e, where we see her in the flesh behaving precisely as any
woman--of her period--would behave. And then these excellent gentlemen
come along and tell us that because Wagner at one time or another
thought of handling her story, and the story of Wotan and Siegfried,
in this or that way, therefore Wagner "meant" this or that, and failed
or succeeded, or changed his original plan or held fast to it. All
these things have nothing to do with the drama that is played on the
stage: by that alone, and by none of his earlier ideas, is Wagner to
be judged: he is to be judged by the effect and conviction of the
finished play. Now, it seems to me that in the finished play
Bruennhilde is neither "a glorious woman "--_i.e._ an Adelphi
melodramatic heroine--nor "a deceitful, vindictive woman"--_i.e._ an
Adelphi melodramatic villainess. Also, while considered by itself "The
Dusk of the Gods" is interesting mainly on account of the music,
considered in association, as Wagner wished, and as one must--for,
after all, it is but the final act of a stupendous drama, and it is
unfair and foolish to consider any one act of a drama alone--with the
other minor dramas of the greater drama, "The Nibelung's Ring," it is
dramatically not only interesting, absorbing, but absolutely
indispensable, true, inevitable. It is true enough that the "Ring"
suffered somewhat through the fact that Wagner took nearly a quarter
of a century to carry out his plan, and during this period his views
on life changed greatly; yet nevertheless "The Dusk of the Gods"
stands as the noble--in fact, the only possible--conclusion to a story
which is, on the whole, splendidly told.

When seeing "The Valkyrie," one thinks of Sieglinde or Siegmund or
Bruennhilde; when listening to "Siegfried," one thinks of Siegfried and
Bruennhilde and no others; but when one thinks of the complete "Ring,"
the person of the drama most forcibly forced before the eye of the
imagination, the person to whom one realises that sympathy is chiefly
due, is Wotan. Wotan, not Siegfried or Siegmund, is the hero of the
"Ring." His tragedy--if it is indeed a tragedy to emerge from the
battle in the highest sense of the word triumphant--includes the
tragedy of Siegfried and Siegmund, Sieglinde and Bruennhilde--in fact,
the tragedy of all the smaller characters of the play. "The
Rheingold," in spite of its glorious music, is entirely
superfluous--dramatically, at all events, it is superfluous--but
there, any