Analysis Of Richard Wagner's Die Walküre

Recently as an avid operagoer I decided to attend one of Lyric Opera’s productions, which happened to be Die Walküre. I had my reservations about this opera as it was written by one of my contemporaries who I no longer feel worthy of calling a colleague but now rather address him as a fraud. The man that I speak of is Richard Wagner. Now I tried to attend this opera with little bias as possible, as I once was a dear friend of Wagner, but I must say after 5 hours at the opera I had a distaste in my mouth. This opera was more off-putting than I thought it would be, and I already had my reservations about Wagner. Not only was the opera long, at moments it was rather unentertaining; the plot of the story had some moments that were unpleasant. Now

But, from what I saw in Die Walküre, I must retract my previous statement. Wagner’s Die Walküre is more indicative of Dionysian values, as is seen throughout the opera. The main characters are overwhelmed with emotions the moment that they meet each other, both good and bad emotions. There are very little Apollonian values seen in this opera if it can be argued that any were actually seen. There is chaos the moment Siegmund and Sieglinde meet on stage and is seen throughout the opera. Sieglinde is held as a captive, and Siegmund falls in love trying to escape; what is most repulsive about this fact is that these two characters share a bloodline. Wagner enthusiasts, how much more chaos do you need to see to make my point? Although there is chaos in this opera, there is an overwhelming amount of emotions as well. The emotions in this opera range from having good feelings to being vengeful and wishing to kill someone. There is simply no in between with these characters. At one moment everyone on stage can be happy and deeply in love. While at other times a father is being forced to kill one of his children for disobeying him. Wagner really loses his balance of values in this

This is not to say that I did not enjoy the performance. The acting and the singing were phenomenal! It is not the fault of the opera singers and musicians that Wagner puts them through a lengthy opera that is almost predictable. I say that it is predictable because this was not the only opera he wrote, he wrote many that were very similar. If you are a follower of his work you will quickly realize this. Like I stated before, I had no problem with the actors the fact that one does not like an opera is not always the fault of the actors as was the case in this opera. I have even stated in my book The Case of Wagner, “ the golden age dawns for the actor- for him and for everything related to his kind. Wagner marches with drums…Not to forget the orchestra musicians-these he redeemed from boredom”(p. 179). I think that this quote represents entirely my feeling towards the actors and the musicians. It is not their fault that Wagner wanted to make this about him and not think of those who are going to perform his