Max Brückner, design for Götterdämmerung, Bayreuth, 1896.
Wagner's decision to end Siegfried with an operatic duet, one in which the extravagant urgency of the delivery greatly exceeds the comprehensibility of the words, presages the controversial half-return to traditional opera in Götterdämmerung, the finale of the cycle. That turn is all the more ironic in light of the fact that Siegfried's Death, the 1848 sketch from which the plot of the opera stems, is steeped in the spirit of revolutionary idealism, whereas Götterdämmerung is cast in a mood of gloomy grandeur, of encroaching doom. Yet this is in no way a regressive or reactionary work. Although it gestures toward operatic convention, it distorts those conventions with a kind of malevolent glee. We witness further duets, villainous monologues, the swearing of an oath, a drinking chorus, a wedding procession: yet stylistic gears are grinding against each other, grand opera has gone to seed. Even the beloved leitmotifs undergo strange mutations, as if Wagner had become bored with his system and was using it perversely. Indeed, he must have felt a certain impatience as the Ring project stretched into its third decade. At the same time, Götterdämmerung has its moments of fresh magnificence and beauty. Above all, it is the apotheosis of Brünnhilde, who might be Wagner's greatest character, and truest hero.
The opera begins with an extended prologue in the company of the Norns, the weavers of the rope of destiny. They are in some ways the counterparts of the Rhinemaidens, with whom the cycle began. But where the latter are joyous and playful, the Norns are a dour trio, bearing portents of doom. They retell the story of the cycle's origins but add some arresting new details. We hear of how Wotan once came to the World Ash-Tree, a version of the mythical Norse tree Yggdrasil, and broke off a branch to make his spear. As a result, the tree withered and died. Now, the Norns relate, the pieces of the tree are piled high around Valhalla, ready to burn when the end of the gods come. As the women talk, the rope is stretched and begins to fray. Finally, it breaks — "Es riß!" — and the Norns descend to the depths, singing, "An end to eternal wisdom!" The most arresting feature of the Norns scene is the music with which it begins. We hear the four chord that once gleamed so sumptuously as Brünnhilde awoke in Siegfried. Now they have a grim, baleful sound. Listening, one realizes that the stuff of gloom was contained in them from the outset: three of the four are in the minor mode. The scene then shifts to Brünnhilde's rock: the lovers are still ecstatically in love, but Siegfried must go off on journeys, in search of "new deeds" ("Zu neuen Taten," 21:56). As a token of his love, Siegfried puts the Ring on Brünnuilde's finger — a gesture that sets up the tragedy to follow. The orchestral interlude of Siegfried's Rhine Journey serves as the connective tissue between the Prologue and Act I proper.
We now meet three new characters: Gunther, the chief of the Gibichung, who seeks greater wealth and fame; Gutrune, his sister; and Hagen, their half-brother. It turns out that at some point the far-wandering Alberich mated with Gunther and Gutrune's mother and produced the darksome Hagen, the latest agent in the dwarf's scheme of revenge. Hagen launches a plot of byzantine complexity, fully in keeping with grand-opera convention. Neither of the Gibichung siblings has a spouse. Hagen tells of a maiden who lies within a ring of fire and of a dragon-slaying hero who can withstand the flames. That maiden could marry Gunther, the hero Gutrune. Through the use of a potion, Siegfried can be induced to fall in love with Gutrune, then go win the maiden, disguising himself as Gunther through magic means. The Gibichungs agree to this skullduggery. When Siegfried appears at their court, he is drugged, whereupon he pledges himself to Gutrune and goes off on his mission. Hagen, left alone, sings a monologue known as Hagen's Watch, in which he ironically bids Siegfried a good journey, looking forward to the moment when the deluded hero brings back the prize of the Ring. No one has ever sung the passage with more glowering magnificence than Gottlob Frick on Georg Solti's recording of the Ring. The motif of Wotan's spear resounds in the lower brass at 5:06 and 5:42, signaling again the obscure identity between the power-hungry realms of god and dwarf.
Back at the rock, Brünnhilde receives a visit from her Valkyrie sister Waltraute, who describes the grim situation of the gods and begs Brünnhilde to return the Ring to the Rhine. She refuses, to the tune, ironically, of the Renunciation of Love motif from Rheingold. Siegfried arrives, in Gunther's form; seizes the horrified Brünnhilde; and takes the Ring from her finger. As Siegfried lays Nothung between them, signaling that the maiden's chastity will be reserved for Gunther, the sword's motif blares abrasively and savagely in the orchestra — a deliberate distortion typical of Wagner's method in Götterdämmerung.
