Richard Wagner, Götterdämmerung (1876)

Götterdämmerung? More like Götterdumberung! Amirite? Or should it be "Götterdämmerdung?" Let's workshop this.

Sheesh. Well. Anyway. We open on the Norns singing about what's going on while ominously spinning a rope of fate, which breaks, ominously. Then, on the mountain, Siegfried and Brünnhilde declare their love for each other, of which he gives her the ring as a pledge. And he's off to...seek adventure, I guess. You'd think he'd want to spend more time with his blushing bride, but WHATEVER. Heroes will be heroes, I guess. And that's the prologue. Act I: the action switches to a hall where we see a king of...some kingdom, presumably, Gunther; and his sister Gutrune and half-brother Hagen. Hagen suggests that half-bro should marry Brünnhilde, the only problem being that Siegfried's already found her. He suggests that Gutrune should also marry Siegfried, and produces a potion to make him fall in love with her and forget his former love; then Gunther can marry her. A perfect scheme! Conveniently enough, Siegfried then shows up. Gunther extends hospitality, and Gutrune gives him the potion, which does what it says on the label; he offers to win a wife for Gunther, who tells him the whole Brünnhilde situation, and that only a fearless man can get through the fire (sidenote: what does this mean? Surely "fearless" is not a synonym for "flame-resistant?" Is it that the flames aren't real, but only a fearless type would be willing to take the risk by charging through them? Difficult to say.) Anyway the plan is that Siegfried uses the Tarnhelm to look like Gunther and in that state gets Brünnhilde so she'll have to marry him. The two swear blood-brotherhood. When they leave, Hagen gloats about how his Cunning Plan to get Siegfried to bring him the ring is working. Back on the mountain, another valkyrie, Waltraute, visits Brünnhilde to tell her what's the haps: Wotan is sad because his spear that gave him power was broken (although he seemed pretty equanimous about it in Siegfried), and he ordered the World Tree hacked down and piled the branches around Valhalla awaiting the giant conflagration that will mean the end. This is apparently due to the ring's curse, and he keeps muttering that if only it were returned to the Rheinmaidens, all would be well. But Brünnhilde refuses to return it, being an emblem of Siegfried's love, so Waltraute has a sad and leaves. Siegfried shows up, claims Brünnhilde for Gunther, and takes the ring, and would you believe we've only just finished the first act? As the second opens, Hagen is visited in a waking dream by his father, who turns out to be ALBERICH! Alberich urges him to get the ring and kill Siegfried, which I feel like he was already pretty much onboard with, but WHATEVER. Gunther and Brünnhilde return; she is shocked to see Siegfried, and when she sees the ring on his finger, she realizes that it wasn't Gunther but Siegfried who captured her, which pisses her off, though I kind of think she should really already be at maxed-out pissed-offedness. She accuses him of being a dick (more or less), which he swears is untrue. Anyway, Brünnhilde, Gunther, and Hagen all agree that Siegfried should be murdified (though I feel like Brünnhilde ought to be comparably pissed off at Gunther); it seems that Siegfried is invincible thanks to vaguely-defined enchantments put on him by Brünnhilde (as compared to the original stories, in which he was invulnerable due to having bathed in Fafner's blood), but she knew he'd never run from combat, so she neglected to protect his back, so let's stab him in the back (wouldn't it have been easier to just enchant the whole guy, as opposed to excluding specific bits?). And let's do it on a hunting trip, so we can claim a boar killed him and Gutrune won't hate us. Now, on to act III. The Rheinmaidens are still unhappy about the lost gold; Siegfried, having gotten separated from the hunting party, drops by. They beg him to give them the ring to escape the curse, but he foolishly laughs at them and does no such thing. The rest of the hunters show up. Hagen gives him a potion which restores his memory, and then when he talks about his romance with Brünnhilde, stabs him in the back and murders him (this being the penalty for having sworn never to have been involved with her). Anyway, back at the hall, Gutrune is sad, but whatever (it's funny how instantaneously they give up the façade of a boar having been responsible). Hagen claims the ring, Gunther sez no, Hagen murders him. Brünnhilde orders a funeral pyre built for Siegfried and lights it on fire. Then (I'm cribbing from summaries now, because it is far from obvious what's happening here, at least in the Lepage production), she rides into the flames, the hall collapses in the fire, the Rhine rises up to quench it, the Rheinmaidens recover the ring (Hagen tries to get it back but is pulled under), Valhalla is in flames, I guess Gutrune must be queen now, good for her, THE END.

Man, that summary was NOT worth the time it took to write it. I dunno. I have to say, I feel a bit...underwhelmed by this last chapter. Why? Oh, I don't know. Can I start by saying how much I hated the climax to Act I? So first, let's note that Wagner wrote this in such a way as to make it very hard to perform effectively. Siegfried is supposed to look like Gunther, but the singer playing Siegfried is the one involved. So how to do it? Well, by wearing the tarnhelm, which here (and also in the Schenk; I think it's the usual way to do it) is depicted as a kind of metal cloth that you just drape over your head. Did helmets ever really work like this? Regardless, it's pretty goofy-looking. But the action itself is what I reallydidn't like. Brünnhilde is completely passive in this scene, just letting the ring be taken, letting herself be dragged away. What happened to being Wotan's bravest, most glorious daughter? For reasons that surpass understanding, she doesn't even try "sorry, I'm already taken." And then Siegfried just looks like a huge dickhead, specifically talking about how he'll take her by force if she doesn't want to go. Just because you're not in love with a woman doesn't mean you should be a giant creep to her. So that was kinda bad. Granted, things did get better, and really, there are a lot of great scenes here, there's no denying it. But man, the storytelling just seemed a bit creaky. So for instance, when asked where the ring came from, Siegfried explains that he got it from a dragon he'd killed, which okay. So...why, in his opinion, did Brünnhilde have it on the mountain? It truly makes no sense. Also, in the ending, why is Valhalla supposed to be burning, when, per Waltraute, Wotan specifically said that giving the ring back to the Rheinmaidens would fix everything for the gods? Argh it again makes no sense, and the whole apocalypse is less dramatic and cool and ominous than I'd like. Bah, I say. My whelmedness is limited. Yes, great music, that goes without saying, but dramatically...eh.

The production, once again, fine. Some good touches. You know, I think they realized after Rheingold how silly the wires looked; I don't think any of the characters have been wired since. I wonder if they've even gotten rid of them for Rheingold;if you saw it nowadays, would it be different than the recorded version? Here at one point the Rheinmaidens dohave to clamber up a slope, which is a littledubious, but not too bad. And I wanted to call attention to one cool bit where, after Hagen has murdered Siegfried, Gunther gets his blood on his hands, which he washes off in the Rhine, which then becomes progressively more red and bloody. That was a cool, apocalyptic touch. You can't complain about the singers; I think my favorite was actually Eric Owens, better than ever as Alberich; I'm bummed that he only has one scene. But Hans-Peter König is also very forceful as Hagen--much better than he was as Hunding in Walküre,although, as ever when I say things like that, this was probably a better role. Iain Paterson is appropriately slimy as the weak-willed Gunther, and Jay Hunter Morris and Deborah Voigt remain strong as Siegfried and Brünnhilde. Really, I think it's the opera itself more than the production that I have problems with. I really hope that Wagner's remaining major operas--Tristan und Isolte, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Parsifal--are able to conclude things on a high note. Dramatically, I think that the only ring opera that was up to much was Die Walküre,though I'll concede that I'm just Some Guy and that I might feel differently if I gave them more viewings.