, we are spoiled today!) He was interested in Lohengrin and Parsifal, but primarily in The Ring. For a long time, it even formed the basis of a substitute religion for him, leading on to a study of Norse mythology and folklore that would still serve him well during his career as a teacher.


Was not easy back then to listen to wagner opera on 78 rpm......

Solti Ring was the first complete Ring recording available to the public made possible by the LP record format (33 1/3 rpm) of the early 1950s, previously only arias or extended scences were sold as 78 rpm record/shellac releases for home playback. The huge cost and physical limitations of playing all 14 hrs of Ring on a media that only permitted 4 minutes of music on each side of disc would have required well over 100 discs in 78 rpm format............

For these same reasons the 59 Solti Rheingold was the first "complete" wagner ring opera available to the public using the LP record format requiring fewer discs and much improved stereo sound

When these guys like Andrew Rose and Obert-Thorn do a modern CD format wagner remaster from 78 rpm sources it is a physically daunting project because of the huge number of discs required to work on, as they remind us in their production notes 



> I think back to my own introduction to classical music, borrowing records from the library and copying them to tape. These records generally had terrible sound, with scratches and pops galore, all dutifully enshrined on the cassette copies, in some cases to a degree that they almost seemed to be part of the music, if a rather undesirable part. *Oh, we are spoiled today*!


Yes we are, entire Solti Ring now available on single blu ray audio disc or in cloud based lossless audio streaming through Tidal, we have it all (plus youtube for rarities and historical)


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

On Saturday and holidays, I prefer neither. I’d rather hear Frank Sinatra and his ring-a-ding-dings, plus maybe a handful of Doritos and a bowl of guacamole on the side. :cheers:


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Larkenfield said:


> On Saturday and holidays, I prefer neither. I'd rather hear Frank Sinatra and his ring-a-ding-dings, plus maybe a handful of Doritos and a bowl of guacamole on the side. :cheers:


How about the aged Bob Dylan singing Frank's songs.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

I would say about equally but for different reasons.I love fantasy literature, which both encompass. The LOTR is a better story but the Ring is the pinnacle of music... tied to a story.


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

Wagner IS lord of THE Ring . Period .


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

More important which is preferable Parsifal or The Gathering?


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## Barelytenor (Nov 19, 2011)

I think these kinds of polls are absurd. Which do you prefer, geese or giraffes? Uh, I like both for different reasons!

Kind regards, :tiphat:

George


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## AlexD (Nov 6, 2011)

I enjoy both on their own terms - Tolkien was certainly inspired by Wagner's Ring (as were a number of English writers in the 20's and 30's). 

I was at the Tolkien exhibition at the Ashmolean earlier this year, and Tolkien said he was looking to establish or continue an English mythology had it not been interrupted by the Normal Invasion. He was looking to extend Middle English fireside stories. 

However, rather than looking at Lord of the Rings, how about The Ring cycle and Star Wars. With the prequels - ad now the new movies, Star Wars is turning into a family saga of "Jedi gods." Everything goes wrong for the Universe when the Jedi break their promises - and chaos is unleashed upon the Universe. Planets die as an internecine squabble emerges. 

You've got John William's score which has leitmotifs, a character imprisoned in ice instead of fire and a whole lot of other stuff going on. Star Wars has become a Ring Cycle lite - where the consequences of lying or abusing one's powers unleashes chaos upon the Universe. 

I'm not saying they are equals, but there are clear parallels within the eight movies that follow the Skywalker story. Introduce a Star Wars fan to the Ring and I think they'll find enough similarities to get them talking or engaged.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

AlexD said:


> I enjoy both on their own terms - Tolkien was certainly inspired by Wagner's Ring (as were a number of English writers in the 20's and 30's).
> 
> I was at the Tolkien exhibition at the Ashmolean earlier this year, and Tolkien said he was looking to establish or continue an English mythology had it not been interrupted by the Normal Invasion. He was looking to extend Middle English fireside stories.
> 
> ...