Wolfgang Windgassen in Krauss's 1953 Ring at Bayreuth (Pristine).
Act II of Götterdämmerung is the darkest, most conceptually violent music Wagner wrote. In the space of just over an hour — far shorter than the sprawling prologue-plus-act that precedes it — the climactic catastrophe is set in motion. In the first scene, Alberich visits Hagen, urging him to stay faithful to the mission of revenge: "Be true!" Hagen answers, ambiguously, "To myself I swear it." Siegfried returns to the Gibichung court, telling Hagen and Gutrune of his successful expedition. Gunther and Brünnhilde are following behind but have not yet appeared. Hagen now summons his vassals — the first chorus to have been heard in the Ring — and tells them to watch the ensuing scene closely. In the Solti recording, Frick's incomparably chilling performance is augmented by authentic steerhorns, which clash against each other to spectacular effect.
When Brünnhilde is dragged in, she looks aghast at the scene: her beloved Siegfried is now with Gutrune, the Ring on his finger. She rages at Siegfried's seeming betrayal, and her accusations cause consternation in the company that has gathered for the double wedding. This is the signal of treachery that Hagen has planned. Brünnhilde here plays out the archetype of the Woman Scorned, but, as Alexander Shapiro argues in The Consolations of History, a study of the opera, she also shows herself to be fully, complicatedly human. Shapiro further points out that Hagen maneuvers Brünnhilde into a jealous rage much as Iago manipulates Othello in Shakespeare's play, with a talisman of love (the Ring, the handkerchief) serving as the bait. In the final scene of the fact, she tells Hagen of Siegfried's fatal vulnerability — an unprotected spot in his back. She, Hagen, and Gunther then swear an oath of vengeance, in the manner of the conspiracy scene in Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots. Siegfried and Gutrune enter at the head of a wedding procession that is comprehensively undermined by the dissonant thrashing of the orchestra. The key at the end is ostensibly C major, but Hagen's signature motif of a descending tritone introduces a clashing F-sharp, which cuts through the festive harmony as surely as Nothung sliced Wotan's spear.
From Krauss's 1953 Ring at Bayreuth (Pristine).
Siegfried, by the banks of the Rhine, comes upon the Rhinemaidens, who flirt with the hero and try to persuade him to give up the Ring. He is on the point of doing so when they make a tactical mistake, changing from teasing to stern warnings about imminent doom. These cause him to retreat into prideful disdain: if he were to listen to a fear-based argument, he might lose his reputation as the most fearless of heroes. On that masculine stupidity the fate of the world turns. Hagen and Gunther appear with a hunting party, and Siegfried is urged to tell stories of his exploits. Hagen slips a potion that reverses the memory-erasing spell of Act I, meaning that Siegfried now freely describes his wooing of Brünnhilde at the end of the previous opera. He thus appears to have betrayed his vow to Gunther. Hagen seizes the chance to throw his spear into Siegfried's back, fatally wounding him. Despite the oath of vengeance he swore in Act II, Gunther is horrified. Siegfried sings a final pledge of love to Brünnhilde and dies, whereupon the tremendous Funeral Music unfolds in the orchestra — a comprehensive procession of leitmotifs from all stages of the cycle (41:50).
For the final scene, we return to the Gibichung court, where Gutrune is roaming alone. She has seen a laughing Brünnhilde go down to the shore —an omen whose meaning eludes her. Hagen returns with Siegfried's corpse, prepared to take the Ring at last. But when he reaches out, Siegfried's dead rises and stops him. Brünnhilde enters, serene in demeanor, full wisdom attained. She sings her vast final monologue, which includes the heart-stopping farewell to Wotan: "Rest, rest, you god." The funeral pyre on which Siegfried lies is set ablaze, and Brünnhilde rides into the flames on her horse Grane. The fire leaps up to Valhalla, and the gods meet their end. The Rhine overflows its banks, and the Rhinemaidens resurface, ready to retake the Ring. Hagen makes a last lunge for the prize — "Away from the Ring!" — and drowns. The Ring has finally come home, and the music makes a turn toward the majestic, with the "Glorification of Brünnhilde" motif soaring in the orchestra. What comes next? Chéreau posed that question beautifully at the end of his great Bayreuth production of the Ring. The silent chorus on stage turns toward the audience, throwing the question back to us.
