The characters in the Ring Cycle are primarily inspired from Medieval transcriptions of Norse and Germanic mythology, and more particularly from the 13^th century German saga The Nibelungenlied (The Song of the Nibelungs). As he developed the librettos of the four operas which make up The Ring of the Nibelung, Richard Wagner brought those legends and their variations closer to his other sources of inspiration—namely Greek tragedy and Shakespearian drama—and added his own interpretations.

Wagner retained seven gods from the pantheon of Norse mythology. These gods represent the highest order of beings in the universe. In Siegfried, where he appears as the Wanderer, Wotan describes his fellow deities as "light spirits who inhabit the cloudy heights ". Their mad quest for absolute power, represented by gold forged into a ring will lead them to their own destruction.

The god of the gods—Odin or Wotan, depending on Norse or Germanic mythology—is the god of the dead, victory and knowledge. Left blind in his left eye after he sacrificed it in exchange for knowledge, he can be identified by his spear and the presence of two crows at his side—Huginn and Muninn (who respectively embody “thought” and “memory”). These attributes are replicated in the character created by Wagner. Wotan appears as the archetypal man of power: insatiable, unscrupulous and hypocritical. He is the master of Valhalla, a castle fortress perched on top of the mountains; a dazzling manifestation of his power. His power over the world is based on laws and covenants which will progressively be undermined and erased. Throughout the libretto, his authoritarianism gives way to growing insecurity. The husband of Fricka, he is also the father of the Valkyries as well as of Siegmund and Sieglinde.

Loge, the demigod of fire, is an amalgam of two mythological figures: Logi and Loki. While both embody fire, the latter also personifies cunning and trickery. In the Ring cycle, Loge retains this duality: he appears as both the god of fire and Wotan’s masterly advisor ultimately enabling Wotan to take possession of the ring. He is also one of the rare characters who is truly free. He alone will be able to distance himself from the system that Wotan has created, and he alone will resist the lure of the ring. A calculating character, Loge takes pleasure in playing with the gods and he possesses a perceptiveness that his peers lack. Throughout the Ring cycle, he forsakes his human persona to appear in his elemental form: fire.

Fricka, the wife of Wotan and sister of Freia, Donner and Froh, is a divinity inspired by the goddess Frigg (or Frigga) from Norse mythology. In the Ring cycle she is the personification of lawfulness and fidelity. Tired of her husband’s infidelities, Fricka trys to make Wotan settle down and urges him to build Valhalla, a divine abode for them to live in. While Fricka is eager to defend the institution of marriage, she seeks above all to preserve the original values of divine society: respect for law and morality. In Die Walküre, she confronts Wotan with his own contradictions by reminding him that the guarantor of laws should not support Siegmund.  

Freyja is a key divinity of Norse and Germanic mythology. A creature of incredible beauty, she is the goddess of love and fertility. In the Ring cycle, Freia is the sister of Fricka. In Valhalla, the gods are blessed with eternal youth thanks to her cultivation of golden apples. Coveted by Fafner and Fasolt in Das Rheingold, Freia serves as a bargaining chip for Wotan who promises her to two giants in exchange for the construction of Valhalla. Without Freia, the gods find themselves deprived of their source of eternal youth and begin to waste away.

The personification of Strength and power, Thor (also known as Donner) is one of the most popular gods in Germanic mythology. His hallmark is his hammer which is the source of thunder and lightning. Present only in Das Rheingold, Donner nevertheless occupies a strategic place among the other characters. He embodies the figure of a military leader who thinks in warlike terms to counter the threat posed by Alberich. His hammer, evocative of violence, is a symbolic counterforce to the inherent lawfulness represented by Wotan's spear.  

Along with Odin and Thor, Freyr is one of the three major gods in Germanic mythology. The personification of fertility he is also the brother of Freyja. Known as Froh in the Ring cycle, he only appears in Das Rheingold. His perseverance in defending Freia and the words he has for her reflects the closeness of the two characters. 

