[Wilhelm] Richard Wagner was born in Leipzig, Germany on May 22, 1813 and died in Venice on February 13, 1883. He was the most important composer of German opera in the latter half of the nineteenth century. His crowning achievement was the Ring of the Nibelung, a four-opera epic that occupied him from the late 1840s until its premiere in the summer of 1876 in an opera house in Bayreuth built to his own specifications.

 Wagner’s original plan was to write an opera, Siegfrieds Tod (The Death of Siegfried), treating the climactic moment from the medieval Austro-German classic epic, the Song of the Nibelung. Siegfried, whose name means “Peace through Victory,” is the central hero of the saga. Over a period of more than twenty-five years, however, Wagner extended the plot, melding it with stories and characters from Icelandic Eddas (most notably the Saga of the Volsungs), to create a new myth for the German nation of his time. In its completed version, Wagner structured the Ring into a Preliminary Evening (Das Rheingold) followed by a set of three-act operas: Die Walküre, Siegfried, and Götterdämmerung. The entire cycle is performed annually at the Festspielhaus in Bayreuth, as well as in major opera houses throughout the world. Each performance of the Ring cycle is a major event.

Tonight’s concert by the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra presents music derived from the entire Ring cycle, although not in the same order as the operas. The first of these, “Forest Murmurs” (Waldweben) is derived from Act II of Siegfried. The young hero has been raised in a forest by the Nibelung dwarf, Mime, the covetous brother of Alberich, whose theft of the gold from the Rhein and subsequent forging of the powerful ring launches the multi-generational saga. In the opera’s first act, Siegfried forces Mime to reveal the truth of the identity of his true parents, Siegmund and Sieglinde. Having re-forged his father’s broken sword, Siegfried finds himself alone in the forest near the cave of the ferocious dragon, Fafner. In one of the Ring’s most tender moments, the lonesome lad sits down under a Linden tree and imagines what his parents must have been like. Undulating figures in the strings accompany his musings. His reverie is interrupted by the song of a forest bird (oboe, flute, and clarinet). Siegfried yearns to understand what the bird is trying to tell him as his journey toward maturity and self-discovery continues. This orchestral excerpt ends in a blaze of excitement derived from the end of Act II.

The final music from Das Rheingold is known in its orchestral excerpt known as “The Entry of the Gods into Valhalla.” Wotan has stolen the accursed ring from Alberich in order to provide ersatz payment for the construction of his castle. Despite warnings of his inevitable doom from the goddess, Erda, Wotan confidently leads his wife, Fricka, and the other gods triumphantly into their new home. Only the cynical skepticism of the demi-god, Loge, and the distant lament of the Rhinedaughters, threatens to taint the procession with hints of the gods immorality. As the gods cross over the Rainbow bridge created by the god, Froh, the opera ends in a blaze of glory, dominated by the orchestra’s brass section.

In the final excerpt, sung tonight by one of the great Brünnhilde’s of our time, Christine Goerke, we experience the spectacular end of Act III of the Ring’s final opera, Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods). Siegfried has been slain by the villain Hagen (Alberich’s son). Brünnhilde, who now understands her true purpose as the agent of redemption for a multitude of sins, sets the stage for the climax of the Ring saga. Often referred to as the “Immolation scene,” it also reveals the final stage of her own attainment of wisdom. The long-yearned-for twilight of the gods is now at hand, as Wagner’s complex network of themes (Leitmotivs) are woven together.

This grand scene begins with Brünnhilde’s noble and ceremonious command to the Gibichungs to create a funeral pyre worthy of the exalted hero. As they fulfill her commission, her thoughts turn next to the attributes of Siegfried, whose unwitting faithlessness to her stood in stark contrast to his true nature (“Never were oaths more nobly sworn; never were treaties kept more truly; never did any man love more loyally: and yet every oath, every treaty, the truest love – no one betrayed as he did”). Brünnhilde’s thoughts turn next to her father, Wotan, beseeching him to look upon her suffering that was necessary so “that a woman might grow wise . . . All! All! All things I now know . .  . Rest now, rest now, you god!” Taking the ring from the dead Siegfried’s hand as her inheritance, she addresses the Rheindaughters, promising that their stolen gold would now be restored to its original state, cleansed from its curse through fire and water. As she thrusts a torch into the funeral pyre’s logs, Brünnhilde commands Wotan’s ravens to summon the fire-god, Loge, to do the same to Valhalla. As she mounts her steed, Grane, she joyfully rides into the flames to join him forever in death. The orchestra takes over as we hear the leitmotivs associated with Siegfried and Valhalla, over which we hear the redemptive strains first sung by Siegfried’s mother in Act III of Die Walküre, “O most sublime wonder!”

Program Note by David B. Levy, © 2025