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Updated: June 9, 2025
The last act opens on a high hill, where stands the Valkyries' rock, and amidst thunder, lightning, and rain we get the Ride. Brunnhilda rushes in to her sisters with Sieglinda, tells what she has done, and begs for help. All are aghast and refuse. Sieglinda herself asks no aid; Siegmund is dead, and she has nothing to live for.
The nymphs try to coax him to throw them the Ring, which he had wrested from Brünnhilda; he refuses, and they tell him that this day he must die.
The birds tell him of the slumbering Brunnhilda, whom he finds and marries. The Dusk of the Gods portrays at the opening the three norns or fates weaving and measuring the thread of destiny. It is the beginning of the end. The perfect pair, Siegfried and Brunhild, appear in all the glory of their life, splendid ideals of manhood and womanhood.
There is a moment of suspense; the tragedy is accomplished; and now Wotan must punish Brünnhilda for disobeying his commands; and amidst thunders and lightnings, in flaming wrath, he rides off, and the curtain falls. The drama of Siegmund and Sieglinda is ended; the second inner drama, that of Wotan and Brünnhilda, is begun.
He knows of Siegfried's "deed," and knows that Siegfried is coming that way; but he keeps the story to himself, and tells Günther and Gutruna of the fearless hero and of Brünnhilda sleeping on the mountain-top encircled by fire. Günther desires the woman, Gutruna the man. But only Siegfried can pass through the fire. Pat to the moment he arrives, and enters leading Grani.
She bids him go, and he goes; the flames immediately spring up again round her dwelling for what reason Wagner does not explain. Neither does he explain why Brünnhilda does not travel with her husband the explanation is made only too obvious afterwards. He travels to the Rhine, and there meets Hagen, Günther and Günther's sister Gutruna.
"Siegmund will see Sieglinda no more," she replies to a quiet phrase of unspeakable pathos. Then Siegmund refuses to go with her, and he draws his sword to slay first Sieglinda, then himself. Brunnhilda is overwhelmed by the revelation of a love so devoted, and at last promises to help him. It is her own nature as is revealed to her.
The tragedy has gone a step onward; he has killed his son, and now must punish Brunnhilda put away love from himself to the end that he may enjoy a loveless empire. The music throughout the act is amongst Wagner's noblest and most beautiful and dramatic. Every phrase given to Fricka proclaims her queenly and overbearing, with right and power on her side, and relentless determination to use them.
Brünnhilda and Sieglinda come in; Brünnhilda tells of her disobedience, and like a flock of wild-fowl disturbed the other Valkyries squeak and gibber in disgust and horror. The music here is perhaps the most operatic part of the opera Brünnhilda begging first one and then another to aid her; one after another refusing in very conventional phrases.
Brünnhilda orders the funeral fire to be built; the body is put on it and consumed: Brünnhilda mounts Grani and scatters the ashes, and with them the Ring, into the river; the waters rise, and Hagen rushes after the Ring, to be drawn down; Wotan's power went when the spear was shattered, and now that the Ring is returned to the Rhine no other power controls Loge.
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