THE MIRACLES OF DAS RHEINGOLD Mining musical and dramatic gold in the first of Wagner’s Ring operas

By Roger Pines

In his memoirs, Richard Wagner recalls that while visiting an Italian seaside resort, he suddenly felt as if he were in a dream, “sinking in swiftly flowing water. The rushing sound formed itself in my brain into a musical sound, the chord of E-flat major, which continually re-echoed in broken forms.” At that moment, the composer realized that he’d found the kernel for the prelude to Das Rheingold

Beginning in the lowest strings and developing through the entire orchestra, Wagner’s mesmerizing E-flat chord launches Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung), the cycle of four operas collectively identified by Wagner as “Ein Bühnenfestspiel für drei Tage und einem Vorabend” – “A stagefestival-Play to be produced on three days and a fore-evening.” The “foreevening” is Das Rheingold, and there’s never been a more thrilling preamble for any work of art. It sets the drama of the Ring in motion, introducing us to enthralling characters who burst into life through music of dazzling individuality and imagination. The only Ring opera written in a single act, Das Rheingold thrills in its sheer momentum, both musically and theatrically.

It’s surprising to think that Wagner’s creative process for the Ring included writing the texts of the Ring operas backwards, in terms of the actual plot: Götterdämmerung, the fourth opera— ending with the hero Siegfried’s death and the gods’ destruction, and the birth of a new world—was written first, with Das Rheingold last. Wagner did compose the four scores in order, with Rheingold finished in late summer of 1854. Audiences, however, didn’t experience it until its world premiere in Munich 15 years later.

The Ring cycle was the product of a genuine obsession: Wagner’s interest in Germanic and Nordic mythology, in which he immersed himself for most of the 1840s. In doing so, he embodied a trend that had taken hold in Germany since the dawn of Romanticism: a renewed interest in the nation’s heritage of myths, which artists and intellectuals hoped to reinterpret, finding a new meaning for their own time. Myths presented Wagner with an enormous range of human behavior, as well as innumerable relationships that he rightly believed could lend themselves gloriously to the operatic stage. It was invariably the human element that mattered to him; the most elemental feelings always brought forth his most inspired music. Fear, greed, lust for power, abject misery, fraternal and conjugal love—all of this comes memorably into play during Das Rheingold.

Of Wagner’s five major literary sources in creating the Ring dramas, two proved especially vital in the Rheingold libretto. The 12th-century Poetic Edda—a collection originating in Iceland, with more than 30 poems written in Old Norse—presented all the Nordic gods, including the mighty Odin. In the Ring he became Wotan, king of the gods and, in Das Rheingold, one of the two protagonists. The other was Alberich, the dwarf—love-starved, powerhungry, finally ragingly vindictive. He figures in the anonymous early13th-century poem known as the Nibelungenlied. This was the only text of German origin and written totally in German that Wagner utilized in preparing the Ring. The greatest miracle of the Ring operas, of Das Rheingold in particular, was that

Wagner, in an astonishing exercise in editing, managed to pull together what he viewed as the most riveting tales within the Poetic Edda, the Nibelungenlied, and all his other sources, to create a persuasive, unfailingly cohesive dramatic structure.

Having narrowed down the elements of Germanic and Nordic myths that best suited his purposes, Wagner then conceived a new kind of opera, within which the drama of the Ring could unfold: a “Gesamtkunstwerk” (“complete art-work”). Writer-philosopher K.F.E. Trahndorff was responsible for that term—it dates from 1827, when Wagner was only 14 years old—but in the arts it was Wagner who utilized it most fully, with Das Rheingold in its initial realization onstage. Wagner imagined the “Gesamtkunstwerk” as a perfect unity of music, poetry, theater, and the visual arts, which he believed no previous opera had achieved. The whole idea represented, in effect, his own resurrection of Greek drama, in which he believed all those elements had been ideally integrated and balanced. Wagner was no longer interested in creating opera as his audiences knew it. Das Rheingold wasn’t centered on the aria or, indeed, on anything that smacked of vocal display. There’s only one solo passage from Das Rheingold that would make any effect out of context: the earth-goddess Erda’s warning to Wotan to give up the ring. Within the opera, however, that passage exists only to provide a hugely important turning point that moves the plot forward—in no way is it meant to show off the voice. The same thing applies to Loge’s narrative, Mime’s complaint, and Wotan’s greeting to Valhalla, extended solo moments all built seamlessly into the work and greatly enhancing its cumulative dramatic impact.

