I
This, the last of Wagner's really great works, was composed in hot haste for the first Bayreuth festival. True, the festival did not take place until some time after its completion; but at the moment Wagner anticipated an immediate performance. There is nothing more pathetic, nothing sadder, than the picture of the mighty world-composer struggling against petty odds to complete what might have been a world-masterpiece, and failing because of his hurry. He was sixty years of age; worn by constant combat; worried even then by stupid persecutions and the uncertainties of life; and he went on, if not joyfully, at least indomitably, unconquerably. The result is a work gigantic in idea, but far too rapid and facile in the execution. His pen seems to have run of its own accord; the scenes are spread out to a length positively appalling; pages on pages show no trace of inspiration. Yet the Dusk of the Gods is an opera no other composer could have achieved; and with all its defects it will be a high and holy joy to generations not yet born.
The last hour of the old gods has come; the Norns spin their web on the Valkyries' rock; it breaks, and they sink into the earth, knowing that all is finished. Dawn breaks, and Siegfried and Brünnhilda come out of their cavern; Siegfried must now go forth to deeds of derring-do, for, like Lovelace, "how could he love her, dear, so much, loved he not honour more?" She bids him go, and he goes; the flames immediately spring up again round her dwelling—for what reason Wagner does not explain. Neither does he explain why Brünnhilda does not travel with her husband—the explanation is made only too obvious afterwards. He travels to the Rhine, and there meets Hagen, Günther and Günther's sister Gutruna. Hagen, the son of Alberich, is more or less like Mime, a half-super-natural being, malignant, diabolical, with only one idea, that of getting possession of the gold, and, above all, of the Ring. He knows of Siegfried's "deed," and knows that Siegfried is coming that way; but he keeps the story to himself, and tells Günther and Gutruna of the fearless hero and of Brünnhilda sleeping on the mountain-top encircled by fire. Günther desires the woman, Gutruna the man. But only Siegfried can pass through the fire. Pat to the moment he arrives, and enters leading Grani. Hagen offers him drink which contains a powder which destroys his memory; he forgets all about Brünnhilda, but not, apparently, about the magic cap; he gazes in rapture at Gutruna, and in a few minutes the pact is made—Siegfried shall take Günther's form and win Brünnhilda for him; in return he will have Gutruna, who is more than willing. The two men go off together, and the scene changes again to the Valkyries' rock. Brünnhilda sits alone looking at the Ring; Waltraute, one of the Valkyries, rushes in and demands that Ring. She relates how for want of it Wotan, dreading that it may fall into the hands of Alberich, sits gloomy and silent in Valhalla. But Brünnhilda is now wholly woman and has no sympathy with the gods; she refuses the Ring, and Waltraute goes off in despair. The flames begin to flicker and dance; Siegfried's horn is heard; and presently he enters in Günther's form, or at least as nearly in it as can be managed on the stage. He claims and seizes Brünnhilda, sends her into the sleeping-chamber, and, swearing truth to his new friend Günther, follows with his drawn sword ready to place between him and his bride.
So the act closes. Brünnhilda's horror and shame are unspeakable; she cannot understand; Wotan had promised her the great hero, and this promise is broken and a last humiliation inflicted on her. The act is intolerably long; even were every moment crowded with Wagner's most glorious music the strain on our attention would be terrific. But the music is by no means uniformly of Wagner's best; for pages on pages his sheer craftsmanship fairly gallops away with him. The Norn scene is as purely theatrical as anything he wrote; the atmosphere is, so to speak, artificially weird. The scene between Siegfried and Brünnhilda is more inspired; and the journey to the Rhine is one of Wagner's finest bits of picture-painting. The change of feeling towards the end is superb: a sense of foreboding and dread comes into the music and prepares us for the coming disaster. But when the curtain rises on the hall of the Gibichungs we at once get more artificiality and theatricality. In using the word theatrical I do not mean there is any return to, for instance, the Rienzi style: the music is theatrical in Wagner's own later way: it seems to fit the situation, but the appearance is an appearance only: the stuff is superficial: the feeling of the moment is not expressed—the music, in a word, is essentially the same as that of many inferior but clever opera composers, only, of course, the Wagner idiom is always there. The Waltraute scene is fine, being largely made up of old material; but I cannot say much for the scene between Brünnhilda and Siegfried. In this first act two important themes are introduced, the Tarnhelm theme and that of the draught of forgetfulness. The first is of the theatrical type: it is a leitmotiv of the same sort as Lohengrin's warning to Elsa; the other is a miracle, one of the wonders of music. It gives one in a brief phrase Siegfried's dazed sense that something has gone from him, a strange sense of loss; and it has the pathos the moment demands. As for the draught of forgetfulness itself, it cannot be explained as symbolical of anything; it must be accepted as we accept the Tarnhelm and the Rhinemaidens and black Alberich.
