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Updated: June 9, 2025
In rage she denounces him and declares he has shared the joys of love with her; he denies it; but Günther is shamed, and has no doubt that Siegfried has played him false. Siegfried goes merrily off, and Günther, Hagen and Brünnhilda swear that he must die. In the music we get any amount of physical energy and dramatic emphasis; but we know this is no longer the Wagner of the Valkyrie.
The other hunters come in, and Siegfried is asked to tell of his adventures, and as he does so Hagen offers him a cup of wine into which he dropped another powder; Siegfried's memory gradually returns, and to Günther's horror he relates how he first scaled the mountain, passed the fire and won Brünnhilda. He means on the first occasion, but it shames Günther once again.
If it symbolizes, as has been suggested, a sudden passion for Gutruna, then Siegfried is an out-and-out blackguard, and not the hero Wagner intended. Besides, if the loss of his memory leads to the sacrifice of Brunnhilda, afterwards its sudden return, due to another potion, leads immediately to his own death. We must accept these potions as part of the machinery.
With the entrance of Wotan the music which concludes the Second Act recurs: the All-powerful clothed in wrath and flame; then comes his denunciation of Brünnhilda, another specimen of the lyrical Wagner. Even more characteristic of Wagner is the dying down of the storm.
The other hunters arrive, and Siegfried, drinking the second philtre, tells the story of how he first won Brunnhilda. That is Hagen's opportunity: to avenge Gunther he stabs Siegfried in the back. To the tremendous funeral march the body is carried over the hills. It is brought into the hall of the Gibichungs.
Brünnhilda, let us always remember, stands for human love, affection not love in the Tristan sense but that love of which Goldsmith sang that He "loved us into being"; the love of human being for human being so strong that not for so many thousands a year as a judge, so many pitiable hundreds a year as a magistrate, immortality as an omnipotent ruler or a Wotan, will it perpetuate or permit a wrong on a human being.
The black storm gradually subsides, the deep-blue night comes on, and against it we see the swirling, crackling flames as the fire mounts, forming an impassable barrier that cuts off Brunnhilda from the everyday, busy world.
The Waltraute scene is fine, being largely made up of old material; but I cannot say much for the scene between Brünnhilda and Siegfried. In this first act two important themes are introduced, the Tarnhelm theme and that of the draught of forgetfulness.
Night and storm come on; Hunding's horn is heard as he comes nearer and nearer; Siegmund mounts amongst the rocks to meet him; a flash of lightning reveals them in the act of fighting; Brunnhilda hovers above to strike for him, when Wotan appears in a fiery glare and smashes Siegmund's sword, so that Hunding's spear passes through him.
The two men go off together, and the scene changes again to the Valkyries' rock. Brünnhilda sits alone looking at the Ring; Waltraute, one of the Valkyries, rushes in and demands that Ring. She relates how for want of it Wotan, dreading that it may fall into the hands of Alberich, sits gloomy and silent in Valhalla.
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