tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5630356600537382212.post6201785576972905240..comments2024-03-18T15:57:30.839-07:00Comments on Seattle Opera Blog: What Does It All Mean?Seattle Operahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04003665787231048819noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5630356600537382212.post-10324502675104757542009-08-15T15:31:23.885-07:002009-08-15T15:31:23.885-07:00What is destroyed at the end of the Ring is the ru...What is destroyed at the end of the Ring is the rule of law (Wotan and Valhalla). And the ring (money, wealth, property) is returned to nature. The death of Siegfried (free nature) and Brunnhilde's (absolute, self-sacrificing) love for him accomplishes it, thus redeeming the world.hyperbolusnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5630356600537382212.post-12646997850802697202009-08-12T05:35:46.722-07:002009-08-12T05:35:46.722-07:00Great historical perspective on the creation and e...Great historical perspective on the creation and evolution of the "Ring", Perry!! Glad you also put it into the context of R. Wagner's early Marxist thinking. I'm now reading a long-out-of-print biography on Karl Marx's wife, Jenny, and I#m struck by the fact that they were forced to be even more peripatetic by the "powers-that-be" than was Richard W. Both Richard and ´Karl, however, produced works that changed their professions significantly!<br />-- Win H.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5630356600537382212.post-83410458619221096672009-08-11T08:00:49.579-07:002009-08-11T08:00:49.579-07:00The question about the ending of the "Ring&qu...The question about the ending of the "Ring"--must keep in mind the historical roots of the "Ring"'s compositional history. Wagner didn't simply write the words and compose the music in order, from page one to measure # billion at the end. Rather, Wagner conceived the whole aesthetic of the "Ring" in the late 1840s in a spirit of revolutionary romanticism politically charged--a kind of romantic, emaotional early Marxism. He finished the last drops of musical ink for the last page of "Gotterdammerung" almost three decades later, in the early 1870s, just before finally opening his own strange new opera theater festival with the world premiere of the whole crazy project. <br />This means that Wagner's own intentions concerning the end of the "Ring" have roots in nearly three decades of Wagner's own autogiography historically, intellecually, musically, dramatically, philosophically, and even in terms of his own lifestyle changes. To change the dates around a bit and put it in our own contemporary terms, it would be like an artist today beginging a large work of art about the meaning of life when that artist is a mid-20s lost rebellious loser, and concluding that same large work of art when the artist is a nearly retired, tired old fart whose youthful ideals have been confronted by may a grim reality and whose whole outlook on life has radically changed.<br /><br />What were those changes?Perry Lorenzohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15005573510329372636noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5630356600537382212.post-38317830352485369282009-08-10T08:45:39.676-07:002009-08-10T08:45:39.676-07:00In the mythic background from which Wagner drew hi...In the mythic background from which Wagner drew his story, the destruction of the world and of the gods is fated all along--in Voluspaa, the opening poem of the Poetic Edda, the Seeress predicts the terrible battle and final destruction of the gods at Ragnarok (this is why heroes are taken to Valhalla--so they'll be able to help in this fight). In the opera, when we see Erda (who is a version of the Seeress), her warning leaves the impression that Wotan should give up the ring to escape disaster. But, if one accepts the idea that death is inevitable, then the disaster wouldn't take the form of one's own destruction so much as of a failure to live out one's destiny heroically. Wotan wouldn't be able to do that if he had the ring, because he'd be under the power of its curse, even though he may think that it would make him more powerful.<br /><br />Given the nature of the curse (and of the Schopenhauerian worldview that informs the opera), I suppose one could also say that, to desire the ring is to desire one's death.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5630356600537382212.post-36094649609827321592009-08-10T02:03:03.824-07:002009-08-10T02:03:03.824-07:00A great analysis, Jonathan!!
Could Wagner have lef...A great analysis, Jonathan!!<br />Could Wagner have left the ending of "Götterdämmerung" unclear because he anticipated the current era of "Regietheater" in which every Regisseur concocts her/his own interpretation (no matter how ridiculous or werk-untreu) of this 4-piece masterpiece?<br />Tschüß,<br />WinAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5630356600537382212.post-78737874591004247442009-08-09T16:20:04.271-07:002009-08-09T16:20:04.271-07:00(on ring photo contest, from Kevon Wick): "Ew...(on ring photo contest, from Kevon Wick): "Ewww! Lower your arms! Didn't you get up for a shower at all during that long sleep?!?"Kevonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10103125760534012658noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5630356600537382212.post-56472947210521128642009-08-08T08:28:28.232-07:002009-08-08T08:28:28.232-07:00Who is redeemed? Well, the world. The world(i.e. m...Who is redeemed? Well, the world. The world(i.e. mankind) will no longer be affected by the evil caused by the ring. The Gibichung palace is destroyed as well as Valhalla, but the '89 Met production and the '76 Bayreuth production both ended with a group of humans who survived the appocalypse, so not everyone is destroyed(this is also written in the libretto). Wagner also had anarchist leanings at the time he wrote the Gotterdamerung libretto, and one main theme of the Ring is that any kind of government is corrupted and curtails the freedom of the individual, whether it be Wotan who tries to rule the world in a noble way with laws or his mirror image Alberich who uses power to control and turn the Nibelungs into slaves. So, with Valhalla's destruction(i.e. the destruction of government)humans are redeemed in another since: they now have complete freedom.<br />But you bring up a good point about the end of the ring being illogical, and Wagner himself never had a good expanation for why the Gods had to be destroyed. After all, according to Waltraude, if Brunnhilde just gave the ring to the Rhine daughters everything would be peachy for everyone. But then we wouldn't have the incredible appocalyptic conclusion to the cycle. As music, Brunnhilde's Immolation works on a visceral level that defies logic. It is like the appostrophe at the end of a long and wonderful sentence.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com