Act III. The wedding festivities are described in the brilliant

"Introduction to Act III." This is followed in the opera by the "Bridal Chorus," which, wherever heard--on stage or in church--falls with renewed freshness and significance upon the ear. In this scene the Knight and _Elsa_ are conducted to the bridal chamber in the castle. From the right enter _Elsa's_ ladies-in-waiting leading the bride; from the left the _King_ and nobles leading the Knight. Preceding both trains are pages bearing lights; and voices chant the bridal chorus. The _King_ ceremoniously embraces the couple and then the procession makes its way out, until, as the last strains of the chorus die away, _Elsa_ and her champion are for the first time alone.

It should be a moment of supreme happiness for both, and indeed, _Elsa_ exclaims as her bridegroom takes her to his arms, that words cannot give expression to all its hidden sweetness. Yet, when he tenderly breathes her name, it serves only to remind her that she cannot respond by uttering his. "How sweetly sounds my name when spoken by you, while I, alas, cannot reply with yours. Surely, some day, you will tell me, all in secret, and I shall be able to whisper it when none but you is near!"

In her words the Knight perceives but too clearly the seeds of the fatal mistrust sown by _Ortrud_ and _Frederick_. Gently he leaves her side and throwing open the casement, points to the moonlit landscape where the river winds its course along the plain. The same subtle magic that can conjure up this scene from the night has brought him to her, made him love her, and give unshrinking credence to her vow never to question his name or origin. Will she now wantonly destroy the wondrous spell of moonlight and love?

But still _Elsa_ urges him. "Let me be flattered by your trust and confidence. Your secret will be safe in my heart. No threats, not even of death, shall tear it from my lips. Tell me who you are and whence you come!"

"Elsa!" he cries, "come to my heart. Let me feel that happiness is mine at last. Let your love and confidence compensate me for what I have left behind me. Cast dark suspicion aside. For know, I came not hither from night and grieving but from the abode of light and noble pleasures."

But his words have the very opposite effect of what he had hoped for. "Heaven help me!" exclaims _Elsa_. "What must I hear! Already you are beginning to look back with longing to the joys you have given up for me. Some day you will leave me to sorrow and regret. I have no magic spells wherewith to hold you. Ah!"--and now she cries out like one distracted and with eyes straining at distance--"See!--the swan!--I see him floating on the waters yonder! You summon him, embark!--Love--madness--whatever it may be--your name declare, your lineage and your home!"

Hardly have these mad words been spoken by her when, as she stands before her husband of a few hours, she sees something that with a sudden shock brings her to her senses. Rushing to the divan where the pages laid the Knight's sword, she seizes it and thrusts it into his hand, and he, turning to discover what peril threatens, sees _Frederick_, followed by four Brabantian nobles, burst into the room. With one stroke he lays the leader lifeless, and the others, seeing him fall, go down on their knees in token of submission. At a sign from the Knight they arise and, lifting _Frederick's_ body, bear it away. Then the Knight summons _Elsa's_ ladies-in-waiting and bids them prepare her in her richest garments to meet him before the _King_. "There I will make fitting answer to her questions, tell her my name, my rank, and whence I come."

Sadly he watches her being led away, while she, no longer the happy bride, but the picture of utter dejection, turns and raises her hands to him in supplication as though she would still implore him to undo the ruin her lack of faith in him has wrought.

Some of the most beautiful as well as some of the most dramatic music of the score occurs in these scenes.

The love duet is exquisite--one of the sweetest and tenderest passages of which the lyric stage can boast. A very beautiful musical episode is that in which the Knight, pointing through the open casement to the flowery close below, softly illumined by the moon, sings to an accompaniment of what might be called musical moonbeams, "Say, dost thou breathe the incense sweet of flowers?" But when, in spite of the tender warning which he conveys to her, she begins questioning him, he turns toward her and in a passionate musical phrase begs her to trust him and abide with him in loving faith. Her dread that the memory of the delightful place from which he has come will wean him from her; the wild vision in which she imagines she sees the swan approaching to bear him away from her, and when she puts to him the forbidden questions, are details expressed with wonderful vividness in the music.

