Wagner’s Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods) is the last opera in a set of four operas entitled Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelungs). In the previous opera Siegfried, the tenor, has grown up in ignorance and isolation, reconstituted the remants of his father’s sword, killed the dragon, Fafner, acquired the magic ring, and rescued the soprano, Brunnhilde from the magic fire where her father had imprisoned her. Now Siegfried has left Brunnhilde at home, borrowed her horse, and sailed off down the Rhine River looking for adventure. He stops off at the castle of the Gibichung family – half brothers Gunther and Hagen, and sister Gutrune. Hagen (the villain) is expecting him. He slips Siegfried a secret potion (left over, perhaps, from Tristan und Isolde), which causes the hero to forget all about Brunnhilde and fall madly in love with Gutrune. Things go downhill from there, and the opera ends with the principals dead and the castle in flames. You can read an attempt at a more thorough synopsis at http://www.well.com/user/woodman/singthing/ring/story.html

The excerpt is from Act I, where Siegfried first arrives at the Gibichung castle. It’s an excellent example of Wagner’s use of Leitmotifs to convey the drama in music. When Hagen calls out to Siegfried at the beginning of scene 2 (p. 61, system 2), he sings the hero’s name to one of several “Siegfried” motifs. A moment later, when just before Siegfried speaks, we hear “fearless hero” motif in the orchestra (p.61, sys.4). As Siegfried recounts his personal history up to this point (pp.65- 68), the orchestra illustrates each item in his narrative with the music that accompanied that event in the previous opera: the sword (p.65, sys.3), the underground realm of the Nibelungen (p.65, sys.4), the dragon (p.66, sys.2), the Tarnhelm (magic helmet) which makes its wearer invisible (p.67, sys.1), and so on.

There’s a lot more to Wagner’s dramatic technique than Leitmotifs. The first part of the excerpt, where Hagen watches Siegfried’s boat sail down the Rhine and pull up to the shore, uses several Leitmotifs (Siegfried’s horn call, etc.), but more important is the way that Wagner builds up excitement and anticipation in the orchestra in preparation for the hero’s entrance. Listening to the music, the audience pictures what Hagen sees as he looks out over the Rhine and watches Siegfried coming closer and closer. By the time Siegfried steps onto the stage, the audience is more than ready for him. Where the beginning of the excerpt is an example of very slow dramatic movement, the end shows how Wagner can move the drama along very quickly when he wants to. Gutrune enters (p.68, sys.2), welcomes Siegfried with a brief melody, and hands him the bewitched cup. In a contemplative moment, Siegfried recalls Brunnhilde (Love motif, p. 68, sys. 3) and lifts the cup in her honor. As soon as he drinks the potion, the orchestra depicts the transformation of his emotions with increasingly violent versions of the love motif. Siegfried blurts out his infatuation (p.70, sys.1), then, remembering his manners, asks Gunther: “What’s your sister’s name?” In 60 measures of music the course of Siegfried’s life has been irrevocably transformed – for the worse, I’m sorry to say.