A STUDY OF "DER RING DES NI

BELUNGEN."

I. THE STORY.

WHY is it that the Nibelungen music-dramas, constructed on methods wholly opposed to those with which generations of opera-goers are familiar, often moving on planes of gloom and tragedy, offering none of the glitter and complex movement of spectacular operas, frequently illustrated in music prolific in harshness and discord, have taken such a hold on the public mind wherever they have had a fair hearing?

The answer is simple. They are great dramatic poems set to music. Wagner was, first, last, and all the time, a lyric dramatist; and though this present epoch, still bearing in mind the old-fashioned libretto, which had little or no dramatic force and no poetic strength, insists upon estimating the value of the man's work chiefly by his scores, it can hardly be doubted

that the future will award him a rank as a librettist equal to that which he holds in music. The prophet is not without honor in his own country. There his dramas are regarded as great works. Elsewhere the exclamation of the antiWagnerite continually is, "I do not like Wagner's music." He seldom troubles himself to express an opinion as to the libretto, though the entire Wagnerian system rests upon the proposition that the music must be subservient to the book. Operas, such as "Euryanthe,' have succeeded by sheer force of musical excellence in spite of bad librettos; but this does not shake Wagner's position. It is possible to have music without a libretto; further than that, it is possible to have music with a libretto and nothing more, as in the cantata and oratorio. But the moment we adopt the apparatus of the theatre we assume the form of the drama, and it is obvious that Wagner is right in asserting that with the form we must take also the substance. That the lovers of the operatic stage are generally falling into Wagner's way of thinking is indicated by the fact that the operas which have attained or retained favor of late years are those which have dramatic librettos. "Aïda," "Otello," "The Queen of Sheba," may be mentioned among those which have

achieved success ; "Faust," "La Juive," "Les Huguenots," among those which have kept it. On the other hand, an operatic season which relies for its attractiveness on "Lucia," " "La Traviata," and their kind, unless succored by the factitious aid of some renowned singer, is doomed to disaster. There is nothing in the plays to interest the auditors, and in the present state of public taste they will not sit through three hours of inanity to hear three or four inspired numbers, unless those numbers are to be delivered with matchless eloquence.

An art work must be viewed through its design. To enter upon the consideration of any creation of the human mind with a pre-established hostility to the plan on which it is constructed, is not only ungenerous, but unjust. The primary postulate of the Wagner theory is best expressed in Hamlet's words: "The play's the thing." Let us then review the story of the Nibelung's ring.

"From the womb of night and of death," says Wagner, allowing his mystical fancy free play, "there sprang a race who dwelt in Nibelheim (Nebelheim, the place of mists), that is, in dim subterranean chasms and caves. They were called Nibelungen. Like worms in a dead body, they swarmed in varying, reckless activity,

through the entrails of the earth; they wrought in metals-heated and purified them. Among them Alberich gained possession of the bright and beautiful gold of the Rhine—the Rheingold -drew it up out of the depths of the waters, and made from it, with great and cunning art, a ring, which gave him power over all his race, the Nibelungen. Thus he became their master, and forced them henceforth to labor for him alone, and so collected the inestimable treasure of the Nibelungen, the chief jewel of which was the Tarnhelm (helmet), by means of which one could assume any figure that he chose, and which Alberich had compelled his own brother, Regin, to forge for him. Thus equipped, Alberich strove for the mastery of the world and all that was in it. The race of the giantsthe insolent, the mighty, the primeval racewas disturbed in its savage ease; its enormous strength, its simple wit were not enough to contend against Alberich's ambitious cunning. The giants saw with apprehension how the Nibelungen forged wondrous weapons, which, in the hands of human heroes, should bring about the ruin of the giant race. The race of the gods, rapidly rising to omnipotence, made use of this conflict. Wotan agreed with the giants that they should build for the gods a castle, from

which they might order and rule the world in safety, but after it was done the giants demanded the treasure of the Nibelungen as their reward. The great cunning of the gods succeeded in the capture of Alberich, and he was compelled to give the treasure as a ransom for his life. The ring alone he sought to keep, but the gods, knowing well that the secret of his power lay in this, took the ring from him. Then he laid a curse upon it, that it should prove the ruin of all who should possess it. Wotan gave the treasure to the giants, but the ring he kept to insure his own omnipotence. The giants, however, forced it from him by their threats, and Wotan yielded at the advice of the three Fates (Nornen), who warned him of the approaching downfall of the gods."

This is Wagner's own picturesque version of that part of the Nibelungen story on which the whole of his tetralogy is based. Let us go back to the great original source of this tale. In the translation of the Völsunga Saga, made by Eirikr Magnusson and the poet, William Morris, Regin, son of Hreidmar, and foster-father of Sigurd (Siegfried), tells the youth his story. He was one of three brothers, the other two being Fafnir and Otter. Regin himself was a cunning smith. Otter was a fisherman who lay on the