Die Walküre is, among other things, an allegory of the waning of religious belief and its direct influence on human affairs. Wotan, fearing that the gods’ days are numbered, and striving to ensure the survival of man’s religious impulse through the influence of his (religion’s) moral idealism on the social conscience of the revolutionary hero Siegmund, is forced to acknowledge that Siegmund’s heroism and love, his moral impulse to sacrifice himself for others, are merely the product of Wotan’s own fear and self-deception. The atheist philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach contended that the only truly good gift which Christianity bestowed to our modern world was its moral advocacy of sacrificing oneself for others. Siegmund offers himself as a love sacrifice both for a total stranger, who has been coerced into a loveless marriage by her brothers, and for his own sister-bride, Sieglinde (likewise the victim of a loveless marriage), and renounces any hope of heaven, any divine co! mpensation for his earthly struggles.

Can we understand Wagner’s Ring as one coherent, unified argument? The consensus is that having taken so long to conceive, write, and compose its libretto and music, Wagner produced a work that cannot be understood as a single dramatic argument.

Wagnerian scholars generally assume that the Ring’s “meaning” is primarily subliminal, or musical, and therefore inaccessible to any reasoned discussion. Imagine what might happen, though, if someone could convincingly demonstrate that the Ring is not a haphazard assortment of Wagner’s various obsessions but a conceptually unified whole whose every detail plays a unique role in making a coherent dramatic argument.

In Siegfried, Wotan tells Alberich that he is no longer competing with him for the Ring because he has given up trying to change the world (for the better), and from now on he will only observe it. With this statement, Wotan proclaims that art is free from the fear of truth. However, Wotan’s religious renunciation of the world is echoed in Siegfried when the hero reflects that his mother died giving birth to him, unwittingly declaring himself heir to Wotan’s sin of matricide (in his renunciation of the world, Wotan gives up the truth, Mother Nature).

Twilight of the Gods opens with music from Siegfried, to which our hero woke Brünnhilde, because this final drama recounts the tragic consequences of Siegfried’s involuntary betrayal of the secret of unconscious artistic inspiration and humankind’s forbidden hoard of self-knowledge. In fact, Siegfried unwittingly predicts that he will betray his muse, Brünnhilde. This happens in the following way: Brünnhilde declares that her love for Siegfried would have no use unless it can inspire Siegfried to undertake new adventures, heroic deeds of art. Brünnhilde also reminds Siegfried that “What gods [that is, Wotan] have taught me I gave to you: a bountiful hoard [Hort] of hallowed runes.” Siegfried responds by saying, “You gave me more, o wondrous woman, than I know how to cherish [keep, or guard]: chide me not if your teaching left me untaught!” thus providing a summary of the entire plot of Twilight of the Gods.

Das Rheingold: March 20; Die Walküre: April 3; Siegfried: April 17; Götterdämmerung: April 24; conducted by James Levine; stage director: Stephen Pickover. Fricka and Waltraute: Yvonne Naef; Wotan and the Wanderer: James Morris; Freia: Jennifer Welch-Babidge; Alberich: Richard Paul Fink; Loge: Philip Langridge; Mime: Gerhard Siegel; Erda: Elena Zaremba; Fasolt: Evgenij Nikitin; Fafner (in Das Rheingold) and Hunding: Sergei Koptchak; Froh: Mark Baker; Donner and Gunther: Alan Held; Siegmund: Placido Domingo; Sieglinde: Deborah Voigt; Brünnhilde: Jane Eaglen; Siegfried: Jon Fredric West; Fafner (in Siegfried) and Hagen: Matti Salminen; Forest Bird: Joyce Guyer; Gutrune: Margaret Jane Wray.