I will put enmity between thee and the serpent.
Genesisiii. 15
Wagner's gallery of portraits of women has been much praised. Senta, mooning by her idle spinning-wheel and waiting the time when she might cast her pure spirit on the stained bosom of the ocean rover and so save him another seven years' damnation; Elsa, wavering between faith and doubt and finally rushing to destruction out of sheer curiosity; the holy Elizabeth, praying for the life of him who had committed against her the deadliest of all sins, gross infidelity, the sanctified Elizabeth, sweetest, purest, most adorable of all Wagner's heroines; the blazing torch of human passion, Isolde, the primeval, unconventional woman; and Brünnhilde, the wish maid, the sleeping beauty, the waking avenger and liberator,—all these have been praised by learned commentators in divers tongues.
Wagner was a student of women. He married two, and there are also many unpublished letters. He wrote "Tristan und Isolde" on the shores ofLucerne, where Isolde's real name was Mathilde. In the end he was dominated by a woman, but it may be doubted whether he ever really comprehended the "ewig weibliche," of which he made such clever theatrical use. There is not a very convincing feminine element in "Das Rheingold." The first disclosure is of three Rhein daughters sporting in the gauzy depths of their native element and singing in a language all their own around a nugget of gold of which strange lies are told. It is said that any person who makes a ring of that gold will have power and dominion over the world. The truth is that whosoever possesses that ring is bound to get into trouble, because a filthy little black dwarf will place a freak's curse upon it.
These three fish-tailed maidens, frisking in the sallow glare of the shaded spot-light, youthful of aspect, ebullient of manner, irreproachable in morals, so far as one can judge from their treatment of the winsome Alberich, outlive the futile and disappearing gods. They come to the surface in the final scene of "Götterdämmerung," and wrest back their ring from the hands of Hagen, whom they incontinently drown in their dotted Swiss habitation. There must be a deep moral lesson somewhere in this. What is it? Possibly it signifies that good girls are alwaystriumphant in the end. At any rate, it accentuates the pitiable feebleness of the mighty ones of Walhall.
Another feminine figure in the foreword of the trilogy is the excellent Erda. This portentous poser in green light and veiling makes two appearances in the course of the tragedy. The first is in "Rheingold" and the second in "Siegfried." She occupies a position somewhat similar to that of a Greek chorus. She helps the audience to a comprehension of what the rather incomprehensible gods are doing. She always comes to the surface when Wotan is "stumped."
The first time she comes when he is about to commit an act of folly. She tells him to get rid of the ring which he had employed so much strategy to procure. He promptly obeys her, although he has never seen her before, and was pretty thoroughly astonished by her unexpected appearance. The second time she discloses herself when Wotan is sorely in need of more sound advice. We now learn that Wotan, who in "Rheingold" had declared that he intended to know more of the lady, has not wasted his time in idle prating. The nine Valkyrs are the living proofs of this. Erda is plainly not at all pleased to meet her old friend again. She gives him another dark and dismal warning, and leaveshim to chew the cud of his own cheerful reflection.
Freia, the charming young woman for whom the giants wrangle, is a mere figure in "Rheingold." She might as well be a piece of stage property. She counts for nothing else. She has no more dramatic significance than the lumps of gold which the dwarfs lug upon their straining shoulders. She belongs to the same category as the delectable Donner and Froh, who stand about in odd corners and try desperately to look as if they were Vulcan and Apollo, whereas they are neither.
One feminine character stands alone in "Rheingold." The virtuous Fricka, type of that species of amiable wife who regards all mortal desire as utterly depraved and who would joy to wrap herself in a spotless mantle ofnoli me tangereand let her husband worship her on bended knees outside the portals of her holy temple,—she is the woman with a mission in this splendid tragedy of futile gods and fumbling mortals.
But Fricka is right, after all. If Wotan had listened to her advice, he would have come out of all his difficulties much better. The fount of misfortune, as far as Fricka is concerned, was her failure to brush the dust off her own garments in the day of the first temptation. Logeknew where to touch the quick of her woman's weakness. "Will the gold make pretty ornaments for women?" she asked; and Loge, who, being the spirit of evil, well knew the root, declared that there was nothing which it could do better than that. And so Fricka stood actionless while Wotan went down to Niebelheim to rape the gold from Alberich.
Short-sighted Fricka! Mean-spirited Fricka! True woman Fricka! When she has tacitly consented to the theft of the gold, what does she? Seeing her poor old one-eyed husband struggling to escape the consequences of his guilt by creating a race of free agents to make the atonement for him, she pounces upon him with a stern demand that Siegmund shall die for violating her standards of virtue. But who ever expected to find a consistent logic in the mind of fair woman, even a resident of high Olympus?