After the attack by _Frederick_ and his death, there is a dramatic silence during which _Elsa_ sinks on her husband's breast and faints. When I say silence I do not mean that there is a total cessation of sound, for silence can be more impressively expressed in music than by actual silence itself. It is done by Wagner in this case by long drawn-out chords followed by faint taps on the tympani. When the Knight bends down to _Elsa_, raises her, and gently places her on a couch, echoes of the love duet add to the mournfulness of the music. The scene closes with the Motive of Warning, which resounds with dread meaning.

A quick change of scene should be made at this point in the performance of the opera, but as a rule the change takes so long that the third act is virtually given in two acts.

It is on the banks of the Scheldt, the very spot where he had disembarked, that the Knight elects to make reply to _Elsa's_ questions. There the _King_, the nobles, and the Brabantians, whom he was to lead, are awaiting him to take command, and as their leader they hail him when he appears. This scene, "Promise of Victory," is in the form of a brilliant march and chorus, during which the Counts of Brabant, followed by their vassals, enter on horseback from various directions. In the average performance of the opera, however, much of it is sacrificed in order to shorten the representation.

The Knight answers their hail by telling them that he has come to bid them farewell, that _Elsa_ has been lured to break her vow and ask the forbidden questions which he now is there to answer. From distant lands he came, from Montsalvat, where stands the temple of the Holy Grail, his father, Percival, its King, and he, _Lohengrin_, its Knight. And now, his name and lineage known, he must return, for the Grail gives strength to its knights to right wrong and protect the innocent only so long as the secret of their power remains unrevealed.

Even while he speaks the swan is seen floating down the river. Sadly _Lohengrin_ bids _Elsa_ farewell. Sadly all, save one, look on. For _Ortrud_, who now pushes her way through the spectators, it is a moment of triumph.

"Depart in all your glory," she calls out. "The swan that draws you away is none other than Elsa's brother Godfrey, changed by my magic into his present form. Had she kept her vow, had you been allowed to tarry, you would have freed him from my spell. The ancient gods, whom faithfully I serve, thus punish human faithlessness!"

By the river bank _Lohengrin_ falls upon his knees and prays in silence. Suddenly a white dove descends over the boat. Rising, _Lohengrin_ loosens the golden chain by which the swan is attached to the boat; the swan vanishes; in its place _Godfrey_ stands upon the bank, and _Lohengrin_, entering the boat, is drawn away by the dove. At sight of the young Duke, _Ortrud_ falls with a shriek, while the Brabantian nobles kneel before him as he advances and makes obeisance to the _King_. _Elsa_ gazes on him in rapture until, mindful of her own sorrow, as the boat in which _Lohengrin_ stands vanishes around the upper bend of the river, she cries out, "My husband! My husband!" and falls back in death in her brother's arms.

_Lohengrin's_ narrative of his origin is beautifully set to music familiar from the Prelude; but when he proclaims his name we hear the same measures which _Elsa_ sang in the second part of her dream in the first act. Very beautiful and tender is the music which he sings when he hands _Elsa_ his horn, his sword, and his ring to give to her brother, should he return, and also his greeting to the swan when it comes to bear him back. The work is brought to a close with a repetition of the music of the second portion of _Elsa's_ dream, followed by a superb climax with the Motive of the Grail.

DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN

THE RING OF THE NIBELUNG

A stage-festival play for three days and a preliminary evening (Ein Bühnenfestspiel für drei Tage und einen Vorabend), words and music by Richard Wagner.

The first performance of the entire cycle of four music-dramas took place at Bayreuth, August 13, 14, 16, and 17, 1876. "Das Rheingold" had been given September 22, 1869, and "Die Walküre," June 26, 1870, at Munich.

January 30, 1888, at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, "Die Walküre" was given as the first performance of the "Ring" in America, with the omission, however, of "Das Rheingold," the cycle therefore being incomplete, consisting only of the three music-dramas--"Die Walküre," "Siegfried," and "Götterdämmerung"; in other words the trilogy without the Vorabend, or preliminary evening.

Beginning Monday, March 4, 1889, with "Das Rheingold," the complete cycle, "Der Ring des Nibelungen," was given for the first time in America; "Die Walküre" following Tuesday, March 5; "Siegfried," Friday, March 8; "Götterdämmerung," Monday, March 11. The cycle was immediately repeated. Anton Seidl was the conductor. Among the principals were Lilli Lehmann, Max Alvary, and Emil Fischer.

