Wagner: Das Rheingold - Epic Opera

1/22/11 – Wagner: Das Rheingold

Wagner has wonderful moments, and dreadful quarters of an hour.
- Gioachino Rossini

The Ring of the Nibelung.  The thought strikes fear through me. Four complete operas, conceived as one unit.  An entire weekend’s worth of performance.  Outdoor settings with rivers, waterfalls, and castles, massive orchestras with 8 tubas (among other excesses,) singers under such heavy demands that their careers are defined by their ability to sing such roles – classified simply as “Wagner Sopranos.”  (Or basses.  Or tenors.  Not so much with the mezzos…)  There is nothing “light” about Wagnerian opera.  I have been anticipating and somewhat dreading this piece for some time, and for those of you playing along at home, I also have at my disposal Andrew Porter’s English translation of the cycle, available here.  Let’s dive in, shall we?

Actually, before taking a look at Das Rheingold the first of the four giants of opera making up The Ring Cycle, let me make one thing clear.  I’m not critiquing or analyzing Wagner, just his music.  Yes, to call him an ass would be a tremendous understatement.  He was a bad, bad man; credited to be a tremendous voice of anti-Semitism as well as racism, and a strong influence on Nazism, German nationalism, and Hitler’s philosophy with those regards.  Not to gloss over his personal life and philosophical views, but to discount Wagner’s musical contributions on account of them is foolish.  Gesualdo killed his wife and her lover, and was a musical genius, whose music I find fascinating.  Sometimes good people do bad things and bad people do good things.  I’m past that for now.

The overture or prelude seems peculiar for a late romantic… 136 measures of building up and shifting textures within an E-flat triad.  19^th century minimalism?  Certainly not the heroic overture Wagner is known for.  The first scene begins the opera with the dwarf Alberich being teased for his haggard appearance by a trio of Rheinmadens (nymphs) as he longs for their love.  Crushed by their jeers, the dwarf steals the magical gold from three nymphs charged with guarding it.  In the hands of one who has denounced all love, this gold has the power to be forged into a ring bestowing ultimate role over the earth.  (I never knew that’s where Tolkien got that…)  Musically, the trio of maidens has some beautiful songs, but the orchestral scoring as the Rheingold glimmers in the rising sun is truly beautiful.  Wagner’s opulent orchestrations allow the harps (4 or so, I think!) to carry over the horns and strings, lending a shimmering texture to the underscoring.

            The second scene is more expository in nature; the god Wotan awakes with his wife Fricka to see that their new castle has finally been completed, but the builders must now be paid their due; the two giants who built the castle were promised Fricka’s sister Freia as their reward.  Wotan assures his wife that he ahs no intention of following through; his friend Loge is right now wandering the earth in search of something to offer the giants instead.  The giants Fasolft and Fafner enter, chasing Freia as their own, and there is much argument as to the payment of the debt, with Fricka’s brotherd Donner and Froh also getting involved to defend their sister.  (I’m going to stop here with the blow-by-blow; if you want a whole synopsis, check wikipedia or any of the many other resources available...)  The high points of this second scene are also the instrumental ones – the gruff, brassy entrance of the giants and the underscoring of Loge and Wotan’s descent to steal the Ring from Alberich, the newly agreed upon payment in lieu of Freia.  The underscoring is punctuated by the striking of tuned anvils as the ring is forged.  I am quickly realizing that Wagner’s long-lasting contributions were indeed not so much classical in nature, but how well he paved the way for the generation of film composers that were to come in the next century.  Perhaps if he were born a few decades later, things would have been vastly different…

            The third scene is by far she shortest, which is good, because not much happens.  They go to steal the ring by tricking an all powerful Alberich to shift shapes into a toad, and they subdue and kidnap him in that state.  Oh yeah… he turns into a dragon first.  (I’d really prefer to se this staged sometime…)  There is very little aria or real song in Wagner’s opera – everything seems to be driven by the dialogue.  Whereas Mozart, Handel, and other operatic composers tread the drama as merely a thread to connect the songs together, Wagner elevates the poetic text to the level of the music, if not above.  Likewise, his underscoring of movement, be it scene changes or merely non-vocal staged activity is elevated higher than previously in opera.  Which almost seems a shame; some of the most challenging vocal music out there and there’s nowhere to really let it sing.  The voice is clearly subservient to the dialogue and the orchestra.

            The final mammoth of a scene begins with Wohan and Loge arguing with Alberich to give up the ring, after having mountains of gold brought up by Alberich’s servant-dwarves, including his magical invisibility helmet.  (I’m not making this up, seriously.  An invisibility helmet.)  Once Wotan has the ring, Alberich is sent away in disgrace, but not without first placing a curse on the ring, that it’s owner would find no joy in the riches it brings, and all will be envious of its owner – even to the point of killing for it.  (Tolkien really “borrowed” a lot of this, didn’t he?)  Wohan gives all the gold and the helm to the giants, but tries to hold out on relinquishing the ring.  After a stern warning from yet another god, Erda, he throws the ring into the pile for the giants.  The two hobbits… I mean giants… argue over the ring, and one kills the other for it.  Again, if you want a synopsis, feel free to seek it elsewhere.  Once again, the musical highlights seem to be primarily non-vocal; the entering of the gods into the castle, Valhalla, as the final curtain closes, being primary among them.

            As Rossini stated above, there are many amazing moments in Wagner’s operas.  It’s just a shame there’s so much in between them.

Tomorrow – Jaco Pastorius

Next week – Alfred Hitchcock: An Essential Collection (Bernard Herrmann)