Wagner's Valhalla

Started by Greta, April 07, 2007, 08:09:57 PM

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Siedler

I'm just reading Pratchett's Maskerade and this is pretty funny  ;D:
'There goes a figure that should prompt a revival of The Ring of the Nibelungingung,' Undershaft went on. 'Now that was an opera.'

'Three days of gods shouting at one another and twenty minutes of memorable tunes?' said Salzella. 'No, thank you very much.'

'But can't you hear her singing Hildabrun, leader of the Valkyries?'

'Yes. Oh, yes. But unfortunately I can also hear her singing Nobbo the dwarf and lo, Chief of the Gods.'

J.Z. Herrenberg

Quote from: Siedler on July 20, 2008, 03:37:41 PM
I'm just reading Pratchett's Maskerade and this is pretty funny  ;D:
'There goes a figure that should prompt a revival of The Ring of the Nibelungingung,' Undershaft went on. 'Now that was an opera.'

'Three days of gods shouting at one another and twenty minutes of memorable tunes?' said Salzella. 'No, thank you very much.'

'But can't you hear her singing Hildabrun, leader of the Valkyries?'

'Yes. Oh, yes. But unfortunately I can also hear her singing Nobbo the dwarf and lo, Chief of the Gods.'

Very good... I wonder whether that name 'Undershaft' is an allusion to a character in one of G.B. Shaw's plays, who, as is well known, was a great Wagnerian...
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

Anne

Maybe the person working in a large public or college library could help you.  I had a problem with a cd quite a long time ago and the library worker knew just how to fix it.  I was surprised as I had never considered a library worker for help.  I don't remember what the cd problem was.  They have to repair cd's all the time.

PerfectWagnerite

Quote from: Siedler on July 20, 2008, 03:37:41 PM
I'm just reading Pratchett's Maskerade and this is pretty funny  ;D:
'There goes a figure that should prompt a revival of The Ring of the Nibelungingung,' Undershaft went on. 'Now that was an opera.'

'Three days of gods shouting at one another and twenty minutes of memorable tunes?' said Salzella. 'No, thank you very much.'

'But can't you hear her singing Hildabrun, leader of the Valkyries?'

'Yes. Oh, yes. But unfortunately I can also hear her singing Nobbo the dwarf and lo, Chief of the Gods.'
What's so funny about that? Full of the same old platitudes you always hear when clueless idiots talk about Wagner.

marvinbrown

Quote from: Siedler on July 20, 2008, 03:37:41 PM
I'm just reading Pratchett's Maskerade and this is pretty funny  ;D:

'Three days of gods shouting at one another and twenty minutes of memorable tunes?' said Salzella. 'No, thank you very much.'


  Actually it's 3 days and an evening, how soon we forget Das Rheingold,  but who's counting  ;)!

  marvin

Renfield

Quote from: marvinbrown on July 21, 2008, 01:12:56 AM
  Actually it's 3 days and an evening, how soon we forget Das Rheingold,  but who's counting  ;)!

  marvin

Preliminary evening: some people just seem over-eager to get to the point. ;D ;)

J.Z. Herrenberg

Well, literally 'Vorabend' is 'Eve'. So Rhinegold is Ring's Eve...  ;)
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

Renfield

Quote from: Jezetha on July 21, 2008, 02:58:48 AM
Well, literally 'Vorabend' is 'Eve'. So Rhinegold is Ring's Eve...  ;)

I protest innocence: 'twas an English translation I was quoting! $:)

(Although that notwithstanding, do I find the Ring's "Eve" far more appropriately Wagnerian in sound.)

J.Z. Herrenberg

Quote from: Renfield on July 21, 2008, 03:09:27 AM
I protest innocence: 'twas an English translation I was quoting! $:)

(Although that notwithstanding, do I find the Ring's "Eve" far more appropriately Wagnerian in sound.)