Seidl conducted the production of the "Ring" in London, under the direction of Angelo Neumann, at Her Majesty's Theatre, May 5-9, 1882.

The "Ring" really is a tetralogy. Wagner, however, called it a trilogy, regarding "Das Rheingold" only as a Vorabend to the three longer music-dramas.

In the repetitions of the "Ring" in this country many distinguished artists have appeared: Lehmann, Moran-Olden, Nordica, Ternina, Fremstad, Gadski, Kurt, as _Brünnhilde_; Lehmann, Nordica, Eames, Fremstad, as _Sieglinde_; Alvary and Jean de Reszke as _Siegfried_, both in "Siegfried" and "Götterdämmerung"; Niemann and Van Dyck, as _Siegmund_; Fischer and Van Rooy as _Wotan_; Schumann-Heink and Homer as _Waltraute_ and _Erda_.

INTRODUCTION

The "Ring of the Nibelung" consists of four music-dramas--"Das Rheingold" (The Rhinegold), "Die Walküre" (The Valkyr), "Siegfried," and "Götterdämmerung" (Dusk of the Gods). The "books" of these were written in inverse order. Wagner made a dramatic sketch of the Nibelung myth as early as the autumn of 1848, and between then and the autumn of 1850 he wrote the "Death of Siegfried." This subsequently became the "Dusk of the Gods." Meanwhile Wagner's ideas as to the proper treatment of the myth seem to have undergone a change. "Siegfried's Death" ended with Brünnhilde leading Siegfried to Valhalla,--dramatic, but without the deeper ethical significance of the later version, when Wagner evidently conceived the purpose of connecting the final catastrophe of his trilogy with the "Dusk of the Gods," or end of all things, in Northern mythology, and of embodying a profound truth in the action of the music-dramas. This metaphysical significance of the work is believed to be sufficiently explained in the brief synopsis of the plot of the trilogy and in the descriptive musical and dramatic analyses below.

In the autumn of 1850 when Wagner was on the point of sketching out the music of "Siegfried's Death," he recognized that he must lead up to it with another drama, and "Young Siegfried," afterwards "Siegfried," was the result. This in turn he found incomplete, and finally decided to supplement it with the "Valkyr" and "Rhinegold."

"Das Rheingold" was produced in Munich, at the Court Theatre, September 22, 1869; "Die Walküre," on the same stage, June 20, 1870. "Siegfried" and "Dusk of the Gods" were not performed until 1876, when they were produced at Bayreuth.

Of the principal characters in the "Ring of the Nibelung," _Alberich_, the Nibelung, and _Wotan_, the chief of the gods, are symbolic of greed for wealth and power. This lust leads _Alberich_ to renounce love--the most sacred of emotions--in order that he may rob the _Rhinedaughters_ of the Rhinegold and forge from it the ring which is to make him all-powerful. _Wotan_ by strategy obtains the ring, but instead of returning it to the _Rhinedaughters_, he gives it to the giants, _Fafner_ and _Fasolt_, as ransom for _Freia_, the goddess of youth and beauty, whom he had promised to the giants as a reward for building Walhalla. _Alberich_ has cursed the ring and all into whose possession it may come. The giants no sooner obtain it than they fall to quarrelling over it. _Fafner_ slays _Fasolt_ and then retires to a cave in the heart of a forest where, in the form of a dragon, he guards the ring and the rest of the treasure which _Wotan_ wrested from _Alberich_ and also gave to the giants as ransom for _Freia_. This treasure includes the Tarnhelmet, a helmet made of Rhinegold, the wearer of which can assume any guise.