Interesting observations. Many people have pointed out that certain science/fantasy films, with their archetypal imagery and full orchestral scores, are Wagnerian, and that Wagner, especially in the _Ring_, is cinematic. I've longed all my life for some artistically gifted film director to bring Wagner's mythical visions to life on the screen as he could only have imagined them in his dreams. After all, Wagner was the greatest film composer of all time, and just picture the gods crossing a rainbow, or real valkyries riding through thunder and lightning, or Valhalla going up in flames. If I had the money I'd happily finance films of his operas, using all the resources of computer-generated imagery and sound tracks from the best recordings. What a way for future generations to discover opera!


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## Barelytenor (Nov 19, 2011)

I loved reading _Lord of the Rings_ and _The Hobbit _(and _Lo Hobbit_ in Italian once) at least three times when I was growing up, and longed even more for a great cinematic treatment of the novels after the embarrassingly trivial animated version came out, when, seems like in the early 1980s sometime. It took a genius with a big budget and tons of vision like Peter Jackson to turn those into films, and I think, with some quibbles, he did a masterful job overall.

Maybe Woodduck you should approach him about a _Der Ring des Nibelungen_ series of films! Just sayin'.

Kind regards, :tiphat:

George


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

All of these dramas have similarities not necessarily because they are based on each other but because they all borrow elements and themes from older mythology. I believe that Tolkien was very derisive about people who insisted on connecting his ring to Wagner's (which does not necessarily indicate that he did not like Wagner). Tolkien's close friend C. S. Lewis, based on his autobiography, was very strongly affected by Wagner's operas.


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> Interesting observations. Many people have pointed out that certain science/fantasy films, with their archetypal imagery and full orchestral scores, are Wagnerian, and that Wagner, especially in the _Ring_, is cinematic. I've longed all my life for some artistically gifted film director to bring Wagner's mythical visions to life on the screen as he could only have imagined them in his dreams. After all, Wagner was the greatest film composer of all time, and just picture the gods crossing a rainbow, or real valkyries riding through thunder and lightning, or Valhalla going up in flames. If I had the money I'd happily finance films of his operas, using all the resources of computer-generated imagery and sound tracks from the best recordings. What a way for future generations to discover opera!


I love the escapism of sci-fi and fantasy films so I'm a huge fan of all that sort of stuff and I would dearly love to see the genius of Peter Jackson and the technical wizardry of CGI put in the service of Der Ring. I think it would be a touchstone for generations to come. But realistically, it's never going to happen! Perhaps if I win the lottery I could fund it although when you look at the cost of big budget films nowadays I would need to win the lottery a few times!!


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## Byron (Mar 11, 2017)

There is a very interesting comparative study of the two works here by Jamie McGregor, and it's definitely worth reading the entire paper for anyone interested in the subject. McGregor suggests that despite Tolkien's denials that Wagner's opera had any influence on his story and that any resemblence between the two was simply due to common source materials, on a deeper level "what Tolkien was trying to do in The Lord of the Rings was indeed to offer a correction of (and possibly a corrective to) Wagner's teralogy." This was not only because of the socio-political circumstances during the time Tolkien was writing, with Hitler's rise to power framing the Germanic character of Wagner's work for Tolkien, but also because Tolkien was a "reactionary" while Wagner was a "revolutionary"; Tolkien a Catholic while Wagner a humanist, and it is likely Tolkien found much of the philosophical thrust and spiritual denouement of Wagner's Ring somewhat objectionable.

As to preferences, there's no doubt in my mind that Wagner's is the greater achievement, both in sophistication and profundity. To say that Tolkien's is the better story is to fail to account for the difference in artistic mediums, where in Wagner the drama takes place at least as much in the orchestra as it does on stage, and the motifs we hear evoke a set of associations so that, in a way not possible in literature or any other art, music makes the past present. This is why Götterdämmerung is so overwhelming: the previous operas are all alive in it, and the distinction between narration and action becomes as non-existent as the distinction between past and present.

Wagner's is also a different kind of story than Tolkien's, more like a ritual enactment and a succession of great moments of sacrifice and resolution that helps us to understand what is at stake in our moral choices.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

. . . and it is fair to note that Tolkien generally did not like, or approve of, source studies anyway.


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