The fire flares doubly brilliant and high; the red glare of it fills the whole scene. It becomes evident suddenly that the Hall of the Gibichungen is burning. The people huddle together in terror. When the funeral pile sinks to a heap, the Rhine is seen flooding in upon the embers. Hagen, eagerly on the watch for his last chance, beholds with the insanity of despair the Rhine-daughters rise from the waves close beside the site of the pyre. Hurling from him shield and spear, he dashes into the water to thrust them back. "Away from the Ring!" Two of the jocose sisters for all reply entwine their arms around his neck and draw him away and away with them into the deep water. The third triumphantly holds up before his eyes the recovered Ring.
As the fire dies among the blackened ruins of the Hall, and the Rhine recedes into its boundaries, a red light breaks in the sky. More and more brightly it glows, till Walhalla is discerned in its central illumination, with its enthroned gods and heroes. Flames are seen invading the stately hall. When the company of the Blessed are completely wrapped in fire, the curtain falls.
The last word of the music is the exultant phrase by which Sieglinde greeted the prophecy of Siegfried's birth. It has been woven all through Brünnhilde's last ardently happy salutation to him, as if in recognition of some mystical quality—in death—of birth.
So Wotan finds his rest, and the ill consequences at last end of his unjust act—end with the reparation of the injustice, the return of the gold to the Rhine. But has not the evil act been like the Djinn of old, let out of the insignificant-looking urn, waxing great, looming dark, and dictating hard terms! When Wotan in pride of being committed it, against two simpletons, how could he have divined that by this pin-point he set inexorable machinery moving which should bring about his confusion, forcing him in its progress to so many injustices more, injustices which his soul would loathe, which would blight his best beloved, which would by far be his greatest punishment!... The Trilogy is moral as a tract.
THE MASTER-SINGERS OF NUREMBERG
THE MASTER-SINGERS OF NUREMBERG
I
The "argument of The Master-singers" is effectually given in the Overture: Art and Love. The Masters are first—a little pompously, as befits their pretensions,—presented to us. Then Young Love sweeps across the scene, delicate musical gale. The themes of the two then mingle, foreshadowing how the affairs of Walther shall become entangled with those of the Guild.
This Walther von Stolzing, a young Franconian noble, last of his line, had for reasons which are not given forsaken the ancestral castle and come to Nuremberg in the intention of becoming a citizen there. He had brought letters to a prominent burgher of the town, Veit Pogner, the rich goldsmith, long acquainted with his family, and known to it, by reputation. Pogner had offered him every courtesy, hospitality, and assistance in the business of selling his Franconian lands.
Walther had found twenty-four hours in Nuremberg and Pogner's house ample time to fall deeply, transcendingly, rapturously, in love with the goldsmith's daughter. She is very young, very feminine, even in the respect of being little rather than large, so that she is always called, fondly, Evchen, little Eva. Her name is perhaps meant to indicate her quality of inveterate femineity. The whole story goes to show that she was pretty enough to turn heads young and old. She had been an obedient, an exemplary daughter, up to the hour of meeting Walther, allowing her father to think for her, accepting demurely his views for her. How should she not feel it best, so long as her immature heart had never spoken a word, to let a most kind and indulgent parent, whose wisdom it was not for her to question, dispose of her hand in the manner he thought most fitting? When she had seen Walther, however, a new light illumined her position.