_Wotan_ having witnessed the slaying of _Fasolt_, is filled with dread lest the curse of _Alberich_ be visited upon the gods. To defend _Walhalla_ against the assaults of _Alberich_ and the host of Nibelungs, he begets in union with _Erda_, the goddess of wisdom, the Valkyrs (chief among them _Brünnhilde_), wild maidens who course through the air on superb chargers and bear the bodies of departed heroes to Walhalla, where they revive and aid the gods in warding off the attacks of the Nibelungs. But it is also necessary that the curse-laden ring should be wrested from _Fafner_ and restored through purely unselfish motives to the _Rhinedaughters_, and the curse thus lifted from the race of the gods. None of the gods can do this because their motive in doing so would not be unselfish. Hence _Wotan_, for a time, casts off his divinity, and in human disguise as Wälse, begets in union with a human woman the Wälsung twins, _Siegmund_ and _Sieglinde_. _Siegmund_ he hopes will be the hero who will slay _Fafner_ and restore the ring to the _Rhinedaughters_. To nerve him for this task, _Wotan_ surrounds the Wälsungs with numerous hardships. _Sieglinde_ is forced to become the wife of her robber, _Hunding_. _Siegmund_, storm-driven, seeks shelter in _Hunding's_ hut, where he and his sister, recognizing one another, flee together. _Hunding_ overtakes them and _Wotan_, as _Siegmund_ has been guilty of a crime against the marriage vow, is obliged, at the request of his spouse _Fricka_, the Juno of Northern mythology, to give victory to _Hunding_. _Brünnhilde_, contrary to _Wotan's_ command, takes pity on _Siegmund_, and seeks to shield him against _Hunding_. For this, _Wotan_ causes her to fall into a profound slumber. The hero who will penetrate the barrier of fire with which _Wotan_ has surrounded the rock upon which she slumbers can claim her as his bride.

After _Siegmund's_ death _Sieglinde_ gives birth to _Siegfried_, a son of their illicit union, who is reared by one of the Nibelungs, _Mime_, in the forest where _Fafner_ guards the Nibelung treasure. _Mime_ is seeking to weld the pieces of _Siegmund's_ sword (Nothung or Needful) in order that _Siegfried_ may slay _Fafner_, _Mime_ hoping then to kill the youth and to possess himself of the treasure. But he cannot weld the sword. At last _Siegfried_, learning that it was his father's weapon, welds the pieces and slays _Fafner_. His lips having come in contact with his bloody fingers, he is, through the magic power of the dragon's blood, enabled to understand the language of the birds, and a little feathery songster warns him of _Mime's_ treachery. _Siegfried_ slays the Nibelung and is then guided to the fiery barrier around the Valkyr rock. Penetrating this, he comes upon _Brünnhilde_, and enraptured with her beauty, awakens her and claims her as his bride. She, the virgin pride of the goddess, yielding to the love of the woman, gives herself up to him. He plights his troth with the curse-laden ring which he has wrested from _Fafner_.

_Siegfried_ goes forth in quest of adventure. On the Rhine lives the Gibichung _Gunther_, his sister _Gutrune_ and their half-brother _Hagen_, none other than the son of the Nibelung _Alberich_. _Hagen_, knowing of _Siegfried's_ coming, plans his destruction in order to regain the ring for the Nibelungs. Therefore, craftily concealing _Brünnhilde's_ and _Siegfried's_ relations from _Gunther_, he incites a longing in the latter to possess _Brünnhilde_ as his bride. Carrying out a plot evolved by _Hagen_, _Gutrune_ on _Siegfried's_ arrival presents to him a drinking-horn filled with a love-potion. _Siegfried_ drinks, is led through the effect of the potion to forget that _Brünnhilde_ is his bride, and, becoming enamoured of _Gutrune_, asks her in marriage of _Gunther_. The latter consents, provided _Siegfried_ will disguise himself in the Tarnhelmet as _Gunther_ and lead _Brünnhilde_ to him as bride. _Siegfried_ readily agrees, and in the guise of _Gunther_ overcomes _Brünnhilde_ and delivers her to the Gibichung. But _Brünnhilde_, recognizing on _Siegfried_ the ring, which her conquerer had drawn from her finger, accuses him of treachery in delivering her, his own bride, to _Gunther_. The latter, unmasked and also suspicious of _Siegfried_, conspires with _Hagen_ and _Brünnhilde_, who, knowing naught of the love-potion, is roused to a frenzy of hate and jealousy by _Siegfried's_ seeming treachery, to compass the young hero's death. _Hagen_ slays _Siegfried_ during a hunt, and then in a quarrel with _Gunther_ over the ring also kills the Gibichung.