Inspired by the goddesses Jördh and Gaia from Nordic and Greek mythology, Erda is the maternal god of the Earth. She is the personification of ancestral, intuitive and prophetic wisdom. A veritable Pythia, she can simultaneously see the past, the present and the future. As the mother of the Norns who spin the threads of fate, she holds universal knowledge. In Das Rheingold, she arouses doubt and anxiety in Wotan by warning him that his thirst for power risks provoking his own demise. By begetting Brünnhilde with the latter, she gives life to the woman who will save the universe. In Siegfried, Wotan, in the guise of the Wanderer, calls on Erda one last time in a scene that seals their antagonisms.    

The characters in the Ring Cycle are primarily inspired from Medieval transcriptions of Norse and Germanic mythology, and more particularly from the 13^th century German saga The Nibelungenlied (The Song of the Nibelungs). As he developed the librettos of the four operas which make up The Ring of the Nibelung, Richard Wagner brought those legends and their variations closer to his other sources of inspiration—namely Greek tragedy and Shakespearian drama—and added his own interpretations.

In Norse mythology, the albes are a race apart from men, gods and giants. They are divided into two distinct species, the quasi-angelic albes of light, and the quasi-demonic black albes. In Germanic legend, the were called the Nibelungen, a name that means “those from the world below”. These denizens of the Nibelheim or underworld work as craftsmen or blacksmiths and possess great wealth. In the Ring cycle, the Nibelungen are portrayed as jealous, cunning, ambitious creatures, fundamentally hostile to the gods. 

In the Ring cycle, Alberich is the one through whom misfortune manifests itself. He is dubbed the “black albe”. He dreams of conquering the world, renouncing love and cursing the one who gains possession of the ring which he forged. Associated with the gold he stole in Das Rheingold, Alberich’s power is utterly lawless and built on theft. 

Mime is Alberich’s brother and Siegfried’s adoptive father. In the Ring cycle, he represents permanent failure. Aware of the powers of the sword Nothung, and recognising the fact that only he who forged it will be capable of seizing the ring and the Tarnhelm which are held by the giant Fafner, he seeks in vain to restore it to its original form. Siegfried manages to reforge his father’s sword and recover the treasure, but he knows he is threatened with death by Mime. However, the latter is ultimately killed by the hero. 

Hagen is one of the principal heroes of The Song of The Nibelungen. Motivated by moral values, this Medieval character becomes a manipulator and a cynic under Wagner. The son of Alberich and half-brother to Gunther and Gutrune, he represents in his father’s eyes the primary means of recovering the lost ring. His Machiavellian nature allows him to gain the upper hand over the other characters in Götterdämmerung. He manipulates Gunther and Gutrune and tricks Siegfried in order to kill him.

In Norse mythology, the giants are the ones who created the world and are frequently at war with the gods. To a large extent, they represent the forces of chaos. Using magic, cunning and physical force, they try to change the order of the universe. In medieval literature, they assumed the disposition of ugly and stupid characters often driven by bad intentions, as is the case in the Ring cycle.

Regarding the two giants in the cycle, Fasolt comes across as “the most docile”. In Das Rheingold, unlike his brother Fafner, Fasolt does not look upon Freia as a bargaining chip to seize control of Valhalla. He sincerely loves her. The motives of the two brothers are different: Fafner has political aims whereas Fasolt has a far more discreet temperament. Through their relationship, the conflict between love and power assumes all its significance.

Of the two giants, Fafner stands out as “the malicious one”. Ever hungry for wealth, he is the first to react when he learns of the theft of the gold and the power of the ring. In his attempts to obtain the latter, he does not hesitate to murder his brother. In Siegfried, with the help of the Tarnhelm, the magic helmet, he morphs into a dragon and spends his days sleeping on his gold. He will ultimately be slain in his cave by Siegfried.

The characters in the Ring Cycle are primarily inspired from Medieval transcriptions of Norse and Germanic mythology, and more particularly from the 13^th century German saga The Nibelungenlied (The Song of the Nibelungs). As he developed the librettos of the four operas which make up The Ring of the Nibelung, Richard Wagner brought those legends and their variations closer to his other sources of inspiration—namely Greek tragedy and Shakespearian drama—and added his own interpretations.

