Notes:

Act One

• The opening storm motif is mixed with Donner's thunder: note how the spear motif's descent on the cellos and basses is checked and moves back upward; the hand of Wotan is present, but the upward turn indicates that his will may be challenged (see a similar transformation of the spear motif into Wotan's frustration, below).
   

• At Siegmund's entrance the music relates him to the descending notes of the spear motif, as he was born to be an extension of Wotan's will (Ring Disc). Later in the drama the god will have to deny his own will by sacrificing his hero. Sieglinde finds this strange man in her house, but immediately has sympathy for him. His fatigue, played by the lower strings, gives way to her loving care, heard on the violins.
   

• Siegmund and Sieglinde's love theme  is a slower, tender version of Freia's motif. After the renunciation of love by several characters in Rhinegold, Wagner gives us a breathtaking portrait of compassionate love in this opera, holding out the promise that human beings may turn out to be better than the gods.
   

• When Hunding returns home to find a stranger with his wife, he recognizes the same "serpent's glance" in both their eyes, foreshadowing their son Siegfried the dragon-slayer (a detail Wagner adopted from the Eddas). Hunding protects a guest in his house, even though an enemy. This host-guest relationship is more a Greek value than Teutonic (one of many influences on Wagner of Greek culture).
   

• Siegmund tried to save a girl from an unwanted marriage to Hunding's kin, just as he will rescue Sieglinde from an unhappy union.
   

• Siegmund's would-be names mean "peaceful," or "joyful," but he claims to be Wehwalt "woeful" (81) or Wolfing. He and his father were forced to live like animals (in the Volsunga saga Siegmund is cursed to live as a werewolf for a time). Later we learn Wotan's human name is Walse (86), father of the Walsungs. The peace motif is heard again in Twilight of the Gods in Siegfried's death march, when he is finally at peace.
   

• In his troubled life thus far, Siegmund has always challenged conventional morality: "What I thought right, others thought wrong" (83). According to Wagner, the true hero of the future (Nietzsche's superman) will follow his instinct, inner need, not the moral laws imposed by organized religion or society.
   

• Siegmund's desperate cries to his father, "Walse! Walse! where is your sword?" foreshadow the octave jumps which identify the Nothung motif. Nothung means "sword of need" (Wagner invented the name) left in the tree on Sieglinde's wedding day (88). The Valhalla theme in the orchestration identifies the stranger who left the sword as Wotan.
   

• At first it seems puzzling that Siegmund sings "Holiest love in highest need" (94) to the so-called Renunciation of Love theme. Why does he sing this theme at the moment he is longing for true love? Note that Alberich first put a curse on love  which is distinct from the curse on the ring he pronounces later in scene four. Siegmund falls under the curse on love, as this relationship with Sieglinde is doomed because of its incestuous nature, which Wotan by law must punish. Compare this use of the "renunciation of love" motif with a similar case in Gotterdammerung. In Act One, scene 3, Brunnhilde vows, "I shall never relinquish love" (276), set to the "renunciation" theme, but her refusal to give up the ring, symbol of her love, causes her to fall under its possessive spell at this moment. For these reasons, this motive might better be called the Love Curse. Wagner uses it in this scene in Valkyrie to connect Siegmund's action to Wotan's grand scheme, Siegmund becoming his unwilling means to regaining the ring (Cooke).
   

• The theme of incest is not uncommon in mythology. Many gods marry their sisters (Osiris and Isis, Zeus and Hera). Symbolically, it signifies an ultimate closeness between divine pairs, but this relationship is almost always forbidden to humans. However, Wagner didn't think incest was unnatural, otherwise Nature would not bless such unions with children. In his mind the societal taboo against incest was the unnatural restriction.
   