Having turned upon the hand that sought to benefit her, what does she? She joins the procession of the futile and disappearing gods. Fricka mounts her ram-hauled chariot and slides away into the past, only to reappear in the chaste and general conflagration of the last great scene. She has served her purpose. She has made the drama of "Siegfried" imperatively necessary.
Siegmund being slain in answer to her inexorable demand, Brünnhilde must be punished for trying to carry out Wotan's original plot. Of course that is well enough. If Brünnhilde had had her way, there never would have been any drama of "Siegfried" and consequently no "Götterdämmerung." But without Siegfried things cannot go on. Sieglinde must hie her to the dark forest in the east, there to sob out her sweet but shadowed young life, and leave to the whining Mime the nursery task of rearing the youthful Volsung.
So much for the eternal feminine in the celestial circle of the trilogy. Poor little Gutrune! She's worth the whole lot of them. She at least was a gentle, soulful, loving woman, who was not troubling her spirit with a desire for gold, but who was possessed of an honest ambition to be the wife of the most important gentleman of the district. Social position was not what she sought, for she had that already. She was a Gibichung, which was the same in the Rhine valley as being a Biddle in Philadelphia. No; what she yearned for was distinction. She would have been a lady of the White House, if possible, had she lived in our time. Anyhow, she was a woman with whom one can sympathize, for she really liked Siegfried.
Last but not least of the "Rheingold" coterie are the giants. Fafner is an admirable character. He knows just what he wishes and he goes straight to the point. First of all, he wishes to possess himself of Freia because she would serve two purposes; namely, to keep house and cook for him and at the same time to preserve his youth. But the lumbering Fasolt, that overgrown blond basso, must go and fall in love with the simpering little soprano leggiere. How came Wagner not to remember the law of operatic tradition?
It is only another instance of his lack of the sense of humor. Fafner very properly disposes of Fasolt and goes off with the gold. And here follows one of the genuinely poetic touches of the tragedy. This scaly miser who has the hoard, the tarnhelm, and the ring, and who simply snuggles them up in a cave without reaping a single benefit from their possession, is put out of the drama by Siegfried, the embodiment of careless youth, hot blood, and human passion. Possibly Wagner thought of this, and possibly he did not; but at any rate we may do so, and thus intensify our poetic mood.
What effect has the disappearance of the futile gods upon the dramatic development of the story? Wotan is the hero of "Rheingold"and "Walküre." These two sections of the drama are concerned with the adventures of a god in search of a method of government. The hero of "Siegfried" and "Götterdämmerung" is Siegfried, a mortal in search of araison d'être. The former plays bad politics and learns too late that in statecraft as in business honesty is the best policy. The latter follows the inspirations of youth and nature, and comes to grief because he is the Parsifal of the north, a "guileless fool."
Musically "Rheingold" is a vorspiel. It introduces a few fundamental themes, rings the harmonic changes on them, and makes way for the real first movement, "Die Walküre." Of this work the music is the salvation, for its second act is dramatically so feeble, so ill-made, and so prosy that it would drive people out of the theatre were it not for its melodic richness. Fricka's lecture of Wotan, one of the vital scenes of the whole trilogy, is dramatically a bore; but musically it is strong and interesting, and it approaches its end with one of the most imposing phrases conceived by the wizard of Bayreuth, the phrase with which Fricka intones the words:—
"Deiner ew'gen GattinHeilige EhreSchirme heut' ihr Schild."
"Deiner ew'gen GattinHeilige EhreSchirme heut' ihr Schild."
"Deiner ew'gen Gattin
Heilige Ehre
Schirme heut' ihr Schild."
"The holy honor of thy eternal spouse as a shield this day protects her." That is Wagner's one proclamation of the majesty of Fricka and the chastity of the law which she represented. It is the finest musical thought in the whole second act of "Die Walküre," for, after all, the much-vaunted "Todesverkündigung" is a situation rather than a theme. The brass melody of it is not genuinely imposing, especially when the impersonator of Brünnhilde does not know how to appear mysterious and foreboding. The fight in the clouds is one of Wagner's impracticable conceptions. When it is perfectly executed, it is unconvincing; when it is not, it is quite incomprehensible, and sometimes it is even comic.
Musically "Die Walküre" consists of the first and last acts, and the first really begins with the duet between Siegmund and Sieglinde. All that goes before is preparation, interesting by reason of its musical narrative, but much too prolix, as all Wagner's explanations are. Siegmund's narrative is three times as long as is necessary to afford a reason for the hatred of Hunding. It would have been more subtle and more dramatic, anyhow, to let Hunding's thirst for vengeance rest entirely upon his discovery of the interest of his wife and the visitor for each other.
But let that pass. The duet of Siegmund and Sieglinde is generally accepted as one of Wagner's great achievements in sustained melody. The love-song is babbled now by musical babes. It is very pretty, and it has a manly ring, which we may all admire. But the third act of "Die Walküre" dwells from beginning to end in the sunlit regions of genius.
