THE PLATES

The three Rhinemaidens—Woglinde, Wellgunde and Flosshilde—frolic in the depths of the mighty River Rhine. It is their task to guard the Rhinegold. In the waters the gold is pristine ore; taken and fashioned into a ring, it would confer on the wearer measureless power. But to be able to seize the gold, a person must first renounce love. The Rhinemaidens are sure no one would be willing to make such a sacrifice.

From a fissure in a rock appears Alberich, one of the Nibelungs, a race of dwarfs who dwell beneath the earth. He falls desperately in love with the alluring Rhinemaidens, who tease him heartlessly.

Infuriated by the Rhinemaidens’ taunts, Alberich climbs the rock for the Rhinegold.

Alberich steals the Rhinegold and rushes off, plunging the waters into darkness.

Freia, the goddess of youth, grows apples which keep the gods eternally young. Wotan, the chief god, has offered her to the giants Fasolt and Fafner as payment for building the fortress Walhalla, never thinking that they could accomplish the task. This they have done, and Wotan desperately tries to offer other payment. He is refused.

Loge, the god of fire and mischief, tells the other gods that he has seen the Rhinemaidens, who told him of the gold’s theft and implored him to have Wotan recover it and return it to their safekeeping.

Hearing of the Rhinegold, Fasolt and Fafner decide that it would make an acceptable substitute for Freia. Charging Wotan to steal the gold and have it on hand by evening, they carry off Freia.

Without Freia in their midst, the gods immediately begin to age.

In a cavern, Alberich, having forged the ring, has compelled his brother Mime to fashion the magical Tarnhelm, a cap that allows its wearer to change his form or become invisible.

Putting on the Tarnhelm, Alberich is rendered invisible, terrifying Mime.

Alberich has wielded his incredible power, enslaving the Nibelungs and forcing them to mine gold and fashion it into a great treasure.

Loge and Wotan visit Alberich, who brags of his powers. Putting the Tarnhelm on his head, he turns himself into a huge serpent. When Loge asks Alberich if he can also turn himself into something small, the dwarf becomes a toad. Loge and Wotan quickly seize him and carry him away.

Alberich is held for ransom. He summons the Nibelungs, who surrender the golden hoard. Wotan forces Alberich to give up the ring as well. Shattered, Alberich curses the ring—may its wearer be doomed! The giants Fasolt and Fafner return with Freia, and order that the treasure be stacked up high enough to block her from their sight.

But a chink remains in the pile through which they can see Freia. They tell Wotan to fill it with the ring which he is wearing. He refuses, wanting to keep it and its power for himself. Erda, the all-knowing earth goddess, suddenly appears and admonishes Wotan to give up the ring. Warning him that the race of the gods is doomed, she disappears.

Wotan surrenders the ring and Freia is returned. As the two giants argue over the division of the treasure, Fasolt puts on the ring. He is immediately slain by Fafner, who takes the ring and the entire hoard and leaves.

The atmosphere has become heavy and oppressive. To clear the skies, Donner, god of weather, creates a thunderstorm by swinging his hammer.

The clouds clear, revealing a rainbow that spans the Rhine between the mountain on which the gods are standing and Walhalla. Ignoring the Rhinemaidens’ lamentation for their lost gold, the gods cross the rainbow and enter the castle.

Wounded and fleeing his enemies through a storm, Siegmund, the son of Walse, seeks refuge in a hut. He is given refreshment by Sieglinde, the wife of cruel Hunding. A tree grows in the hut. In its trunk is a sword that no one has ever been able to remove.

As Sieglinde serves a meal to Hunding and Siegmund, Siegmund tells of his life. His mother had been slain, his sister carried off as a child. His father had later disappeared. Siegmund himself has just been wounded while vainly trying to rescue a girl being wed against her wishes.

Siegmund’s enemies turn out to be Hunding’s kinsmen. Hunding, knowing that Siegmund is weaponless, tells him that they will fight in the morning. Sieglinde drugs Hunding’s sleeping draft. She and Siegmund fall in love and discover that they are, in fact, brother and sister (and, unknown to both, actually the children of Wotan by a mortal woman).

Siegmund discovers the sword Nothung, which Wotan had driven into the tree years before in anticipation of Siegmund’s need. He pulls it out and escapes with Sieglinde into the spring night.

In a mountain pass, Brünnhilde meets Wotan. She is one of the Valkyries, the daughters of Wotan who gather fallen heroes from the field of battle. Wotan orders her to protect Siegmund in the forthcoming fray with Hunding, who is in pursuit.

Enraged, Fricka comes to her husband, Wotan. As the goddess of matrimony, the flight and incestuous relationship of Siegmund and Sieglinde are repugnant to her. Using arguments that Wotan cannot resist, she forces him to countermand his orders to Brünnhilde: it is Siegmund who must fall.

Armed, Brünnhilde returns with her steed Grane. She is shocked to hear Wotan’s new commands.

