Richard Wagner’s ‘Der Ring des Nibelungen’: Medieval, Pagan, Modern By Carole Cusack

https://www.academia.edu/1818367/Richard_Wagner_s_Der_Ring_des_Nibelungen_Medieval_Pagan_Modern ""Wagner’s epic operatic tetralogy ‘Der Ring des Nibelungen’ welds sources from Scandinavian mythology (the Poetic Edda, Snorri Sturluson’s Prose Edda), Icelandic sagas (Volsunga Saga, Thidreks Saga), Middle High German epic (The Nibelungenlied), and early modern ballads (Das Lied vom hurnen Seyfrid). Wagner’s ‘Ring’ utilises narrative and thematic concerns from these medieval sources: relationships between gods, giants, dwarfs and humans; hero figures such as Siegmund and Siegfried; oaths, honour and the struggle between love and duty; fate and the destruction of the gods. There is evidence that the poems of the Poetic Edda may have been performed, and when Wagner’s realisation is compared to more thoroughgoing ‘medieval’ treatments of the tale (for example, music ensemble Sequentia’s The Rheingold Curse, 2001), the extent of his innovation and modernisation of the tale becomes apparent (particularly in his portrayal of the tragic deity Wotan and his daughter, the heroic Valkyrie Brunnhilde). ‘The Ring’ also demonstrates the ways that mythology continues to speak to contemporary, technological, post-Christian and (in some senses) post-modern audiences. Myth, as Brisson asserts, is a ‘testimony to a stage of development of the human mind, its discursive organization, and even its logic,’ and in ‘The Ring’ Wagner modernized ancient sources in a manner relevant to his nineteenth century audiences. Successive stagings of the operas have updated this message, and communicate the myth anew to fresh audiences (as in the case of the much criticised 1976 Bayreuth staging by Patrice Chereau, with the Rhine Maidens by a gigantic dam, and the stage set dominated by a huge hydro-electric power station). Finally, Wagner’s cycle can be understood as an example both of secularisation and the death of God, and of re-echantment and the rebirth of the gods, through its status as a polyvalent work of art, which can be interpreted in multiple, contradictory ways. It is a paradigmatic example of secularisation, as the gods of Valhalla give way to the dominance of humanity, symbolized by Siegfried and Brunnhilde. Yet the shifting meaning of texts such as the medieval Eddas, initially containing the stuff of ritual and religion, and later coming to be valued as art and history, rather than for their theological content is fascinating to chart. ‘The Ring’ is an example of re-enchantment in that its performance caused the gods of Germanic myth to live on stage and to inspire modern Pagans, who revived their worship at approximately the same time that ‘The Ring’ first dazzled audiences, at Bayreuth in 1876. The medieval aesthetics of subsequent productions, and the mythic and archetypal significance that the cycle has acquired, along with the ritual dimensions of attending performances of ‘The Ring’ the world over, make it one of the most significant sites of aesthetic medievalism and paganism in modern culture. This paper draws on field research conducted at performances of Wagner’s ‘Ring’ cycle in Australia, Europe and the United States since 2004, and on insights from modern Heathens and Asatruar who approach ‘The Ring’ as a powerful representation of the deities and cosmology of their Pagan religion."" ...