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Vision and Reality
By Henrik Engelbrecht
He was 35 years of age when he began. He was 61 when he put the final touches to his score. Over the years Der Ring des Nibelungen had developed from a single opera to a gigantic cycle of works the like of which had never been seen before.
  
The Ring is a fantastic vision. It is an unparalleled work in the history of
music and it has forever changed the way that we perceive opera. A work
conceived by a multitalented artist living in the borderlands between vision and
reality. A man who wrote both libretto and music to a timeless, universal,
mythological musical drama dealing with the choices we face in life – a man also
blessed with the sense of reality and the knowledge of dramatic art necessary to
create one of the most spellbinding and relevant theatrical works in world
history.
Richard Wagner, the composer, writer, philosopher, and human being has been castigated, worshipped, hated, scorned, and idolized more than any other figure in the world of opera. More books have been written about him and his works than about any other composer, and Der Ring des Nibelungen is without doubt the most widely analyzed and debated work in the history of musical drama. With its cycle of four operas and around 15 hours of music, it is by no means any ordinary opera – rather a whole world to be explored. Indeed, many years may profitably be spent learning about – and from – the world of Richard Wagner.
Wagner’s inspiration was found mainly in a 12th century High German poem, Das Nibelungenlied, and in Norse mythology; the Elder and the Younger Eddas, and the Icelandic Volsung Saga. The libretto of The Ring underwent a long series of transformations over the years until it finally took on the shape that we know today. To put it crudely, Wagner wrote the words backwards, one opera at a time, and then composed the music forwards, starting at the beginning.
In October 1848 Wagner finished work on a synopsis of what he had intended to be a single opera. He called his outline of the Nibelungen myth a foundation for a musical drama and set about the task of writing a detailed prose sketch for an opera under the title Siegfrieds Tod (The Death of Siegfried). At that time, the story had an ending that was completely different to the one we know today; almost a "happy ending", in which Brünnhilde and Siegfried go off to Valhalla together in the final scene.
The Ring is a fantastic vision. It is an unparalleled work in the history of music and it has forever changed the way that we perceive opera. A work conceived by a multitalented artist living in the borderlands between vision and reality. A man who wrote both libretto and music to a timeless, universal, mythological musical drama dealing with the choices we face in life – a man also blessed with the sense of reality and the knowledge of dramatic art necessary to create one of the most spellbinding and relevant theatrical works in world history.
By November Wagner had written the libretto to Siegfrieds Tod, but he felt that he needed to tell the story of the events leading up to his musical drama. Thus a new drama was created: Der Junge Siegfried (The Young Siegfried). Later, Die Walküre and Das Rheingold were added before Wagner felt that he had done justice to the complicated tale in its entirety. And complicated it certainly is. A glance at Siegmund’s family relations will show that he was the brother of his wife Sieglinde, father-in-law to his half-sister Brünnhilde, brother-in-law to his son Siegfried and thus – steady yourself – father-in-law to the woman whose father is the father-in-law of his own son!
Der Junge Siegfried was renamed simply Siegfried and the final opera was entitled Götterdämmerung. Wagner began to compose the music for Das Rheingold in 1853 and subsequently commenced work on Die Walküre. The music for what Wagner called the work’s first day (even though it lasts over 2½ hours, Wagner only saw Das Rheingold as a prelude!) was composed between June 1854 and March 1856. After a pause of a few months, Wagner continued work on the first two acts of Siegfried – only to discontinue his work on The Ring in 1857.
The reason for Wagner’s temporary abandonment of his work is found in his meeting with the pessimistic ideas of the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, who saw suffering as the essence of the human condition. Up until then, Wagner’s tireless work on his monumental tale of love and power had been fuelled by the revolutionary ideas of 1848 in particular; other influences were philosophers of the school of Ludwig Feuerbach and his far more positive thinking about human behaviour. But now Wagner stood face to face with new thoughts – and he also felt the need to develop his music skills in preparation for the rest of The Ring.
On a more mundane level, Wagner was in desperate need of money and he had started work on a single, lesser opera intended to make ends meet for a while. However, Tristan und Isolde soon proved to be yet another gigantic work which was to become a milestone in the history of music.
12 years were to pass before Wagner recommenced work on Siegfried. In the meantime he had composed not only Tristan und Isolde, but also his only comic opera, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. Finally, in 1869, Wagner felt ready to complete his greatest, most ambitious work and he spent the next five years composing the rest of Siegfried and then the last – and longest - of the four-part cycle, Götterdämmerung.
One of the musical techniques most often mentioned in connection with the name
of Wagner is that of the leitmotif. However, it was not Wagner who invented the
word or indeed the technique of giving a short musical motif to a character, an
event, an object, or an emotion. On the other hand, it was he more than any
composer who exploited the vast potential implicit in using the orchestra as an
independent voice to make comments about the drama unfolding on the stage.
Wagner himself described the technique in his operatic manifesto of 1851, Opera
und Drama: “These melodious moments emanating from the orchestra are a sort of
signpost showing the way to the emotionalism of the drama’s complex structure.
It is through them that we gain insight into the deepest secrets of the poetical
intent, and we are thus afforded unfiltered participation in the realisation of
this intent.”
The technique of the leitmotif – a musical theme – is the mainstay of the
music in The Ring. Barely half a minute passes before we are once again reminded
of one of the numerous themes which in their entirety make up a composite
tapestry from the beginning to the end of each act in the work. The leitmotifs
are interrelated, and they develop as the story progresses. Wagner himself has
not given us any key to an understanding of them, and there are still unclear
points in their identification and meaning, points on which researchers of music
disagree to this very day.
In all senses, Wagner’s visions were enormous: The Ring was not only the
longest and most demanding work in the history of opera; it demanded its own
opera house custom built for the purpose! The idea was to create a venue where
audiences and artists could gather and immerse themselves in The Ring for the
whole week that it took to perform it. It is proof of Wagner’s talents as a
negotiator that he was able to raise the capital needed for the project – and it
was the small town of Bayreuth which placed an area on the outskirts of the town
at his disposal. The building was completed in 1875, and Wagner’s great operas
are still performed there every year in the summer on the occasion of the famous
Wagner Festival.
Wagner was a man who needed to be in total control of a situation. He wrote
both the libretto and the score for Der Ring des Nibelungen, and it was he who
supervised rehearsals at the first performance of the work in 1876. The project
of The Ring had now become a reality, and it was Wagner himself who was the
first to see the numerous possibilities implicit in interpreting and
reinterpreting the work. After the first complete performance of the four
operas, Wagner’s comment was this: “Next time we shall do it completely
differently!” Opera houses all over the world have taken him up on this ever
since.
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The four operas
Das Rheingold
Die Walküre
Siegfried
Götterdämmerung
Articles
Kasper Bech Holten:
The Journey Begins
Henrik Engelbrecht:
Vision and Reality
Kasper Bech Holten:
Thoughts about The Ring, 2001
Chronology:
Wagner, Die Walküre and Der Ring des Nibelungen
Gallery
See the photos from Die Walküre
Biographies
The Ring Team...
The Cast
See the cast
Biographies are available at www.kglteater.dk
Die Walküre is sponsored by the Bikuben Foundation
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