Meanwhile _Brünnhilde_ has learned through the _Rhinedaughters_ of the treachery of which she and _Siegfried_ have been the victims. All her jealous hatred of _Siegfried_ yields to her old love for him and a passionate yearning to join him in death. She draws the ring from his finger and places it on her own, then hurls a torch upon the pyre. Mounting her steed, she plunges into the flames. One of the _Rhinedaughters_, swimming in on the rising waters, seizes the curse-laden ring. _Hagen_ rushes into the flooding Rhine hoping to regain it, but the other _Rhinedaughters_ grasp him and draw him down into the flood. Not only the flames of the pyre, but a glow which pervades the whole horizon illumine the scene. It is Walhalla being consumed by fire. Through love--the very emotion _Alberich_ renounced in order to gain wealth and power--_Brünnhilde_ has caused the old order of things to pass away and a human era to dawn in place of the old mythological one of the gods.

The sum of all that has been written concerning the book of "The Ring of the Nibelung" is probably larger than the sum of all that has been written concerning the librettos used by all other composers. What can be said of the ordinary opera libretto beyond Voltaire's remark that "what is too stupid to be spoken is sung"? But "The Ring of the Nibelung" produced vehement discussion. It was attacked and defended, praised and ridiculed, extolled and condemned. And it survived all the discussion it called forth. It is the outstanding fact in Wagner's career that he always triumphed. He threw his lance into the midst of his enemies and fought his way up to it. No matter how much opposition his music-dramas excited, they gradually found their way into the repertoire.

It was contended on many sides that a book like "The Ring of the Nibelung" could not be set to music. Certainly it could not be after the fashion of an ordinary opera. Perhaps people were so accustomed to the books of nonsense which figured as opera librettos that they thought "The Ring of the Nibelung" was so great a work that its action and climaxes were beyond the scope of musical expression. For such, Wagner has placed music on a higher level. He has shown that music makes a great drama greater.

One of the most remarkable features of Wagner's works is the author's complete absorption of the times of which he wrote. He seems to have gone back to the very period in which the scenes of his music-dramas are laid and to have himself lived through the events in his plots. Hans Sachs could not have left a more faithful portrayal of life in the Nuremberg of his day than Wagner has given us in "Die Meistersinger." In "The Ring of the Nibelung" he has done more--he has absorbed an imaginary epoch; lived over the days of gods and demigods; infused life into mythological figures. "The Rhinegold," which is full of varied interest from its first note to its last, deals entirely with beings of mythology. They are presented true to life--if that expression may be used in connection with beings that never lived--that is to say, they are so vividly drawn that we forget such beings never lived, and take as much interest in their doings and saying as if they were lifelike reproductions of historical characters. Was there ever a love scene more thrilling than that between _Siegmund_ and _Sieglinde_? It represents the gradations of the love of two souls from its first awakening to its rapturous greeting in full self-consciousness. No one stops to think during that impassioned scene that the close relationship between _Siegmund_ and _Sieglinde_ would in these days have been a bar to their legal union. For all we know, in those moments when the impassioned music of that scene whirls us away in its resistless current, not a drop of related blood courses through their veins. It has been said that we could not be interested in mythological beings--that "The Ring of the Nibelung" lacked human interest. In reply, I say that wonderful as is the first act of "The Valkyr," there is nothing in it to compare in wild and lofty beauty with the last act of that music-drama--especially the scene between _Brünnhilde_ and _Wotan_.

That there are faults of dramatic construction in "The Ring of the Nibelung" I admit. In what follows I have not hesitated to point them out. But there are faults of construction in Shakespeare. What would be the critical verdict if "Hamlet" were now to have its first performance in the exact form in which Shakespeare left it? With all its faults of dramatic construction "The Ring of the Nibelung" is a remarkable drama, full of life and action and logically developed, the events leading up to superb climaxes. Wagner was doubly inspired. He was both a great dramatist and a great musician.

