Anna Russell’s Synopsis of Wagner’s Ring der Nibelung
Now that the opera season is with us again, I feel it would be appropriate for me to give a talk on Wagner’s “Ring der Nibelungen.” Now I know that analyses of the “Ring” are frequently given over the radio by some great expert for the edification of other great experts, but these are usually so esoteric as to leave the average person as befogged as before…and in fact I think tends to discourage him from going altogether. So I would like to tell you about it as from the point of view of one average opera-goer to another.
Now, the first thing is that every person and event in the Ring cycle has what is grandly called a “leitmotif.” Now you don’t need to worry about that, it merely means a “signature tune.”
The scene opens in the river Rhine. IN it. If it were in New York, it would be like the Hudson. And swimming around there are the three Rhinemaidens…a sort of aquatic Andrews Sisters. Or sometimes they’re called “nixies.” Mairsy-nix and doesey-nix and little nixie-divies. And they sing their signature tune, which is as follows. [Sings.] I won’t translate it because it doesn’t mean anything.
The Rhine maidens are looking after a lump of magic gold. And the magic of this gold consists of the fact that anybody who will renounce love and make a ring out of this gold will become Master of the Universe. This is the gimmick.
Now, up from underneath the river, as it might be, let’s say, the Holland Tunnel, comes a little dwarf called Alberich. [Piano swoop.] And here he is. [Sings.] Well you can see he’s excessively unattractive. He makes a pass at the Rhine maidens, who think he’s *perfectly* dreadful, and so they’re not very nice to him, they tell him [Sings]. So he thinks “Well, I’m not going to get any love anyhow, I can see that, so I may as well renounce it, and take this lump of gold, make the ring, and become Master of the Universe. So he takes it back to the Holland Tunnel with him [Piano glissando]. And here he is making the Ring. [Plays] No steel strikes here! Well, that’s him.
Well, now, up here, as it might be on top of the Empire State Building, you find Votan, the head god. And he’s a crashing bore, too. Well he and his wife, Mrs Frikka Votan, have had a castle built for them called Valhalla [Piano theme] by a couple of giants called Fasolt and Fafnir. Well of course the giants want to be paid for building this castle, and part of the giants builders union scale consists of this magic ring that Alberich’s made. So Wotan goes all the way down from where he is to Alberich [Piano smacks] and takes the Ring away from him. Well of course Alberich is simply furious. So he puts a terrible curse on the Ring. [Piano plays classic Villain theme.] That’s the wrong curse, isn’t it! I’m sorry—here—[Plays Alberich’s curse.]
But Wotan takes no notice, he takes the ring up [Piano smacks] and gives it to Fasolt. And right away Fafnir kills Fasolt [Piano SMACK] to get the Ring for himself. So Wotan knows that the curse is working. And this worries him, so he goes down to ground level [Piano black-key glissando] to consult an old fortune-teller friend of his called My Friend Erde; she is a green-faced torso that pops out of the ground—at least we think she’s a torso, that’s all anyone’s ever seen of her. And she says to Wotan, she says “Weiche, Wotan, weiche!” Which means “Be careful, Wotan, be careful.” She then bears him eight daughters.
These daughters are the Valkyries, headed by Brunnhilde…and they are the NOISIEST women! [Plays and sings]
Well that is the end of Part 1.
In Part 2 you find Wotan wandering about on the earth, and he has a couple of illegitimage children by a mortal—Siegmund and Sieglinda—whilst disguised under the singularly appropriate name of Wolf. These children become separated at birth, and Sieglinda marries a funny sort of a man called Hunding. He plays the Wagner tuba. [Plays.] He plays it very well. He also has an ash tree with a sword stuck in it growing through his living room floor.
Well one day who should turn up but Siegmund, and he falls madly in love with Sieglinda, regardless of the fact that she’s married to Hunding, which is immoral, and she’s his own sister, which is illegal. But that’s the beauty of Grand Opera, you can do anything so long as you sing it. And after having given Hunding a Mickey Finn so that they won’t wake him up, they certainly do sing it! [Plays and sings.]
Well when they’ve got that off their chests, Siegmund pulls out the sword that’s stuck in the tree that grows in the house that Jack—that HUNDING—built, and they run away together. Well of course when Hunding comes to he’s very annoyed, and he chases after them, and there’s a tremendous battle that everybody gets mixed up in. [Piano.] There’s Hunding dead. [Piano.] There’s Siegmund dead. [Piano.] Mr & Mrs Wotan have an argument. [Piano.] And Wotan’s furious with Brunnhilde.