Das Rheingold was also Wagner’s first attempt to bring to the stage (cont’d) certain qualities that he considered entirely new for singers. First, he called for a detailed, carefully considered response to the text. He also wanted characters portrayed with complete naturalness. Das Rheingold may be populated with deities, giants, and other supernatural beings, but Wagner intended their manner of relating to each other onstage to be direct, unfussy—in a word, human—and unencumbered by anything resembling a “stand-andsing” presentation.

What does it take to sing this opera? Certainly, anyone performing Das Rheingold should bear in mind that Wagner was devoted to bel canto. That meant particularly the works of Vincenzo Bellini, the master of long, elegantly sculpted legato lines that consistently flattered the voice. Listening to historically important Wagner interpreters in Das Rheingold—soprano Elisabeth Grümmer, contralto Karin Branzell, bass-baritones Friedrich Schorr and George London, among others—it’s abundantly clear that the opera can be sung with tone and expression as glorious as one would find in Bellini or any other operatic repertoire.

The vocal rewards of Das Rheingold for the audience are immense, beginning with the opening scene, in which the three maidens (soprano and two mezzos) cavorting in the

Rhine’s depths can ravish the ear with their luminous trios, sung in delectable close harmony. What a contrast when they confront Alberich (baritone). Admittedly, in his music a dulcet beauty of tone can often seem beside the point, but the role should still be genuinely sung, not shouted.

Up in the realm of the gods, we have Fricka (mezzo-soprano) and Wotan, her husband (bass-baritone). The dignified, ultra-womanly Fricka isn’t an especially lengthy role, but what she lacks in length, she more than makes up in vocal allure. As for Wotan, he gets plenty of opportunities to display vocal bite and power, but like his wife, he’s also given numerous moments that call for a velvety warmth. Then there’s the demigod Loge, subtlest of all the Rheingold characters.

An exquisite, free-flowing lyricism characterizes much of his narration, in which he recalls traveling on earth where he searched in vain for someone who would value anything more than women’s beauty and love.

The opera’s other soloists all have their special demands as well: the gods Freia (soprano), Froh (lyric tenor), and Donner (lyric baritone), with their voices in youthful bloom; Erda (contralto), whose flowing lines are made for magnificently organlike sound; Mime (character tenor), pathetic in his recitation of his brother dwarf Alberich’s cruelty; and the giants Fasolt and Fafner, often cast with basses whose instruments are somewhat rough-hewn, not entirely unsuitable in these roles. However, Fasolt’s adoration of Freia does inspire some lyrical phrases, where mellow tone can prove very welcome.

There’s another miracle in Rheingold: Wagner’s orchestra which, for the first time in opera, becomes an essential commentator on the action. The writing, while virtuosic in itself (especially for strings and brass), also proves illuminating thanks to Wagner’s system of leitmotifs. These recurring phrases can denote a particular character, an object (the ring, or Freia’s golden apples), an idea (renunciation of love, enslavement), or a place (Valhalla, Nibelheim). There are more than twenty leitmotifs in this opera, each one a marvelous enhancement of the drama.

There’s so much to be savored in Das Rheingold. Musically, dramatically, and vocally it’s an absolute feast, and its return to The Dallas Opera stage is cause for celebration.

ROGER PINES is a contributing writer to Opera News, Opera (U.K.), programs of opera companies internationally, and major recording labels. A faculty member of Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music, he has also been a panelist on the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts’ “Opera Quiz” every season since 2006.