Richard Wagner Critical Essay | Critical Essay by John Tietz

Critical Essay by John Tietz

SOURCE: Tietz, John. “Conclusion: What Does the Ring Mean?” In Redemption or Annihilation? Love versus Power in Wagner's ‘Ring,’ pp. 141-63. New York: Peter Lang, 1999.

In the following excerpt, Tietz sees in Wagner's operatic cycle a thematic “tension between power and love in society,” an emphasis on conflict, and a depiction of the ultimate dissolution of the world.

1. Redemptive Fire

With its great length, The Ring generates such tremendous momentum that it takes quite a while to conclude. There are in fact two long stretches of music in the final version of The Ring, but it could not plausibly have ended with Siegfried's funeral, except anticlimactically. For then Siegfried's death would be, as Mann suggests, a merely sentimental remembrance of heroism destroyed with little connection to the larger dramatic and philosophical context that emerges during the drama.

After her extraordinary adventures, Brünnhilde at last says that she understands what has happened...
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