In Norse mythology, the Valkyries are virgin warriors charged with the mission of selecting the most courageous warriors fallen on the battlefield and leading them into Valhalla. In the Ring cycle, there are nine of them: Brünnhilde, Grimgerde, Gerhilde, Helmwige, Ortlinde, Rossweisse, Schwertleite, Siegrune, and Waltraute. Presented as the daughters of Wotan and of different conquests, they appear together for the first time in Act III of Die Walküre. Only two of them have major roles: Waltraute and Brünnhilde, both of whom were the love children of Wotan and Erda.

In Germanic literature, Brynhildr is portrayed as a Valkyrie who an adept of magic and the art of healing. In the Ring cycle, Brünnhilde appears as Wotan’s favourite even though she has rebelled against her father. Wagner made Brünnhilde the only character who connects the three days of the Ring. Her psychological and spiritual development progresses in three stages: her realisation of the greatness of love in Die Walküre, her emotional growth from experiencing love in Siegfried, and her rise to tragic greatness through renunciation in Götterdämmerung.

Waltraute is arguably the closest to Brünnhilde. She flouts Wotan’s interdictions to go and find her sister on her rock. In Götterdämmerung, concerned by Valhalla’s decline, she tries to convince Brünnhilde to part with the accursed ring and return it to the Rhinemaidens. In her mind, it is the only way to re-establish the course of things and save the gods.

Children of the "wolf" in Norse and Germanic mythology—one of Wotan’s reincarnations originally known as Wälse—they are the descendants of a mortal woman and Wotan. These creatures have an instinctive sense of freedom and for Wotan they represent a means to win back the ring. 

Siegmund is the earthly son of Wotan and the twin brother of Sieglinde. His incestuous relationship with Sieglinde gives rise to the line of the Wälsung. He is the father of Siegfried and he possesses the sword Nothung. He was sired by Wotan to fulfil the task of retrieving the ring. Courageous and of rare nobility, he has inherited the positive qualities of his father without any of his faults, and places love before self-interest. The intrinsic heroism of the character is revealed when he refuses to abandon Sieglinde and to enter Valhalla, preferring to die with her.

Sieglinde is Siegmund’s twin sister. Abandoned as a child, she was forced to marry Hunding. In Die Walküre, Sieglinde possesses the valour of the heroes of mythical times. Despite her distress following the death of Siegmund, she gives birth to Siegfried with the assistance of Brünnhilde. Through the Valkyrie, Sieglinde realises that the salvation of the world depends on her maternity.

The son of Siegmund and Sieglinde, and the grandson of Wotan, Siegfried is one of the most significant characters in the Ring cycle. The embodiment of the quintessential hero, he symbolises hope. Wotan counts on him to retrieve the ring. More unsophisticated than cerebral, he acts on instinct. He has no conception of fear which enables him to confront Fafner and pass through the circle of fire on the rock on which Brünnhilde is imprisoned. Siegfried is also the archetypal Wagnerian character in search of his roots.

The characters in the Ring Cycle are primarily inspired from Medieval transcriptions of Norse and Germanic mythology, and more particularly from the 13^th century German saga The Nibelungenlied (The Song of the Nibelungs). As he developed the librettos of the four operas which make up The Ring of the Nibelung, Richard Wagner brought those legends and their variations closer to his other sources of inspiration—namely Greek tragedy and Shakespearian drama—and added his own interpretations.

The Gibichungen are a family of humans who reign over the Rhine under a monarchic system.

Gunther, the half-brother of Hagen, reigns over his people, the Gibichungen. However, all the major decisions are really determined by his half-brother. A man of weak character, he is depicted as a puppet manipulated by Hagen. Blinded by his faith in the latter, he has no qualms about following his advice. As such, he allows his wife Brünnhilde to be seduced by Siegfried and then takes credit for the exploit. Gunther is often regarded as one of Wagner’s weakest characters.

Gutrune is the victim of a deal struck between Hagen, Gunther and Siegfried. Offered to Siegfried by Hagen in Götterdämmerung in exchange for Gunther’s conquest of Brünnhilde, Gutrune falls in love with the hero. However, she will never be able to experience the joys of a genuine loving relationship. Manipulated by Hagen, she gives Siegfried the potion of forgetfulness and, distraught by her act, she flees. Like the other female characters in the Ring, she is intuitive and, in Act III of Götterdämmerung she senses that a dire event has come to pass.

