In Vienna State Opera’s revival Götterdämmerung, the third part of Wagner’s Ring Tetralogy, opens with the norns spinning the rope of Fate; and filling us in on the backstory so far, (for those coming in late.)

And, continuing from Siegfried’s initiation on the Valkyries Rock…the most passionate, and voluptuously scored of Wagner’s love duets. In Siegfried, Anja Kampe’s Brünnhilde: ‘Heil dir Licht, (end Act 3), is like a sleeping beauty awakened from her long sleep. Brünnhilde lies in a cocoon, (white polyester netting), awaiting her hero to break through the ring of fire. Siegfried, of course! innocent, and a virgin. Andreas Schager is truly a helden tenor, rugged looks, powerful tenor. Hail you God! Kampe, blonde, big enough (almost) to be a Nordic goddess; and a mother figure, ‘I always loved you!’ Before born, she protected him with her shield. – Then my mother (Sieglinde), did not die?- You and I are one, sings Brünnhilde. Her knowledge comes from love. (She had defied Wotan, hiding the incestuous Sieglinde, and paid the penalty.)
Her psychic knowledge led him to her. Now ex-communicated, encircled by fire only the innocent hero can break through. That music ‘Siegfried’s Rhine Journey’, amongst the most sublime in all music. ‘Do not destroy your belief’, Wagner’s music surging, primeval, ‘Love yourself, and let me be’, Brünnhilde bids him.
We have emerged in Siegfried from underworld cave, forging Siegfried’s holy sword; the ritual dragon slayer’s communing with nature, through birdsong. To Act 3’s love scene. Kampe embodies the half-god Brünnhilde, of indeterminate age, her soprano,- that of a goddess- but a full-blooded woman. They, Kampe, Schager, run into each others arms.

Opening Act 1 (Gotterdammerung), Hagen, son of Alberich, advises his half-brother Gunther, (married to Gutrune), how to advance the Gibichung’s family fortunes. (They could start with a makeover!) In Sven-Erich Bechtolf’s classic Vienna production (staging/costumes Rolf and Marianne Glittenberg), they’re mainly in black, the men like Prussian officers, dull, militaristic.

Anyway, in their plot, Gunther (Clemens Unterreiner) should marry Brunnhilde, and Gutrune (Regine Hangler), Siegfried. Now unbelievable, but 19th century, it’s all about magic potions. Gutrune offers a magic love potion to Siegfried, to forget Brünnhilde, and fall in love with Gutrune. And Siegfried, under that spell, has to fetch Brünnhilde from her rock for Gunther.

Meanwhile, in a powerful scene, more dramatically plausible, Brünnhilde’s sister Waltraute (Szilvia Vörös) comes to visit Brünnhilde on her rock. She begs her sister to return the ring, so the curse will be lifted. But she refuses- will not give up the Ring, for her a token of Siegfried’s enduring love.
She was warned! Siegfried, is transformed, supposedly as Gunther. In an uncomfortable scene for modern audiences, Gunther, wearing the tarn helmet, overpowers Brünnhilde. She’s not fooled, still with magic powers, suspects something is amiss. And Kampe resists fiercely. The scene, highly charged, looks like rape, although we don’t see the sex. Gunther disguised as Siegfried tears the Ring – no marital emblem- from Brünnhilde’s finger.

Act 2 is back to the gloomy underworld of the Gibichungs. On the black/white tiled stage, ‘Are you asleep, Hagen?’- ‘I hear you, evil gnome’ (to Alberich). ‘What have you to tell my sleep?’ – ‘Recall the power your mother gave you! Courage is not to submit to his treachery. Hagen (Samuel Youn) looks prematurely old and sick: ‘I hate happy people: I am never cheerful.’ – Alberich is defiant, ‘Wotan stole the Ring from me, defeated our people. I fear him no longer. He must die with the others.’ Alberich (Jochen Schmeckenbecher) swears eternal revenge against his erstwhile captors, and will engage his son Hagen. No one will have his gold! Siegfried doesn’t know his power, rushing to his doom. ‘Act to recover my Ring!’ Schmeckenbecher’s supple baritone has sung Alberich here since 2010. White-haired, paunchy, he’s crawling on all fours; then holds up his spear defiantly.

Siegfried is preceded by his signature horn fanfare. Arrived from Brünnhilde’s rock- but is it Siegfried? Did Brünnhilde take you for Gunther? asks Alberich. He pays tribute to ‘Siegfried, strongest of men’. Gutrune (Regine Hangler) wears a black velvet gown, the neckline in a sickly pink glitter. To win her, Siegfried, doped, promises to bring back Brünnhilde for Gunther. They’re now ‘blood brothers’, mingled in an oath of loyalty. ‘You subjects of Gibichung, rise to arms. Vassals come bearing weapons!’ Tremendous Chorus. They’re all in black, their long metallic staffs shining out.

