The Women of Das Rheingold By Nila Parly In most productions of Wagner’s Ring cycle, the first characters we usually see when the curtain is raised are the Rhinemaidens of Das Rheingold. These gorgeous water nymphs don’t welcome us with a witty, intellectual prologue; rather, their first words: "Weia! Waga! Roll on, waves! Flow to your cradle! Wagalaweia! Wallala weiala weia!" are a random burble, a ripplingly sensuous nonsense phrase.                The introductory gibberish of The Ring cycle isn’t due to the fact that Wagner couldn’t come up with something more sophisticated; it is an attempt to take language back to its origins, back to our first fumbling tries at forming sounds. We are present at both the beginning of both The Ring cycle and the world itself, all of which springs forth from the three sirens’ childish singing games. The water nymphs are experienced at their deepest level: as singers. These singers are most bewitching for the audience when their lone voices come together for the trio – it is here that the sensuality of song is made fully manifest. The Rhinemaidens are joined together in song, sensuality, and laughter – just as they are joined in their common task: keeping watch over the gold, the very reason for their existence. Every now and then they display a sort of individualised sensuality that is just as wild and cruel as their watery home, but when they make strongly sexual advances toward Alberich only to retreat to their derisive sorority, dramatic consequences ensue: Alberich’s frustration in the face of the onrushing passion symbolised by the waves turns to unbridled lust for power, and the Rhinemaidens are robbed of their precious responsibility, the gold. Top   Print Then there are the sisters, Fricka and Freia, both very different from one another. Freia isn’t even really a woman; she is more a divine image of femininity, an icon. She represents both spiritual love and physical love. The subject of love is for Wagner distinctly sexual, as shown in for example the last scene in Das Rheingold, where Wagner stages the principal dilemma of the entire Ring cycle – love or power – as a pantomime: slowly, and with the weight of ritual, Freia is covered with the Nibelungen gold, and we see how her vulnerable, vibrant woman’s body is transformed into filthy lucre, immobilised. Both the body and love itself have become commodities. Freia is thus the first female victim of the performance; Wotan did not hesitate to pawn the goddess of love in his voracious zeal to own the strong, awe-inspiring fortress of Valhalla. And since he and Alberich are two of a kind, they both value power over love. But what Wotan has not foreseen is the catastrophic consequences of his decision: the gods will age with frightening speed, because trading in women and repressing love, in The Ring, lead inexorably to death. This destiny, this death theme, is played out again and again with various characters, and with each repetition we are confirmed in the sense that the cycle’s power brokers and their world order of female oppression are irrevocably doomed. Fricka is the only woman in The Ring cycle that seems entirely unpleasant. She is a morally ambivalent, dried up old biddy who insists on upholding the law with a savage stubbornness. She only understands and acknowledges the established order and is therefore far more faithful to the male-dominated society than even Wotan himself. Top   Print Wagner’s Fricka is nothing like the Frigga of Norse mythology. That Old Norse goddess was a crafty, vivid personality with countless affairs on her conscience. Fricka, on the other hand, is completely faithful and completely dull. Moreover, Wagner has made his goddess of marriage and fidelity childless, implying that her hidebound morality is also literally barren. This is marriage as respectable institution, she maintains, not love; and when her music betrays an occasional sensuality, it is because Fricka has an ulterior motive. Utterly lacking sex appeal, Fricka only uses her sexuality to obtain power and keep her husband (this does not mean that she does not love Wotan in a romantic sense; she in fact longs to be united with the completely male image that Wotan represents). When Wotan married Fricka, he in effect married the law. He has not achieved wisdom through their union, but rather a high level of awareness. He has obtained what psychoanalysts call a "super-ego", and it controls him to the degree that he is no longer in contact with his original subconscious nature. Erda, "the world’s wisest woman" must therefore rise from the deep and warn him: Continuing to hold onto the Ring will bring about his downfall. He voluntarily relinquishes the Ring, but since he has worn it on his finger the curse is already in effect. In order to change his destiny Wotan must seek the dreaming wisdom of the subconscious in the remaining operas of The Ring cycle. He must leave the far too stolid Fricka to awaken the mystical primordial woman, Erda. This relationship with the earth goddess will prove, as opposed to the one with Fricka, to be incredibly fertile, producing no fewer than nine daughters. However, Wotan cannot accept – or understand – Erda’s solution. What is he to do with all these women? He wants men, strong men – and therefore uses his daughters solely to attract heroes to his cause. They become Valkyries, and Wotan loses the chance to get in touch with his own feminine side. Top   Print Das Rheingold is the prelude to the entire Ring cycle, and it signals the conflict that will prove Wotan’s undoing: the contrast between power and sensuality, between the super-ego and the subconscious. This conflict is borne out in the last of the four Ring operas in the character of Brünnhilde, the most important of Wotan’s Valkyrie daughters. Wotan is not a traditional opera hero, and the women in The Ring are not traditional victims. They get their revenge in the end, when Wotan dies, and in the slow revelation Wagner engineers of Wotan’s true self by removing his god’s mask. The face we eventually see is neither beautiful nor symmetrical; it is disfigured, careworn and cynical – at once both pathetic and terrifying. In Das Rheingold, as in so many other operas, women and femininity are sacrificed. The difference here is that Wagner stages his sacrifices to demonstrate to the audience that the practice is harmful both to society as well as to the individual. Top   Print The four operas Das Rheingold Die Walküre Siegfried Götterdämmerung Articles Kasper Bech Holten: Mythologies Interview with Michael Schønwandt: On Das Rheingold Kasper Bech Holten: In Eternal Opposition Nila Parly: The Women of Das Rheingold Gallery See the photos from Das Rheingold Biographies The Ring Team... Cast See the cast Biographies are available at www.kglteater.dk Das Rheingold is sponsored by the Bikuben Foundation