SOURCE: Lee, M. Owen. Wagner's ‘Ring’: Turning the Sky Round, pp. 47-79. New York: Summit Books, 1990.

In the following excerpt, Lee probes the mythic, musical, and psychological elements of Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, and Siegfried.

Die Walküre

act i: In a forest storm, Wotan's mortal son, Siegmund, finds shelter, not knowing that he has come to the house of the very enemy he has been fleeing from, Hunding. He is befriended by Hunding's wife, the gentle Sieglinde, but he keeps his name from her. Hunding, according to primitive rites of hospitality, will shelter the fugitive for the night, then fight him in the morning. Siegmund is weaponless, and calls on his father, whom he knew only as a mortal named Wälse, for the sword he once promised to send in an hour of need. While Hunding sleeps, Sieglinde comes to Siegmund and points out a...