II
In the Second Act the scene is again the Gibichungs' hall. Siegfried and Günther are away, and Hagen watches by night; his father, Alberich, crawls up from the river and counsels him as to how to get possession of the Ring; then he disappears as dawn begins to show. The music is weird and sinister in Wagner's finest manner. Siegfried comes in and says Günther and his bride will soon arrive, and goes off with Gutruna, happy as a child; in a magnificent piece of music, largely constructed of a harsh phrase associated with Hagen, he (Hagen) calls up the clansmen and women; a pompous bit of chorus greets Günther and Brünnhilda, and then once more we are plunged into a sea of theatricality. To her amazement, Brünnhilda finds Siegfried there with his new bride, unmindful of her. In rage she denounces him and declares he has shared the joys of love with her; he denies it; but Günther is shamed, and has no doubt that Siegfried has played him false. Siegfried goes merrily off, and Günther, Hagen and Brünnhilda swear that he must die. In the music we get any amount of physical energy and dramatic emphasis; but we know this is no longer the Wagner of the Valkyrie. I pass over the Act briefly now, because I can only repeat what I have said before. Of course all the consummate skill of the master is there.
The Third Act opens by the river-side. Siegfried has wandered away from a hunting party, and is attracted by the song of the Rhinemaidens—a regular set piece in the oldest-fashioned of forms, but marvellously beautiful. The nymphs try to coax him to throw them the Ring, which he had wrested from Brünnhilda; he refuses, and they tell him that this day he must die. The other hunters come in, and Siegfried is asked to tell of his adventures, and as he does so Hagen offers him a cup of wine into which he dropped another powder; Siegfried's memory gradually returns, and to Günther's horror he relates how he first scaled the mountain, passed the fire and won Brünnhilda. He means on the first occasion, but it shames Günther once again. Hagen points in the air and asks Siegfried what he sees above him; two black ravens fly over. Siegfried turns to look at them, and Hagen instantly thrusts a spear into his back; the ravens wing their way to Valhalla to tell Wotan that the fatal hour has come. In a sublime passage Siegfried the dying hero sings of Brünnhilda, and dies. Every one save Hagen is horror-stricken; the body is picked up and carried downward through the moonlit mists over the mountain, and the gorgeous funeral march is played. This is built up on Wagner's customary plan: it tells the story of the Volsung race, now ended by the death of Siegfried.
In the second scene of the Act there is one fine passage—Brünnhilda's long address—and the rest is manufactured with dexterity and quite uninspired. The body is brought in; Hagen wishes to take the Ring, and a thrill is sent through us as the dead man's arm rises threateningly. Günther interferes, and Hagen kills him; Brünnhilda comes on and sees clearly everything; Gutruna claims Siegfried as hers—"he never was yours; he is mine," Brünnhilda replies, and (by trick of true stage-craft) Gutruna is seen to kneel down by the side of her dead brother. She is absolutely alone—even Siegfried, dead, is taken from her, and she instinctively creeps to the only thing that is in any sense hers. Brünnhilda orders the funeral fire to be built; the body is put on it and consumed: Brünnhilda mounts Grani and scatters the ashes, and with them the Ring, into the river; the waters rise, and Hagen rushes after the Ring, to be drawn down; Wotan's power went when the spear was shattered, and now that the Ring is returned to the Rhine no other power controls Loge. He flares up, and we see Valhalla on high in flames.
So ends the Dusk of the Gods and the whole gigantic cycle. A noble race has come and gone, and the world is prepared to make a fresh start. I have discussed the music as we went along, and there is nothing more to add.