The ‘dragon slayer’ Siegfried is theirs. They toast victory. Even the glum Hagen is smiling. The Chorus, such a Chorus! sing out Vassals hail! Gunther, greetings to you and your bride. Gunther (Unterreiner) sings of Brünnhilde, a nobler life never was had. (Yet he virtually raped her!)

Gunther greets Siegfried. Brünnhilde blanks them, does not acknowledge the Gibichungs’ company. (Is she mad, they ask.) Gunther, you lied! She dismisses Siegfried; will not suffer the man who stole the ring! He deceived her. Kampe gives a moving, harrowing performance. She’d been abducted, after all. Brünnhilde insists, ‘I am not married to him, but that man. He conned her. Gunther, she exclaims, beware of your wife!
Brünnhilde upsets the reception of Gibichung dignitaries. ‘What demon’s cunning has cooked this up!’ She’d collapsed, but now standing tall, seeks blame for her ‘disgrace’. Hagen offers to avenge her. They look for ways to defeat Siegfried. Can no weapon injure him? (Gunther asks Hagen) -Only from behind, such is their treachery. Only Siegfried’s death will do.

It’s worth enduring the gloom, this Gibichung dystopia- a medieval ‘Game of Thrones’- for Götterdämmerung’s glorious Act 3. (You’ve already sat it out for three-and-half hours.)
Siegfried’s confrontation with the Rhine maidens- I’d once thought too modern, (in 2009): the long boats, like canoes, the maidens with their sky-blue bathing caps. On a brilliantly lit, summer’s-day stage. ‘Rhine gold, pure gold, how brightly you once shone’. But it’s rather charming, and a serious reminder of the violation of their innocence. ‘Lady Sun, send us the hero, who will return the gold to us.’ ‘Rheingold; klares Gold. Wagner’s music has a luminous brightness, trumpets wistful, spritely strings.

Siegfried joins the Rhine maidens. He jests, he slew a dragon once: is he to exchange it for a bear’s paw?- So handsome, what a shame he’s so stingy, they sing, of Schager’s Siegfried.
After the Gibichung, ruthless power brokers, this is pure joy. ‘He should be pleased when they free him of the curse’, they sing of Siegfried. Alberich had cunningly forged it. Only the Rhinemaidens can redeem the curse. ‘Siegfried would gladly give up the ring for the gift of love?’ They leave him, the hero, who behaves like a fettered blindman (who thinks he’s learned women’s ways.)

Hi! Ho! They reprise his swansong. But exploit his innocence. Siegfried, memory restored by an antidote, tells the story of his life. To the mocking cynicism of the Gibichungs, and while Hagen creeps up on him.
Schager, in a marooned boat, seems to welcome death, administered by a long pole to his back. And to a final drum roll, and insistent brass refrain. In the fight for the ring, Hagen kills Gunther, and Brünnhilde asserts her right to Siegfried’s body, and to the ring. ‘Pile up the logs at the roof of the Rhine!’ Bring him home, follow the warrior with me. Kein Anderer, Siegfried like no other, she sings. Yet he betrayed his love. Her punishment, meine Klage, for betraying Wotan, Guardian of Oaths. She holds up the Ring, glittering, and throws it into the Rhine. ‘Guard the bright gold stolen from you.’

Kampe, outstanding in her epic, extended aria, calls for Grain, her steed. Fly past Brünnhilde’s rock. Tell Loge, the end of the gods is near. The stage is bathed in red light. To the Valkyries’ noble refrain, the backstage is enveloped in flames, a swirling maelstrom, consuming the House of Valhalla (and its vain gods.) The flames take the form of a ring. And subside, dissolved in the pure waters of the Rhine: in concentric waves, as Wagner’s sublime music plays out.
The Glittenberg’s staging – post-modern, functional- has stood the test of time in Bechtholf’s production. Sadly conductor Philippe Jordan’s magnificent Ring is to be his last in Vienna. © PR. 28.6.2025
Photos © Andreas Schager (Siegfried); Anja Kampe (Brünnhilde); Regine Hangler (Gutrune), Andreas Schager; Samuel Youn (Hagen), Andreas Schager. Featured Image Anja Kampe, Andreas Schager. All © Michael Pöhn/ Wiener/Staatsoper