Brünnhilde implores Wotan to reconsider. He is adamant, even though Siegmund’s death means the end of all his hopes. He explains how, in an attempt to recover the ring and remove its curse, he had fathered the Wälsungs—Siegmund and Sieglinde. But now Siegmund will not be able to fulfill Wotan’s hopes and the gods, tainted by theft and the ring’s curse, face the end predicted by Erda.

With a final warning that Brünnhilde must follow his orders, Wotan leaves. She is anguished, and slowly prepares for the battle. When she sees Siegmund and Sieglinde approaching, she quickly hides in a nearby cave. The two lovers arrive exhausted.

Sieglinde falls into a troubled sleep as Siegmund keeps guard. Majestically, Brünnhilde reveals herself to him and tells him to prepare for death. But his grief and great love for Sieglinde move Brünnhilde to promise that she will defend him against Hunding, in defiance of Wotan. In this she is frustrated, for Wotan appears and Siegmund is killed. Brünnhilde escapes with Sieglinde, followed by the furious Wotan.

Galloping on their airborne steeds, the Valkyries assemble on a mountaintop. They are about to return to Walhalla with the slain heroes they have gathered from various battlefields. Brünnhilde is late; they look for her anxiously.

When Brünnhilde finally arrives, the Valkyries are amazed to find that she has brought Sieglinde with her. Brünnhilde quickly explains what has happened and begs their protection.

The Valkyries dare not help Brünnhilde, but advise Sieglinde to flee to the forest in the east. Wotan avoids it, for Fafner, having turned himself into a dragon, guards the Nibelung hoard there.

Sieglinde wants only to die, but when Brünnhilde tells her that she is pregnant by Siegmund and will give birth to a great hero—Siegfried—she rushes off to save herself and her unborn child. The storm worsens and Wotan arrives on the rock. He orders the Valkyries away from his renegade daughter.

Brünnhilde’s punishment is to be terrible: placed in an enchanted sleep on the rock, she will become the mortal wife of the first man who wakes her. Frantically, Brünnhilde pleads that in her sleep she be surrounded by fire so that only a hero will dare wake her. Wotan agrees, places the spell on Brünnhilde and invokes the fire god Loge to surround the mountain with his flames.

Gazing at Brünnhilde, Wotan pronounces a ban: let no man who fears his spear point cross the fire. After a final lingering glance, the heartbroken god leaves his beloved daughter forever.

Alone on the mountaintop in the deepening night, the slumbering Brünnhilde awaits her heroic awakener.

Years later, Mime toils over an anvil in a cavern in a wood. He is making yet another sword for Siegfried, who has grown to young manhood. But labor as he may to make a sturdy weapon, Siegfried always shatters it. Mime wishes he had the skill to reforge Nothung, Siegmund’s sword which was shattered in the final battle with Hunding, and whose pieces he has.

Mime tells Siegfried of the care he took in raising him, and complains that Siegfried has never returned his love. Siegfried says it was no love at all, and in truth Mime has raised the boy only so that he will slay Fafner and secure the ring for him.

Siegfried says that he has learned of love by watching the way wild animals, such as foxes, tend their young.

When Mime claims that he is both mother and father to Siegfried, he is met with scorn. Offspring look like their parents, says Siegfried, and once, seeing his reflection in a stream, he had noted that he bore no resemblance to Mime. He demands to know who his parents really were.

Mime relates how he found Sieglinde in the forest and tended her. She died in bearing Siegfried, but left the fragments of Nothung. Excited by this legacy from his father, Siegfried charges Mime to reforge the sword and goes out into the forest, away from the loathsome dwarf whose very presence he cannot abide.

The Wanderer enters. He is Wotan in disguise, who keeps watch on Siegfried in the hope that the boy will be able to carry out the world-redeeming deed he had intended for Siegmund.

The Wanderer and Mime ask each other questions about the realms of the world. Mime tells of Fafner and the hoard. Warning Mime that the sword Nothung will be reforged only by one who does not know fear and that the same man will cause Mime’s death, the Wanderer leaves.

When Siegfried returns he is angered to find Nothung still in pieces. Mime tells him that only someone who does not know fear can reforge it. Siegfried says that person is he and sets about work. Mime promises to teach him fear at Fafner’s lair, and prepares a deadly potion he intends to give the hero after he has slain the dragon. Siegfried files down the sword, melts it and casts it anew.

Having remade his father’s sword, Siegfried tests Nothung on the anvil, which is split in two with a single stroke. Mime cowers in fear, remembering the Wanderer’s prophecy.

Mime leads Siegfried into the forest. Siegfried calls forth the dragon Fafner from his lair and slays him.

Fafner’s blood trickles onto Siegfried’s hand, burning it. Siegfried puts it to his mouth to soothe it and discovers that the blood has given him the power to understand the speech of birds. A forest bird tells Siegfried of the treasure hidden in the cave.

