Comments

1. 

   John R Guyton

   July 3, 2016 at 07:20

   As an American of almost one half Norwegian and German ancestry, I found this piece a wonderful invitation to experience Wagner’s Ring Cycle, whether in person or through DVDs. I’ll keep this article close at hand when I do. The theme line refers to “the eternal conflict between political power and human love.” Political power may be too small a description, however, underestimating Wotan’s role. He keeps order in the universe. Meaning in our lives arises in finite emotive moments as well as in stories that begin and end, whereas sustenance of life runs well beyond our temporospatial horizons. Love belongs to the former, finite category. Followers of monotheistic religions yearn for eternity, as I learned well in the American South, but often struggle to explain what can fill that eternity. Ragnarok of my Viking ancestors – Wagner’s Götterdämmerung – shocked me initially, but it speaks to this fundamental conflict. The only things that can really fill eternity are finite moments and stories of meaning. How that could possibly happen is unclear, as it looks like a cosmic conflict at least from this side of time.
2. 

   Graham Clark

   July 10, 2016 at 09:53

   Götterdämmerung is grand opera. That's not a "dismiss[al]" by Shaw - the strength of whose critique is probably proven by the resentment it still provokes, but never mind - that's just fact. A plot driven by petty sexual jealousy; a villain who takes advantage of some time alone on stage to tell the audience exactly who he is and what his plans are; a revenge trio; a wedding chorus - the presence of the clichés is undeniable. (And easily explained by the fact, noted by Shaw but not here by Scruton, that most of the text of Götterdämmerung was written before the text of the other operas. Wagner grew into a deeper librettist in the course of writing The Ring, but was, for whatever reason, unwilling to scrap the earlier, lesser parts of the text.) Shaw's reading of The Ring as a communist allegory that goes wrong is an imposition, but at least has something to do with the text and music under discussion, which Scruton's attempt here to beat Wagner's cycle into a conservative morality tale is just unintentionally funny ("Wagner is telling us to hold on to the rule of law as the best kind of government we have. "). If The Ring has any moral at all regarding the rule of law, this is it: once Wotan tries to increase his power by acquiring the titular ring, it's all over. After that, there's no question of holding onto the rule of law. The fall of the gods is certain. The only question is what form that fall will take. Wotan explicitly imagines the conquest of the world by Alberich. Maybe he also hopes that Siegfried might take his place and preside over a benign world order, but that's clearly wishful thinking. In fact, after Wotan takes the ring for himself, there are only two possible outcomes: Either the world continues to exist and is ultimately conquered by evil, or the world escapes from evil by ending altogether. (Granted, the human chorus is technically alive and present at the end, but nobody cares about them. Everything we do care is either already dead before we reach the end of the cycle, or perishes in the fire that consumes Valhalla - except the Rhinemaidens, whom we last see playing in their native water with the ring, finally regained and cleansed of its evil properties. For them, at least, the cycle ends with a return to the state of nature.) What exactly the ring represents is left ambiguous: to the young, Feuerbachian Wagner, presumably money; to the older Wagner, who explicitly associates his ideas with Schopenhauer, presumably desire; maybe most importantly, at all times, Wagner being Wagner, racial contamination. (Wagner's first anti-Semitic pamphlet - "Jewry in Music," 1850 - predates the first draft of "Feuerbach ending" to the Ring by two years - that is, the first ending in which the gods die instead of continuing to rule or being allowed to peacefully retire.)
   1. 

      Alexander Siantonas

      July 18, 2016 at 14:21

      While you are right that Gotterdammerung does does adhere to the conventions of grand opera, I take it that Scruton's point was not to deny this, but to criticise Shaw for failing to take Gotterdammerung seriously as contributing to the overall meaning of the cycle. As to your account of the Ring and the rule of law, I think matters are a little more complicated than you suggest. The issue is not so much Wotan's seizure of the ring itself (recall that Erda's warning was initially supposed to be conditional on possession of the ring, but became unconditional). Wotan's position depends upon Valhalla, and Wotan only gets Valhalla one of three ways: refusing to honour his contract (and so destroying the rule of law), handing over Freia herself (and so love and beauty personified, a worse crime than Alberich's forging the ring), or handing over the ring. Thus, as is clear from Erda's unconditional warning, all is already over, whether or not Wotan takes and keeps the ring. The moral Scruton draws, conservative as it might be, is not much of an imposition. We have the the rule of law, compromised and fragile, in Wotan; love without law in the Siegfried and Brunnhilde of Gotterdammerung, just as destructive as Scruton says; hate without law in Alberich and company; and the state of nature in the Rhinemaidens. It's pretty plausible that the rule of law is the least bad of the options we are offered.
3. 

   Tom Goff

   July 13, 2016 at 17:17

   Eloquent defense of Wagner's ideas, which retain some value despite their disturbing subtext.
4. 

   BMerker

   July 13, 2016 at 18:53

   "Their one thought, on encountering others, is to make use of them. [...] Everything in the world of Nibelheim is a means, and nothing is an end in itself." Apparently an echo of Kantian ethics
5. 

   Malcolm Craig

   July 24, 2016 at 19:16

   An interesting interpretation, but - as one of the commenters above has already noted - a little unconvincing. Wagner is plainly *not* on the side of law: Scruton has glossed over the point that Wotan's spear, the concrete embodiment of law, was torn from a branch of the world-ash, and that this action (which parallels the theft of the Rheingold) has led to the tree withering away. For Wagner, the contractual or 'consensual' authority of Licht-Alberich is little better than the 'coercive' authority of Schwarz-Alberich, as it is Wotan's law-upholding power that condemns Sieglinde to forced marriage and which demands Siegmund's death. This is a long way from the conservative parable that Scruton imagines the Ring to be.