The feebleness of Wotan here loses itself in a sea of infinite pathos. The power of the magic hand of Wagner in the creation of dramatic atmosphere is seen in the tumultuous storming of the Valkyrs through the inky air. "How now, ye secret black and midnight hags; what is't ye do?" The salutation of Macbeth to the witches pales before the lightnings of the winged steeds. Into the midst of this festival of the furies plunges the ill-assorted pair, Brünnhilde and Sieglinde.
Thundering upon their traces comes Wotan, the irate god, whose well-meant efforts to escape the complications wrought by his own misdeeds have been thwarted by the erring wish maiden. Hearken to the old scold berating his frightened daughters: "Out with ye, hussies. Your sister has been disobedient. Speak to her, and I'll whip ye, too."
Slinking away into the waning storm, theyleave the father and the foolishly loving daughter together. The mighty seething of the musical sea subsides, leaving a deep underrunning swell of feeling. The billowing rush of the Valkyr theme gives way to the plaintive flow of the motive of Brünnhilde's pleading, one of the most poignantly expressive melodies ever conceived by Wagner. How it wells upward in the tender voices of the wood wind!
The stricken Valkyr grovels at the feet of the perplexed Wotan. What will he do with her? The two engage in a long and unnecessary wordy wrangle over the deed of the goddess. Wagner must talk, talk, talk. He is a German dramatist. His music alone saves him from perdition. Prate as he may of the organic union of the arts, the magic of melody and harmony is his wand of transformation.
With that he lifts the tiresome rehearsal of the incidents of "Rheingold" by Wotan to eloquence. With that he changes the hair-splitting of Tristan and Isolde to the most passionate of love duets. With that he makes almost a miracle of Siegfried's condensed narrative in the last act of "Götterdämmerung." The theory is a perfect one; Wagner's practice is wholly faulty. His music saves him. He is sometimes no better than an old-fashioned opera librettist, andwrites long pages of bald text simply in order to clothe them with musical glory.
Brünnhilde complains: "Why are you angry at me, father?" He answers, "You know well enough what you've done." "You told me to do it," says she. "But afterward I told you not to do it," says he. "But you really didn't mean that. You wished me to protect Siegmund," declares Brünnhilde. "You made the other order because you were afraid of Fricka." And then Brünnhilde takes forty lines to tell Wotan what she did, which both he and we already know. Wotan takes just forty lines more to tell Brünnhilde that while he has been struggling with his problems she has had nothing to do but enjoy herself (how many mortal fathers talk thus to their daughters)! and that now he has no further use for her light soul.
Thus they bandy words till finally we come to Hecuba. Wotan tells her that she is to be put to sleep and that the man who awakens her shall have her. She begs for the protection of the magic fire, and this far-seeing god stares amazed and enraptured at the birth of a new idea. Glorious! He will commit this precious jewel of his soul to the guardianship of his arch enemy, Loge, the fire spirit, the treacherous,the shifty, the ultimate destroyer, not only of Brünnhilde, but of Walhalla and its futile brood.
Oh, Wagner, how much more prescient were the skalds than thou! But who thinks of all this while the performance is in progress? No one. The triumphant music swells to the very bursting point of emotional rhapsody. The entrance of the farewell of Wotan is one of the sublimest conceptions of the master craftsman in tone.
But there is a moment, a great, overmastering, torrential moment, in this scene, which is equalled only once or twice elsewhere in the trilogy. It is the moment when Brünnhilde and Wotan stand and gaze one upon the other, like the transformed Tristan and Isolde, and the plaintive, pitiful motive of the Valkyr's pleading rises into a tremendous, pealing burst of passionate yearning, which sets the whole orchestra reeling and rocking with the poignancy of its melody and wrings the tears from the eyes of the listener.
That is the climax of "Die Walküre." It is the victory of the child's love over the futile and disappearing All-Father. It is the last utterance of the majesty of Walhalla. Thenceforward godhood disappears not only from Brünnhilde,but from all Walhalla. The human hero is now to come, to see, and to command.
And as the curtain slowly shuts the pathetic figures from our sight, Loge—flickering, fluttering Loge—satisfied for once that he is master of the situation, sings out the comedy in the major mode. The spiritual tonality of Loge for once is fixed and inexorable. The sleep of Brünnhilde is the prologue to her immolation, and the fire at her bedside is the precursor of the fire of her funeral pyre which shall engulf the futile gods. "Rest, perturbed spirit." Rest in the victorious publication of thy conquest in fundamental harmonies. A primeval element art thou not, but a physical investiture of the shifting soul. Thou art the master of this hour—yea, even of the unconscious Brünnhilde and the equally unconscious Wagner. He builded better than he knew. The seed of the serpent hath bruised the heel of the woman.