Besides giving us a series of singularly apposite and
significant pictures, Wagner has reproduced the very breath and colour
of the old sagas; he has re-created the atmosphere of a time that
never was; and it is this remote atmosphere which lends to
"Siegfried" and all the "Ring" a great part of their enchantment.
Fancy what it might have been, this long exposition of sheer
Schopenhauerism in three dramas and a fore-play! imagine what Parry or
Stanford or Mackenzie would have made of it! And then think of what
the "Ring" actually is, and especially of the splendour and weirdness
of some parts the "dulness" of which moves dull people to dull
grumbling. For example, a great many persons share Mime's wish for the
Wanderer to go off almost as soon as he comes on, "else no Wanderer
can he be called." They tell us that this scene breaks the action,
neglecting the trifling fact that were it omitted the remainder of the
act would be inconsequent nonsense, only worthy to rank with the
librettos of English musical critics, and that the truth happens to be
that nearly the whole of the subsequent drama grows out of it. In
itself it is a scene of peculiar power, charged to overflowing with
the essence of the Scandinavian legends.
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