|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Perfect Wagnerite: A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring by George Bernard Shaw: fear, and death. The musical phrase accompanying this outburst
was a veritable harmonic and melodic bogey to mid-century ears,
though time has now robbed it of its terrors. It sounds again
when Fafnir slays Fasolt, and on every subsequent occasion when
the ring brings death to its holder. This episode must justify
itself purely as a piece of stage sensationalism. On deeper
ground it is superfluous and confusing, as the ruin to which the
pursuit of riches leads needs no curse to explain it; nor is
there any sense in investing Alberic with providential powers in
the matter.
THE VALKYRIES
|
