Wagner's Ring Cycle

Der Ring des Nibelungen

Four weekends across two years devoted to Wagner's vast cycle, with Robert Meikle.

Weekend one: 4-6 June 2010: Introduction to the cycle, and Das Rheingold
Weekend two: 5-7 November 2010: Die Walküre
Weekend three: 2011: Siegfried
Weekend four: 2011: Götterdämmerung

“The incomparable thing about myth,” wrote Wagner in one of his many essays on music, “is that it is always true, and its content, however densely packed, inexhaustible for all ages.”

He could have been writing about the vast scope of the Ring, with its gods, goddesses, giants, Nibelungs and humans, both heroes and villains; its magic, ring, helmet, sword, potions, bird-song; its malicious dwarf, its fiery dragon, and much more, but above all, about its truth, conveyed through a marriage of music and words as compelling and relevant in the twenty-first century as in the nineteenth. And the truth, relentlessly revealed across the four operas, unfolds from the very beginning of Das Rheingold:

The Ring, once forged from the gold in the depths of the Rhine, confers matchless power on its possessor. There is only one snag, to which Alberich the Nibelung is indifferent as he seizes the gold from the Rhine-daughters: its owner must forswear love. The god Wotan in turn steals the ring from Alberich, who places a curse on all future owners, and although Wotan would dearly love to keep it, he has to give it up in order to pay for the construction of his fortress, Valhalla, from where he hopes to rule in wisdom.

That, in a nutshell, is the central issue of The Ring: he who would possess power must renounce love, and power itself cannot but be corrupt . The rest of the cycle is devoted to Wotan’s efforts to get round these two problems so that he may somehow be the means (but since his position is compromised, also not the means) whereby the world may be delivered from injustice, ruled by unsullied and benevolent power.

We investigate these two basic truths, and the many other dimensions, contradictions, relationships and symbols, the consequences of Wotan’s failure (nor forgetting Alberich’s malevolent curse), and Wagner’s articulation of the whole through words and, above all, through the music. Feelings, utterances, outbursts, malevolent asides, ardent declarations of love, all these and many more, as expressed in music, demonstrate the amazing versatility of one of the most fluent musical minds that western Europe has produced, and we see how Wagner created his characters and the relationships between them. Loge, the crafty god of fire, Siegmund and Sieglinde, the twins in Die Walküre, Mime, Alberich’s evil brother, Fricka, Wotan’s no-nonsense wife, Siegfried, the heroic bearer of Wotan’s hopes, and his daughter, Brünnhilde, are just some of the characters we encounter, with their musical signatures, unique and at once recognisable yet adaptable to a variety of situations.

We will provide loan copies of the score (though bring your own if you have it). We will watch extracts of a number of productions on video and DVD.

One final word: the Ring has a reputation, not entirely extinct today, for consisting of four interminable and unnecessarily repetitive operas. Nothing could be further from the truth, not a note could be omitted without causing irreparable damage, and you will find that the better you know them, the shorter they become.

Robert Meikle has been an ardent Wagnerite for as long as he can remember. He has taught courses on all Wagner’s principal operas, especially the Ring. He has tutored 20 weekend and day courses at Farncombe covering topics from Bach and Handel to opera and lieder. Both before and since his retirement as Head of the Music Department at Birmingham University he has made talking about music to non-specialists one of his most important and rewarding activities. For many years he taught at Open University summer schools. His main interests lie in opera, and in the music of the classical and romantic eras, from Haydn and Mozart (on whose music he has published) to Wagner and Mahler (whose music he has conducted).