He’s mad at Brunnhilde because he told her she was NOT to side with Siegmund…and she DID. So as a punishment he puts her on a rock and he surrounds her with impenetrable fire. And that’s the end of Part II. [Piano fillip.]
Well Part III is devoted to the growing-up of Siegfried, the child of Siegmund and Sieglinda, and he’s very young, and he’s very handsome, and he’s very strong, and he’s very brave, and he’s very stupid….. He’s a regular Little Abner type. There’s not too much you need to know about this opera except that Wotan comes down and plays Twenty Questions with him…and Siegfried gets the Ring. …D’y’remember the Ring? Well he gets the Ring by killing Fafnir, the giant…who’s turned into a dragon in this opera, don’t ask me why. Well then a little bird tells him, and he finds Brunnhilde on the fire-surrounded rock. Well now he’s never seen a woman before, so he doesn’t know what she is…but he soon finds out…and they go in for some very competitive singing—the type of thing “anything you can sing I can sing louder.” And… [Plays and sings.] Oh, it’s terrific. I think probably she wins.
Well then they fall in love, and he gives her the Ring. She’s his aunt, by the way. But nonetheless, they are in love, and everything’s very happy and you’d think that would be the end of it wouldn’t you. No fear.
Göttedammerung. That’s Part IV. Well now in the beginning of Part IV you have the three Norns, or Fates, and they are also daughters of My Friend Erde the Green-Faced Torso, and therefore presumably they are also Siegfried’s aunts. But this bunch of aunts are just as droopy as the first lot were noisy. You remember the Valkyrie aunts, they go [Plays and Sings], well that. Well this lot are just the opposite. [Plays and Sings.]
Well this dreary lot of aunts, if they don’t tell this whole story right over again from the beginning. So actually you can miss out Parts I, II, and III, and come in at the beginning of Göttedammerung, and you’ll be just as far ahead.
Well meanwhile Siegfried’s tired of love on the rocks with Brunnhilde. And Brunnhilde’s gone completely to pieces. You remember her signature tune used to be [Plays and Sings]. Well NOW it’s changed to this: [Plays and Sings]. So love has certainly taken the ginger out of HER.
Well then Siegfried goes off on his travels and he meets three people: Gunter and Gutrune Gibbitsch and their half-brother Hagen…whose mother was a Gibbitsch…but whose father was Alberich the dwarf. D’y’remember Alberich? So Hagen greets Siegried like this: [Plays and Sings] Now do you recognize that tune? It’s the SAME MUSIC as Alberich’s curse! [Plays.] And sure enough there’s dirty work afoot.
Because Hagen gives Siegfried a magic potion that makes him forget all about Brunnhilde and fall in love with Gutrune Gibbitsch…who by the way is the only woman that Siegfried has ever come across who hasn’t been his aunt. …I’m not making this up, you know!
Well, so, when Brunnhilde finds out about this, of course naturally she’s frightfully annoyed and she plots with Hagen to kill Siegfried. And Hagen kills him. Well of course as soon as he’s dead she’s sorry…I know you men are going to say “so like a woman,” and…. And so she is sorry, and she builds a funeral pyre, and she puts Siegfried on it. And she gets on her horse, and she gallops on the funeral pyre too, and she lights it, and they burn up. [Plays Fire music.] Well that sets Valhalla alight, and IT burns up. [Plays Fire music.] Well then Wotan and all the gods burn up. [Plays Fire music.] And the whole works catches fire, and it ALL burns up. [Plays Fire music.] It’s all burnt.
Well then the river Rhine overflows its banks. D’y’remember the Rhine?..And the waters come in over the ashes. And who d’you think turns up next? The Rhine maidens. So they take their lump of gold, I mean the Ring which is of course their lump of gold, and they put it back where it came from. And after sitting through this whole operation, what do you hear? You hear: [Plays and Sings]. YOU’RE EXACTLY WHERE YOU STARTED TWENTY HOURS AGO!
This is all by Anna Russell, I just transcribed it as a public service because apparently nobody else ever has!!! The copyright is entirely hers, c. I just don’t know how to say so without getting slapped with some copyright-violation cease-and-desist order just for publicizing what is a truly great and far-too-little-known (except by aficianados who can quote it at the drop of a hat, as I can without being a very accomplished aficianado).