The Wagner Project: Götterdämmerung

The Ring comes full circle.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Act II Scene II of Götterdämmerung as staged by the Mariinsky Theater.
That's Hagen standing on top of the Gibichung Hall. Photo by V. Baranovsky.

Twenty-two years after starting work on  his mammoth four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen, Richard Wagner wound up right back where he started with Götterdämmerung. The last opera of the cycle tells the story he wanted to tell in the first place: the death of the hero Siegfried and the redemption of the world by the heroine Brunnhilde. Except now the ending was different.

The Wagner Project: Siegfried

A boy's own adventure tale...interrupted.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Stefan Vinke as Siegfried in Act II of the opera that bears his name.
Photo by Elise Bakketun © 2015 Seattle Opera 

Like its title character, the opera Siegfried is quite literally the problem child of the Ring. The story of the early adventures of Wagner's mythic Nietszchean superhero was meant to be a light work, an optimistic opera that would help draw listeners to the Ring as a whole. And yet, it remains the least heard and least popular chapter of the enormous operatic cycle.

The Wagner Project: Die Walküre

The second chapter of the Ring remains its most familiar.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

James Morris (standing) as Wotan in the final scene from Die Walküre. 
Jane Eaglen (lying prone) is Brunnhilde.
Photo by Marty Sohl © 2004 The Metropolitan Opera.

This is the opera people think of when they think of Wagner. The Ride of the Valkyries. The Magic Fire scene. Thick orchestrations. Pulse-pounding passions. And some of the composer's best and most enduring music. There's nothing quite like Die Walküre. On a good night (or in a good recording) this is a four hour story that unfolds with the pace of a breakneck car chase--one involving flying horses.

The Wagner Project: Das Rheingold

Wagner's first Ring opera has no pauses...and no humans!
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Underwater love: Alberich (Gunther von Kannen, center) pursues the three Rhinemaidens
in the opening scene of Das Rheingold.,
Image from the Bayreuth Festival, © 1991 Teldec/WBC/Unitel

Believe it or not, Wagner's enormous 15-hour Der Ring des Nibelungen (hereafter referred to as "the Ring Cycle) was originally supposed to be just one opera. In 1848, Richard Wagner sketched an opera called Siegfrieds Tod, which would retell the most famous incident from German myth and epic: the death of the hero Siegfried and the later fate of his beloved, the valkyrie (warrior maiden) Brunnhilde. And then, much like the ambitious god Wotan he realized that one opera wouldn't be enough.