The chief faults of dramatic construction of which Wagner was guilty in "The Ring of the Nibelung" are certain unduly prolonged scenes which are merely episodical--that is, unnecessary to the development of the plot so that they delay the action and weary the audience to a point which endangers the success of the really sublime portions of the score. In several of these scenes, there is a great amount of narrative, the story of events with which we have become familiar being retold in detail although some incidents which connect the plot of the particular music-drama with that of the preceding one are also related. But, as narrative on the stage makes little impression, and, when it is sung perhaps none at all, because it cannot be well understood, it would seem as if prefaces to the dramas could have taken the place of these narratives. Certain it is that these long drawn-out scenes did more to retard the popular recognition of Wagner's genius than the activity of hostile critics and musicians. Still, it should be remembered that these music-dramas were composed for performance under the circumstances which prevail at Bayreuth, where the performances begin in the afternoon and there are long waits between the acts, during which you can refresh yourself by a stroll or by the more mundane pleasures of the table. Then, after an hour's relaxation of the mind and of the sense of hearing, you are ready to hear another act. Under these agreeable conditions one remains sufficiently fresh to enjoy the music even of the dramatically faulty scenes.

One of the characters in "The Ring of the Nibelung," _Brünnhilde_, is Wagner's noblest creation. She takes upon herself the sins of the gods and by her expiation frees the world from the curse of lust for wealth and power. She is a perfect dramatic incarnation of the profound and beautiful metaphysical motive upon which the plot of "The Ring of the Nibelung" is based.

There now follow descriptive accounts of the stories and music of the four component parts of this work by Wagner--perhaps his greatest.

DAS RHEINGOLD

THE RHINEGOLD

Prologue in four scenes to the trilogy of music-dramas, "The Ring of the Nibelung," by Richard Wagner. "Des Rheingold" was produced, Munich, September 22, 1869. "The Ring of the Nibelung" was given complete for the first time in the Wagner Theatre, Bayreuth, in August, 1876. In the first American performance of "Das Rheingold," Metropolitan Opera House, New York, January 4, 1889, Fischer was _Wotan_, Alvary _Loge_, Moran-Oldern _Fricka_, and Katti Bettaque _Freia_.

CHARACTERS

WOTAN } _Baritone-Bass_ DONNER } Gods _Baritone-Bass_ FROH } _Tenor_ LOGE } _Tenor_

FASOLT } Giants _Baritone-Bass_ FAFNER } _Bass_

ALBERICH } Nibelungs _Baritone-Bass_ MIME } _Tenor_

FRICKA } _Soprano_ FREIA } Goddesses _Soprano_ ERDA } _Mezzo-Soprano_

WOGLINDE } _Soprano_ WELLGUNDE } Rhinedaughters _Soprano_ FLOSSHILDE } _Mezzo-Soprano_

_Time_--Legendary.

_Place_--The bed of the Rhine; a mountainous district near the Rhine; the subterranean caverns of Nibelheim.

In "The Rhinegold" we meet with supernatural beings of German mythology--the Rhinedaughters _Woglinde_, _Wellgunde_, and _Flosshilde_, whose duty it is to guard the precious Rhinegold; _Wotan_, the chief of the gods; his spouse _Fricka_; _Loge_, the God of Fire (the diplomat of Walhalla); _Freia_, the Goddess of Youth and Beauty; her brothers _Donner_ and _Froh_; _Erda_, the all-wise woman; the giants _Fafner_ and _Fasolt_; _Alberich_ and _Mime_ of the race of Nibelungs, cunning, treacherous gnomes who dwell in the bowels of the earth.

The first scene of "Rhinegold" is laid in the Rhine, at the bottom of the river, where the _Rhinedaughters_ guard the Rhinegold.

The work opens with a wonderfully descriptive Prelude, which depicts with marvellous art (marvellous because so simple) the transition from the quietude of the water-depths to the wavy life of the _Rhinedaughters_. The double basses intone E-flat. Only this note is heard during four bars. Then three contra bassoons add a B-flat. The chord, thus formed, sounds until the 136th bar. With the sixteenth bar there flows over this seemingly immovable triad, as the current of a river flows over its immovable bed, the =Motive of the Rhine=.

