The thread of fate is broken. Siegfried, Wotan's grandson, who wears the Ring of the Nibelung on his finger, the god-sent hero who was supposed to save the world, dies in the forest. The murderer is Hagen, the son of Alberich begotten to conquer power. Wagner composed Siegfried a funeral march that stops the world's breath, a requiem of leitmotifs. Even the superhumanity of Siegfried, the "most glorious hero in the world", strengthened by the love of Brünnhilde, now the human daughter of the gods, can no longer change anything for the better.
The world is out of joint, ruled by greed, deceit, revenge, fear, desolation. Alberich's Ring curse has come true, Erda's warning has come true. Wotan's spear has been shattered, the gods defenceless and helpless at the mercy of Alberich's claim to power, nature robbed of its regulating powers. The "Ring" world is at an end, the father of the gods' conflict between utopia and reality no longer resolvable.
Wagner lets all history sink in a sea of sound: a purifying world fire. Utopia will endure nonetheless. As a young court conductor, Wagner himself stood fearlessly on the revolutionary barricades in burning Dresden, hand grenades beside him. At the end of his life, he shows Wotan as a tragic figure, unable to survive. These contradictions must be endured. In the past, as well as today and in the future.
Text source and further information about this event: http://www.staatstheater-wiesbaden.de/programm/spielplan/goetterdaemmerung-2017-2018/3363/