Yes, nicely archaic, isn't it? Like the 'Rape of the Rhinegold' (cf Pope's 'The Rape of the Lock').
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

marvinbrown



  Does it really have to be an evening.  I relish the thought of Das Rheingold being as long as the other 3 operas in the Ring.  Why couldn't Das Rheingold be 4+ hours long??  Why couldn't it span a whole day? Why? oh why? I ask.  I mean there is plenty of material there:
 
  A few possible added scenes:
  1) Wotan forsaking an eye as he drinks from the spring of wisdom and fabricates a spear from the Ash Tree
  2) The Giants Building Valhalla
  3) Alberich fashioning the Ring from the stolen gold
  4) Wotan meets and falls in love with Frea, the Gods assemble
 
  5) Wotan's "love" affair with Erda

  There's plenty of material there, there's plenty of material there!!!

  marvin
 

Renfield

Quote from: Jezetha on July 21, 2008, 03:14:59 AM
Yes, nicely archaic, isn't it? Like the 'Rape of the Rhinegold' (cf Pope's 'The Rape of the Lock').

I hadn't heard of the work before!

So not only was this a highly cultivated, and successful, pun, but it also gave me something new to look for in my next visit to the bookstore. ;)


Marvin, I think an expansion of the Rheingold would make a number of less-hardcore Wagnerians commit ritual suicide, so to speak. :P

PSmith08

Quote from: Renfield on July 21, 2008, 03:51:17 AM
Marvin, I think an expansion of the Rheingold would make a number of less-hardcore Wagnerians commit ritual suicide, so to speak. :P

Don't limit your observation to "less-hardcore Wagnerians" only. Much as I like Rheingold, it is still necessary to understand both what its purpose in the Ring is and why an expansion of its content would be less than ideal.

Renfield

Quote from: PSmith08 on July 21, 2008, 03:56:14 AM
Don't limit your observation to "less-hardcore Wagnerians" only. Much as I like Rheingold, it is still necessary to understand both what its purpose in the Ring is and why an expansion of its content would be less than ideal.

Agreed. Though my jest was more about those who have a problem with Wagner's long-windedness.

Otherwise, I believe "Das Rheingold", relatively speaking, to be quite succinct.

marvinbrown

Quote from: PSmith08 on July 21, 2008, 03:56:14 AM
Don't limit your observation to "less-hardcore Wagnerians" only. Much as I like Rheingold, it is still necessary to understand both what its purpose in the Ring is and why an expansion of its content would be less than ideal.

  Come on PSmith08 now wouldn't you like to see a scene where Alberich fabricates that Ring with Wagner's sublime dark leitmotif to accompany it.  Also I think the audience would be well served to see how Wotan lost his eye.  I for one would like to see a scene set to music of the Ash Tree losing its branch to become Wotan's spear. 

  I would however like to hear your views why expansion of it contents would be less than ideal.  Siegfried is no longer the fallen hero of the Ring as Wagner had originally envisaged with the "The Death of Siegfried".  Wotan has replaced him, I think some of those scenes I suggested would be most appropriate.

  marvin 

 

PSmith08

Quote from: marvinbrown on July 21, 2008, 04:19:06 AM
  Come on PSmith08 now wouldn't you like to see a scene where Alberich fabricates that Ring with Wagner's sublime dark leitmotif to accompany it.  Also I think the audience would be well served to see how Wotan lost his eye.  I for one would like to see a scene set to music of the Ash Tree losing its branch to become Wotan's spear. 

  I would however like to hear your views why expansion of it contents would be less than ideal.  Siegfried is no longer the fallen hero of the Ring as Wagner had originally envisaged with the "The Death of Siegfried".  Wotan has replaced him, I think some of those scenes I suggested would be most appropriate.

  marvin 

They would be, and so would the deletion of Götterdämmerung, if we're playing that game. Since the central problem with the Ring hasn't really materialized yet, there's no real sense bringing in the Wotan-Siegfried issue to say retroactively that Wagner should have done this or that. Clearly, and Götterdämmerung is a testament to this, the issue presented itself without a conscious redraft on Wagner's part; indeed, Wagner did what he could to keep things in order as intended, but there were and are some signs of strain. That is to say, then, that your position would be fine and good if Wagner went in to make the Ring the story of Wotan from the outset. We would have to ignore, though, the fact of the matter.