• In Opera and Drama, Wagner compares Siegfried to Antigone, both children of incest who defy society's law for a higher morality (as they define it). The old world order is life-frustrating, artificial, and restrictive, whereas the new order will be life-affirming, natural,  and spontaneous. Representatives of the old order, Creon and Wotan, can only rule by law and power, whereas Antigone and Siegfried are free to follow the leading of inner necessity. Wagner knew that society would condemn the free individual as immoral and a lawbreaker without recognizing that he lives according to a higher, more human standard of morality (for further discussion of this idea, see Rather and McCreless in bibliography).

Innovative design for Valkyrie by George Tsypin

Act Two

• The word Valkyrie (Walkure in German) means "one who chooses the slain." We hear for the first time the familiar Ride of the Valkyrie theme. Brunnhilde will fight today, but vanquished Hunding will not be worthy to come to Valhalla (97).
   

• Described as a coming storm, Fricka is musically linked with Erda's motif on her entrance, as another representative of feminine wisdom who counters Wotan's self-deception. She is not simply a shrewish, jealous wife but Wotan's divine counterpart, reminding him of his duties (upholding laws against adultery and incest) which in his right mind he acknowledges.
   

• In contrast to the two lovers in Act One, Wotan and Fricka's marriage seems loveless. She is not surprised that her husband defends the adulterous pair, as Wotan has betrayed his own marriage vows numerous times. We may agree with her reasoning (that the incestuous lovers are breaking taboo) but we also share Wotan's frustration that she's right. Along with Hunding's example from Act I, we are led to view marriage (and the goddess of marriage) in an unfavorable light. Despite our moral reservations, we prefer the incestuous love of Siegmund and Sieglinde. Wagner plays our ethical judgement against our feelings. The music supports our sympathy as Fricka's strident arguments are accompanied by the motifs of Alberich's curse and Hunding's heavy tones, while Wotan sings to the themes of the couple's tender love.
   

• Ironically, Wotan plays love's defender here, which he was willing to trade in Rhinegold. Wotan argues for the pre-eminence of true love; marriage is unholy if no longer based on love (ironic commentary on Wotan and Fricka's relationship). When she counters that this forbidden relationship is not merely adultery but incest, he claims Siegmund and Sieglinde have set a new precedent, while Fricka is bound by tradition (99).
   

• Wotan criticizes his wife who thinks only in terms of customs of the past, while he envisions something completely new, revealing his ultimate plan (conceived at the end of Rhinegold): Siegmund will be his free agent to regain the ring (101). Fricka plays the trump card, however, insisting that  if this hero is to be truly free, Wotan cannot help him now.
   

• Wotan tells her that love supersedes all law, but he knows that breaking his own laws would make a mockery of the god's honor and all universal statutes. These laws bind even the god so that he has no true liberty of action. Soon Wotan bemoans the fact that he is the "least free of all living" (105).
   

• The frustration theme is heard frequently after she points out the contradiction of his actions (102), a twisted version of the descending spear theme, a symbol of his will now thwarted.
   

• Brunnhilde acts as Wotan's will (106), his alter ego. Wagner created this idea, allowing him to dramatize the god's unconscious will working against his conscious will as Brunnhilde tries to protect the lovers, which she knows is Wotan's true desire (note Wagner's insight into modern psychology before Freud made these terms popular).
   

• Wotan admits his lust for power came when love faded (106). Remember Wagner's comment (Rhinegold notes) that the absence of sexual love is the root of all antisocial behavior; without it people turn to materialism or politics/power. Wotan is motivated also by fear: the armies of Valhalla have been assembled to fight his enemies at Gotterdammerung (107).
   

• Wotan's paradox: "How can I create a free agent? ... for the free man has to create himself." (SS). Although he doesn't realize it now, his words actually describe the future Siegfried: "foe to the gods, free of soul ... who acts alone by his own design" (109). Of course, Siegfried's freedom will leave him free to defy the god as well.
   

• Frustrated and in despair, Wotan now has only one desire -- for the End to come, as Erda prophesied (111). He understands her fateful words: "When the foe of love gains a son, the gods may know their doom is near." With gold Alberich has bought a woman's favors and had a son by her. Wotan remarks bitterly that this "loveless Nibelung" (sung to the loveless motif first heard in Rhinegold) has done what he could not do: "I who loved so truly, my free son I never could win." As Wotan storms off, leaving Brunnhilde to complete her sad duty, Wotan's rage motif leads into the loveless motif, ending with frustration. (Brunnhilde will face this terrible rage after she disobeys her father's command.)
   

• Fate sounds when Brunnhilde announces to Siegmund that she's come for him (119); only those doomed to die can see the Valkyrie. However, he refuses the glory of Valhalla for the love of Sieglinde, as we hear a defiant version of the love theme from Act 1. When he threatens to kill her and himself rather than leave her behind, Brunnhilde has compassion on them and revolts against the law of god, later claiming she acted according to Wotan's true, if unconscious, desires.
   

• When Brunnhilde fails to act, Wotan enters and shatters the sword Nothung, ironically at the time of Siegmund's greatest need. After Siegmund dies, Wotan "dismisses" Hunding with a wave of his hand, having only contempt for him as Fricka's "slave."

Act Three

• To the thrilling theme of the Ride of the Valkyries, Brunnhilde's sisters are soaring through the air, gathering the slain warriors for Valhalla. They observe her hurrying toward them with an unusual burden, not a warrior but a woman.
   

• Sieglinde wants to die with her husband, but revives when she learns she carries his son. This news gives her the will to live. When Brunnhilde announces the name of Siegfried (137), Sieglinde sings the Redemption motif (which Wagner called "the glorification of Brunnhilde"), heard only once more at the end of Gotterdammerung. Sieglinde's statement to Brunnhilde, "Be blessed by Sieglinde's woe" (138) foreshadows the next play when her son will awaken the sleeping Valkyrie.
   

• To her angry father, Brunnhilde justifies her actions. As Wotan's true will she defied his will, as his shield-bearer she held her shield against him. When she defends her defiance as acting as he truly wanted (146), we hear the spear motif (symbol of Wotan's will) transformed into love's triumph (also called "compassionate love"), its falling notes in the orchestration interrupted twice by rising octave leaps, transposed from the minor key to major. In this crucial scene, a key turning point in the entire Ring cycle, Wagner demonstrates both musically and dramatically that the will that shows compassionate love toward others now triumphs over the will which seeks only selfish power.
   

• Thomas Mann said that Wagner's work surpassed previous opera in its fusing of psychology and mythology. Prior to Freud and Jung, Wagner saw myth not merely as proto-science -- early humanity's attempts to explain the mysteries of creation --  but as proto-psychology -- our attempt to understand the mysteries within ourselves.
   

• When Brunnhilde announces to Wotan, "Sieglinde bears the holiest fruit" (148) we hear a combination of motifs: the Walsung theme, Siegfried, sword, fate, and Fafner, musical foreshadowing of the next drama.
   

• Brunnhilde fears that she will be awakened by an ordinary man, unworthy of her. When she implores Wotan to protect her, under her words we hear the fear motif. Wotan agrees to surround her with Loge's magic fire, and the minor motif transforms into the major assurance theme. (In his notes on the Ring Disc, Stone argues that in context these names make more sense than the traditional title "Brunnhilde's slumber" for this motif. For another example see Siegfried Act 1)
   

• The renunciation (love-curse) motif is heard as Wotan turns away from his beloved daughter (151).
   

• Loge is the divine source for the magic fire, both useful (protects Brunnhilde from unworthy suitors) and destructive (seen in the later burning of Valhalla).
   

• Siegfried theme plays when Wotan says he who fears my spear shall never pass through the flames (152), foreshadowing the only man brave enough to challenge Wotan in the next drama.

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Page created 1999, latest revision April 2013 by Larry A. Brown