Hunding is the only human in the Ring cycle who does not belong to the Gibichungen family. A brutal hunter, he is a symbol of machismo. Hunding is Sieglinde’s husband but Sieglinde hates him, so he repays her by enslaving her and abusing her. He looks on power in a boorish way: his land, his spoils and his wife. He is dependent on his clan and its customs and has no true personal values or sentiments. In Die Walküre, by receiving Siegmund into his home, he is merely conforming to the laws of hospitality and the code of honour.

At the dawn of the industrial age, the advent of the mechanical loom revolutionised textile production, making it possible to manufacture fabrics on a large scale and at lower cost, while depriving many artisanal weavers of their livelihoods. Another technological advance, the “programmable” loom operated using punched cards, invented by Lyon-born Joseph-Marie Jacquard, made it possible to create complex textile patterns and foreshadowed, as early as the 19th century, the development of control technologies, making the loom a kind of precursor to computing and the modern computer.

It was against the backdrop of the profound social upheavals brought about by the Industrial Revolution that Richard Wagner composed Der Ring des Nibelungen. Today, exactly 150 years after the first performance of the complete cycle of his magnum opus, the Paris Ring comes to its conclusion with Götterdämmerung. Wagner, who always wrote his own librettos, was the only composer to have a theatre built during his lifetime according to his artistic vision and dedicated entirely to his works. It was at the first Bayreuth Festival, in August 1876, that Siegfried and Götterdämmerung were premiered, and the first complete performance of the Ring was given.

The final part of the Tetralogy was Wagner’s starting point. In 1848, he had initially conceived a single work entitled Siegfried’s Death, a heroic grand opera. Thus, it was with the ending, and with the death of his hero, that the composer first envisioned beginning his Ring. Only later did he add the story of the events that preceded it, eventually arriving at Das Rheingold and the initial theft of the Ring. Wagner had indeed realised that it was impossible to have the complex events leading up to Siegfried’s murder recounted retrospectively: instead, they had to be shown to the audience and brought to life on stage.

In Götterdämmerung, the “magic of musical allusions” (“Beziehungszauber”, in the words of Thomas Mann, a great admirer of Wagner) unfolds to its full effect. To ensure the musical cohesion of the Tetralogy and its approximately sixteen hours of music, Wagner developed what he himself called “motifs of remembrance” (“Erinnerungs-Motive”), a term he had already used in Der fliegende Holländer and which he preferred to the now more commonly used term “leitmotif”. A motif of remembrance can blur different layers of time: it may refer to the past, shed light on the present, or anticipate the future.

In Götterdämmerung, the motifs of remembrance from throughout the Tetralogy are woven into the musical fabric. Those heard, for example, in the “Funeral March” – the orchestral epilogue that follows Siegfried’s death in the penultimate scene – recapitulate the hero’s destiny and downfall. Wagner’s decision to entrust the orchestra with an autonomous commentary on the stage action was a major innovation.

For the Paris Ring, director Calixto Bieito and his team have chosen a discontinuous narrative in which past and future intertwine. Their journey through the Ring began with Das Rheingold, in a “big data” universe where humans had risen to the status of gods, and where greed and selfishness had banished all sense of transcendence. In the militarised and violent world of Die Walküre, compassion was scarce, even though love was able to flourish amid the destruction. At the end, Wotan witnessed the collapse of the digital world he himself had created. In Siegfried, by contrast, nature had reclaimed a devastated world that had become uncontrollable as a result of human manipulation. The forest has been transformed, and the bond between humanity and nature has been broken.