The broader issues with the Ring aside, one must consider the fact that Rheingold sets up a problem that Wotan attempts to solve in the "time" between the end of Rheingold and the start of Walküre. Wagner's libretto, in fact, offers us a pretty clear hint as to when Wotan solves the problem in his mind. There is also a musical cue that, when read along with Wagner's direction, makes things fairly well obvious, even if we don't yet know what the "big idea" is. The question for Rheingold, then, is what is dramatically necessary to set up the problems to be resolved during the three days. That is to say that we are confronted with a teleological question, and anything that doesn't really answer that question - or enhance the answer to that question - is superfluous. That devolves quickly into a matter of a debate between different dramatic sensibilities, I suppose, but I think framing the question in that way does reveal my position nicely.

marvinbrown

Quote from: PSmith08 on July 21, 2008, 04:53:03 AM
They would be, and so would the deletion of Götterdämmerung, if we're playing that game. Since the central problem with the Ring hasn't really materialized yet, there's no real sense bringing in the Wotan-Siegfried issue to say retroactively that Wagner should have done this or that. Clearly, and Götterdämmerung is a testament to this, the issue presented itself without a conscious redraft on Wagner's part; indeed, Wagner did what he could to keep things in order as intended, but there were and are some signs of strain. That is to say, then, that your position would be fine and good if Wagner went in to make the Ring the story of Wotan from the outset. We would have to ignore, though, the fact of the matter.

The broader issues with the Ring aside, one must consider the fact that Rheingold sets up a problem that Wotan attempts to solve in the "time" between the end of Rheingold and the start of Walküre. Wagner's libretto, in fact, offers us a pretty clear hint as to when Wotan solves the problem in his mind. There is also a musical cue that, when read along with Wagner's direction, makes things fairly well obvious, even if we don't yet know what the "big idea" is. The question for Rheingold, then, is what is dramatically necessary to set up the problems to be resolved during the three days. That is to say that we are confronted with a teleological question, and anything that doesn't really answer that question - or enhance the answer to that question - is superfluous. That devolves quickly into a matter of a debate between different dramatic sensibilities, I suppose, but I think framing the question in that way does reveal my position nicely.

  You present some very good points here.  Das Rheingold does present problems (the Ring,  love being forsaken for power etc.) which the following 3 operas solve.  In that regard Das rheingold is sufficient in that it serves its purpose. Wotan's 2 monologues in Die Walkure, one with his wife Frea, the other with Brunhilde "fill in the gaps" so to speak between the end of Das Rheingold and the beginning of Die Walkure. However many questions still remain unanswered. The listener has to wait until the beginning of Gotterdammerung and the scene with the 3 Norns to get the full picture of the epic saga.  Wagner unifies the 4 operas with the 3 Norns scene and the common link is revealed:  Wotan.  When the Norn talks about the past it is here that I have this desire to see those scenes where Wotan loses his eye, the Ash Tree branch is made into a spear etc. The distant past just seems not only relevant but important.
 
  marvin

(poco) Sforzando

Quote from: Jezetha on July 21, 2008, 03:14:59 AM
Yes, nicely archaic, isn't it? Like the 'Rape of the Rhinegold' (cf Pope's 'The Rape of the Lock').

Yes, except that Pope gets his rape over with in 794 lines of heroic couplets infinitely wittier than anything in Wagner.
"I don't know what sforzando means, though it clearly means something."

J.Z. Herrenberg

#657
Quote from: Sforzando on July 21, 2008, 08:48:29 AM
Yes, except that Pope gets his rape over with in 794 lines of heroic couplets infinitely wittier than anything in Wagner.

Pope was a great poet (and wit was his forte), a master of the mock-epic. Wagner is epic with no 'mock' in sight.
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

(poco) Sforzando

Quote from: Renfield on July 21, 2008, 04:08:00 AM
Agreed. Though my jest was more about those who have a problem with Wagner's long-windedness.

Otherwise, I believe "Das Rheingold", relatively speaking, to be quite succinct.

Not if you neglect to visit the men's room before the conductor starts the first downbeat.
"I don't know what sforzando means, though it clearly means something."

J.Z. Herrenberg

Quote from: Sforzando on July 21, 2008, 09:29:13 AM
Not if you neglect to visit the men's room before the conductor starts the first downbeat.

;D (And the Rhine doesn't help either.)
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato