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Updated: June 9, 2025
Her answer is no answer, and Wotan replies for her: Siegfried will pass and take Brünnhilda and then the End of the gods. The dramatic object of this scene I have never been able to grasp.
Siegfried passes on; the flames leap up at his approach and subside as he boldly goes on. He finds Brünnhilda sleeping, awakes her with a kiss, overcomes her resistance, and the opera concludes with a triumphant love-duet. This is the skeleton of what is, dramatically if not musically, the most important of the three acts.
Brunnhilda tells her she carries within her the seed of the world's mightiest hero, and in a moment her mood changes, and she begs to be sheltered. Her ecstatic outburst is due to a mother's instinctive joy and to the hope of having someone or something to care for, and no more to be utterly forsaken and purposeless.
In the meantime we have had the wonderful Eternal Love theme not sexual love, but the mystic force that created the worlds and holds them in their courses: in all Wagner there is no nobler and sweeter passage than that in which Brünnhilda first sings it. The vivid musical description of the crackling flames which are to surround her is another of an unequalled series of marvels.
He will put Brünnhilda to sleep to await the hero; but he will hedge her in with fire so that the hero shall be a true one. The music steadily increases in force and passion, and at each stage where one would think the composer could strike no harder he immediately does it. More and more of the divine fury pours into the music, until the climax is reached in the bars preceding the Farewell.
Thicker gather the clouds; thunder peals and lightnings flash; the antagonists are heard calling as they seek each other in the darkness; Sieglinda speaks in her dreams; as she awakes, Hunding and Siegmund are seen in the dim light high up amongst the rocks; Brünnhilda encourages Siegmund, guarding him with her spear; he is about to strike Hunding down; there is an angry red glare, and Wotan shatters the sword with his spear; Hunding runs his spear through Siegmund; Sieglinda shrieks and falls insensible to the ground.
Brünnhilda is overcome with admiration: this, at any rate, this love she can understand; she tells him to prepare to fight Hunding and she will help him. The next scene is unmatched, even in Wagner, for its terror and the swiftness with which the climax comes on. Clouds gather; Hunding's horn is heard and his voice; Siegmund leaves Sieglinda and goes off cheerfully and confidently to meet his foe.
He goes slowly off; the central tragedy is virtually accomplished; to the end the fire blazes and sparkles, and the curtain descends on a soft chord. The revolving seasons will pass; strange events will happen in the outer world of men; Brünnhilda will sleep there, the guarding fire seen from afar by awe-stricken warrior tribes.
Wotan comes on with his thunders and lightnings and calls for Brünnhilda; at last she answers, and he announces her punishment: she shall be deprived of her godhood and left on the mountains to become the wife and slave of the first man that passes. The other maidens wail in protest; in anger he bids them begone; Brünnhilda, overcome with shame, sinks at his feet.
In the prologue of the Dusk of the Gods we find the Norns spinning in the dark near Brunnhilda's cave; the rope they are at work on breaks, and they learn that the end is near. They disappear; day breaks, and Siegfried and Brunnhilda enter.
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