In Götterdämmerung, it is the descendants of the great adversaries Wotan and Alberich who ultimately face one another: Siegfried, Wotan’s grandson, who has definitively stripped his grandfather of his power and who, unknowingly, has “transformed” the Ring, a symbol of power, into a token of love; and Hagen, fathered by Alberich for the sole purpose of carrying out his revenge and reclaiming the Ring. Both have been used as instruments, but a decisive difference sets them apart: Hagen knows his mission, just as he knows the history of the Ring. This advantage allows him to manipulate Gunther and Gutrune, his half-brother and half-sister who sit on the throne of the Gibichungs, at will, just as he will manipulate Siegfried, the newcomer. Siegfried, who has grown up in isolation, rather like Kaspar Hauser, comes into contact here with human society for the very first time, knowing nothing of its rules. It is therefore easy for Hagen, with the help of a “potion of forgetfulness”, to make Siegfried forget where he comes from and who he is, and to turn him into his instrument. Only Brünnhilde, who has long since emancipated herself from her father Wotan, possesses the strength, intelligence and independence needed to stand up to Hagen’s machinations. But by the time she finally understands what is happening, it is too late.

Nous sommes notre mémoire,
nous sommes ce musée chimérique de formes inconstantes,
ce monceau de miroirs brisés.
Jorge Luis Borges, Cambridge

“In Götterdämmerung, the world we have followed over the course of these four evenings disappears, and perhaps humanity disappears with it,” says director Calixto Bieito of the opera’s ending. “But the universe has not necessarily come to an end. Something could come after it, something post-human, natural, technological, or something else for which we do not yet have a name. With Götterdämmerung, our aim was not to present yet another apocalyptic work. We are already constantly surrounded by images and narratives of catastrophes, collapses and extinction. Yet the final bars of Wagner’s music, more ambiguous, stranger and deeper, provide us with no answers.

“What happens in the final music of Götterdämmerung – its surge, its clarity, its liberating atmosphere – is, in our production, pierced by a black hole, like a paradox: the music soars, the world collapses; harmony rises, memory disappears; beauty remains, the universe goes dark. This anti-human ending, in all its desolation, is profoundly human. Everything disappears: matter, humanity, post-humanity, narrative, culture, memory, identity. Nothing remains to be passed on. And, as memory gradually disappears, silence reigns.”

In her recently published book, The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State, American historian Jill Lepore warns us not to allow machines, or the corporations that own them, to control our social and political lives. She challenges us to recognise that, since this imbalance is the product of history and human actions, it is up to us, as human beings, to work towards transforming it. Lepore’s critical analysis does not lead to an apocalypse or a catastrophic scenario, but rather to a call to action: we must reclaim our collective capacity for judgement, our human responsibility, our power to make decisions, democracy and respect for nature.

For Calixto Bieito, Wagner’s Ring will remain as relevant as ever: “The Ring contains a number of fundamental human contradictions: our thirst for power and possession, our capacity to love and destroy, our need to create systems and our tendency to remain trapped within them. Wagner offers us no comforting moral lesson. The Ring does not tell us where we are going. It confronts us with who we are, who we have been and what we might become. All the questions remain unanswered.”

The characters in the Ring Cycle are primarily inspired from Medieval transcriptions of Norse and Germanic mythology, and more particularly from the 13^th century German saga The Nibelungenlied (The Song of the Nibelungs). As he developed the librettos of the four operas which make up The Ring of the Nibelung, Richard Wagner brought those legends and their variations closer to his other sources of inspiration—namely Greek tragedy and Shakespearian drama—and added his own interpretations.

In the Ring cycle, the Rhinemaidens, Woglinde, Wellgunde and Flosshilde, are a trio of elemental creatures from the depths of the river who are also the guardians of the gold. If at the beginning of the narrative, they divulge the secret of the gold to Alberich, it is because it is unthinkable for them to renounce love. They cannot imagine that a creature can be so hungry for power. Their insouciance is the expression of a naïve harmony that unites them to the mythical world. In Götterdämmerung, they try to convince Siegfried to give them back the ring. When the latter refuses, they inform him of the ring’s curse and predict his imminent demise.

In Scandinavian mythology, the Norns are characterised by their capacity to determine the course of events or at least to predict them. In Germanic mythology, these three unreal creatures are the counterpart of the three Parcae of Greece. Daughters of Erda, they spin the thread of fate and are the collective memory of the world. The three Norns in the Ring cycle have a distinct role. The first personifies the past, the second the present and the third, the future. Like their mother Erda, they are associated with darkness and the night, namely, a form of intuitive and visionary awareness.