[Music]

A horn intones this motive. Then one horn after another takes it up until its wave-like tones are heard on the eight horns. On the flowing accompaniment of the 'cellos the motive is carried to the wood-wind. It rises higher and higher, the other strings successively joining in the accompaniment, which now flows on in gentle undulations until the motive is heard on the high notes of the wood-wind, while the violins have joined in the accompaniment. When the theme thus seems to have stirred the waters from their depth to their surface the curtain rises.

The scene shows the bed and flowing waters of the Rhine, the light of day reaching the depths only as a greenish twilight. The current flows on over rugged rocks and through dark chasms.

_Woglinde_ is circling gracefully around the central ridge of rock. To an accompaniment as wavy as the waters through which she swims, she sings:

Weia! Waga! Woge, du Welle, Walle zur Wiege! Wagala weia! Wallala, Weiala weia!

They are sung to the =Motive of the Rhinedaughters=.

[Music: Weia Waga! Woge, du Welle, walle zur Wiege! Wagala weia! wallala, weiala weia!]

In wavy sport the _Rhinedaughters_ dart from cliff to cliff. Meanwhile _Alberich_ has clambered from the depths up to one of the cliffs, and watches, while standing in its shadow, the gambols of the _Rhinedaughters_. As he speaks to them there is a momentary harshness in the music, whose flowing rhythm is broken. In futile endeavours to clamber up to them, he inveighs against the "slippery slime" which causes him to lose his foothold.

_Woglinde_, _Wellgunde_, and _Flosshilde_ in turn gambol almost within his reach, only to dart away again. He curses his own weakness in the =Motive of the Nibelungs' Servitude=.

[Music]

Swimming high above him the _Rhinedaughters_ incite him with gleeful cries to chase them. _Alberich_ tries to ascend, but always slips and falls down. Then his gaze is attracted and held by a glow which suddenly pervades the waves above him and increases until from the highest point of the central cliff a bright, golden ray shoots through the water. Amid the shimmering accompaniment of the violins is heard on the horn the =Rhinegold Motive=.

[Music]

With shouts of triumph the _Rhinedaughters_ swim around the rock. Their cry "Rhinegold," is a characteristic motive. The =Rhinedaughters' Shout of Triumph= and the accompaniment to it are as follows:

[Music: Rheingold!]

As the river glitters with golden light the Rhinegold Motive rings out brilliantly on the trumpet. The Nibelung is fascinated by the sheen. The _Rhinedaughters_ gossip with one another, and _Alberich_ thus learns that the light is that of the Rhinegold, and that whoever shall shape a ring from this gold will become invested with great power. We hear =The Ring Motive=.

[Music]

_Flosshilde_ bids her sisters cease their prattle, lest some sinister foe should overhear them. _Wellgunde_ and _Woglinde_ ridicule their sister's anxiety, saying that no one would care to filch the gold, because it would give power only to him who abjures or renounces love. At this point is heard the darkly prophetic =Motive of the Renunciation of Love=.

[Music]

_Alberich_ reflects on the words of the _Rhinedaughters_. The Ring Motive occurs both in voice and orchestra in mysterious pianissimo (like an echo of _Alberich's_ sinister thoughts), and is followed by the Motive of Renunciation. Then is heard the sharp, decisive rhythm of the Nibelung Motive. _Alberich_ fiercely springs over to the central rock. The _Rhinedaughters_ scream and dart away in different directions. _Alberich_ has reached the summit of the highest cliff.

"Hark, ye floods! Love I renounce forever!" he cries, and amid the crash of the Rhinegold Motive he seizes the gold and disappears in the depths. With screams of terror the _Rhinedaughters_ dive after the robber through the darkened water, guided by _Alberich's_ shrill, mocking laugh.

There is a transformation. Waters and rocks sink. As they disappear, the billowy accompaniment sinks lower and lower in the orchestra. Above it rises once more the Motive of Renunciation. The Ring Motive is heard, and then, as the waves change into nebulous clouds, the billowy accompaniment rises pianissimo until, with a repetition of the Ring Motive, the action passes to the second scene. One crime has already been committed--the theft of the Rhinegold by _Alberich_. How that crime and the ring which he shapes from the gold inspire other crimes is told in the course of the following scenes of "Rhinegold." Hence the significance of the Ring Motive as a connecting link between the first and second scenes.