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 a raison 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 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.