As soon as Siegfried enters the cave, Alberich appears and quarrels with Mime over possession of the hoard. Alberich slinks off. When Siegfried emerges he wears the ring and has the Tarnhelm. He is able to read Mime’s thoughts about killing him with the potion and so slays the dwarf. The bird tells him that a wife awaits him atop a mountain surrounded by fire, and leads him to her.

Siegfried crosses the fire and reaches Brünnhilde. Seeing the sleeping form, the first woman he has ever known, he is filled with fear. He sinks upon Brünnhilde and kisses her.

Brünnhilde is finally awakened. Joyously, she salutes the sun.

Then Brünnhilde turns to Siegfried. At first she is horrified by the loss of her godhood. Soon, however, she responds as the mortal woman she has become and, bidding a final farewell to the splendor of Walhalla, offers Siegfried her love.

It is night. On Brünnhilde’s rock the three Norns—the Fates—pass a golden rope back and forth, reflecting on the past and looking to the future, which bodes ill.

As dawn lightens the sky, the rope suddenly breaks. The days of the old order are numbered; the Norns sink into the earth, their wisdom ended.

At daybreak Brünnhilde and Siegfried emerge from a cave. He is about to go off in search of adventure. To plight their troth, they exchange presents. Brünnhilde gives Siegfried her horse Grane; Siegfried gives her the fatal ring.

On the banks of the Rhine, Siegfried arrives at the Hall of the Gibichungs, who are ruled by the weak-willed Gunther, his sister Gutrune and their half-brother Hagen. To make Siegfried Gutrune’s husband and so gain a prestigious kinsman, they give him a potion that causes him to forget Brünnhilde. Then, to secure a worthy wife for Gunther, Hagen suggests that Siegfried conquer the fabled Valkyrie for his new brother-in-law. Oblivious of his past relationship, the hero agrees.

On the mountaintop, Brünnhilde kisses the ring. Suddenly she hears thunder and, looking up, sees her Valkyrie sister Waltraute riding toward her, even though Wotan had forbidden the Valkyries ever to see Brünnhilde again.

In great agitation Waltraute tells Brünnhilde of what has happened among the gods since she was cast from them. No longer does Wotan go forth into the world. Instead he sits in Walhalla surrounded by the heroes; logs are heaped high around the castle. The god only hears of the world from his two ravens.

The gods are terrified of the doom that hangs over them. Brünnhilde alone can save them by returning the ring to the Rhinemaidens, cleansing it of its curse. But Brünnhilde refuses, valuing the token of Siegfried’s love more than the pomp of Walhalla. Waltraute dashes off in despair. At night the protective fire encircles the rock. The false Gunther (actually Siegfried wearing the Tarnhelm) breaks through and captures the humiliated Brünnhilde. Seizing the ring, he puts it on his finger.

Keeping watch at the Hall of the Gibichungs, Hagen is visited by Alberich, who plots with him to recover the ring.

For Hagen is the son of Alberich. The evil Nibelung had gained the favors of Grim-hilde, mother of Gunther and Gutrune. Thus the battle for the ring has been passed to a new generation. The gods are represented by the unwitting Siegfried, the Nibelungs by the ruthless Hagen.

When Brünnhilde is brought to Gibichung Hall as Gunther’s bride, she sees the ring on the finger of Siegfried, who has returned to his normal form. Realizing that she has been deceived, she reveals Gunther’s cowardice to all, and with Hagen and Gunther plots her revenge. The next morning a hunting party will set out with Siegfried. Hagen will murder him during the hunt.

During the hunt Siegfried strays by the Rhine to look for his catch, which an elf has stolen from him. He meets the Rhinemaidens, who tease him and ask for the ring in exchange for his booty, which they have taken and hidden. He agrees after some hesitation.

But the Rhinemaidens become deadly serious. It is Siegfried’s fate to keep the ring and fall victim to its curse. They bid the hero farewell and swim off to see Brünnhilde, to whom they will explain everything. By the end of the day she will have inherited the ring.

Siegfried rejoins the hunting party and is speared in the back by Hagen. His body is borne back to the Gibichung Hall.

Brünnhilde now realizes that the world must be purged of the terrible curse, that the bloody chain of events going back to the theft of the Rhinegold must be broken by her sacrifice. Bidding Wotan eternal rest, she puts the ring on her finger, mounts Grane and rides onto Siegfried’s funeral pyre. The fire spreads and consumes the entire hall.

Suddenly the Rhine overflows its banks, bearing on its crest the Rhinemaidens, who recover the ring from the ashes. Like a madman, Hagen plunges into the flood after the coveted prize, only to be dragged under to his death by Woglinde and Wellgunde. As the Rhinemaidens rejoice in their recovered gold, a ruddy glow illuminates the horizon. Walhalla is aflame and the order of the gods has come to an end. In the new age the world will be ruled by love alone.