Music is a Choice!

The Valhalla in Richard Wagner’s Ring Cycle is a complex symbol that looms over every character within the operas. It is one of glory, but also fated destruction. It is a reflection of Wagner’s deep-seated Nordicistic and anti-Semitic views, and his struggles with German cultural and artistic aesthetics of the time. It is, ultimately, a critique of modern German culture.

Wagner held deeply nationalistic and Nordicistic views of Germany. He often romanticized an early mythical Germanic culture, and idealized “German Art” created by the “German Folk” as an expression of the true “German Spirit.” In his 1850 essay “Judaism in Music,” Wagner contended that Jewish people that Jewish people were fundamentally unable to create real art due to an inherent “lack of passion.” He believed that European languages, cultures, and customs “have remained to a Jew a foreign tongue,” and that the proliferation of Jewish art and music flourished because Jewish individuals controlled the country’s wealth and power. 

This belief that Jewish art is disingenuous is reflected in the creation of the ring. Alberich, who serves as caricature of negative Jewish stereotypes of the time, achieves the ability to forge the ring only after he renounces love and steals the Rhinegold. Through this, the ring becomes a vindictive creation, forged with the purpose of gaining power, thus, it is a cold and utilitarian creation rather than a passionate one. 

Wagner denounces utilitarian and “artificial” artwork in his 1849 essay, “Artwork of the Future,” maintaining that real artwork must be natural. He associated a preoccupation with utilitarianism with barbarism and spiritual withdrawal. He ascribed a seeming decline in “true artwork” to society’s obsession with utilitarian practicality and artificial luxury. With the renunciation of love, Alberich is able to create the ring. However, he also proves that he is a being that is unable to become passionate about anything besides his greed for wealth and power. The ring is a means to power rather than an expression of passion, and therefore, it is fundamentally a utilitarian creation that becomes a powerful source of conflict in the opera.

Furthermore, the character of Alberich embodies the Jewish stereotype of amassing wealth through dishonest and underhanded means. In a similar vein to today’s international Jewish conspiracy and other anti-semitic stereotypes, Wagner believed that the Jewish people immorally amassed wealth, corrupting the “purity” of Germanic cultures. He describes the Jewish as “money-making without actual labour, i.e. Usury.” Alberich parallels this view by enslaving his own people in order to forge the ring, thus acquiring power without true labor. When Alberich curses the ring to awaken a greed for wealth and power in whoever holds the ring and inspire jealousy from those who do not, the ring becomes a vessel of this laborless power. 

Wagner also deeply criticized the modern world’s insistence upon artistic rules, such as counterpoint, arguing that these rules shifted music from being a matter of the heart to a matter of intellect. He dismissed artistic rules as “the mathematics of Feeling, the mechanical rhythm of egoistic Harmony.” He claimed that these rules allow shallow and apathetic pieces to be marketed as great works, meaning that a composer of decent intellect and an ability to follow these rules can create art that is accepted by the public. In this way, the musician has become a craftsman rather than an artist. He criticized and accused Jewish composers and musicians, most notably Felix Mendelssohn, of imitating the passionate works of non-Jewish composers, such as Bach, and selling it to audiences as great art. According to Wagner’s beliefs, it is these rules regarding “great art” imposed onto artists and musicians, as well as their “immoral” wealth, that allow for Jewish artists to thrive. 

In the Ring Cycle, Wotan’s power is drawn from his role upholding laws, treaties, and contracts. Although these rules make him powerful, they also restrict his ability to fully carry out his wishes. It is this adherence to law that forces Wotan to give up the Ring to the giants in exchange for Freia. Just as Wagner believed artistic rules allowed Jewish artists to become prolific, Wotan’s responsibility in upholding contracts allowed for the ring to become entangled with the story of Valhalla’s creation and the gods’ downfall. Valhalla becomes a commodity via the ring and the process of commodification was incited by an insistence upon strict rules.

In Act 2 of Das Rheingold, Wotan describes Valhalla as a majestic castle and Fricka hopes that it will be a place of comfort that would keep Wotan at home. Valhalla is described in such a way that indicates that it is fundamentally built as a place of luxury rather than necessity. Wagner viewed luxury as deeply detrimental to true artistic expression and described it as “heartless, inhuman, insatiable, and egoistic” and a “venal article” of the cultured Jew.  He denounces the need for luxury and fashion as “the diametrical antithesis of the need of Art.” 

Wagner contrasted modern German art and society with a romanticized version of early Germanic culture. He idealized Bach as the embodiment of true German spirit and art. He praises him as being “the history of the German spirit’s inmost life throughout the gruesome century of the German Folk’s complete extinction.” He believed utilitarianism to be fundamentally un-German and that “the Beautiful and Noble came not into the world for sake of profit, nor even for fame and recognition [and]. . . . only what is done in that sense, can lead Germany to greatness.” 

In comparison, Wagner criticized the modern German leadership, referring to them as the “German princes,” who he claimed were deeply flawed and essentially un-German. He contended that historically, periods associated with political power and “German glory” were often detrimental or fatal to the core German essence. Wagner blamed these “German princes” for corrupting the true German Spirit by embracing superficiality and materialism, while failing to champion the rebirth of German art and the strengthening of the German Spirit. He further accused these leaders of creating opportunities that Jewish individuals could exploit for both financial and political gain. 

Valhalla can be understood as an extension of this critique. Valhalla is constructed to represent the glory of the gods, however, it is destined to fall in the Götterdämmerung, or the Twilight of the Gods. As the gods ascend to Valhalla at the end of Das Rheingold, the Rhinemaidens issue them a condemnation. They denounce the gods as false and weak, declaring that virtue and truth reside solely in the water. As in many creation myths and folkloric tales, the ocean and the water are often symbols of a primordial or ancestral state of nature. If Valhalla is to represent the modern German society of Wagner’s time, then this line is a clear denouncement of it. Wagner believed that the only way in which to revitalize the German Spirit was to return to the true German essence.  He is essentially saying that in order to protect the German Spirit and Folk, Germany must return to its natural or traditional state. This traditional state, of course, is a romanticized view of Nordic culture. It is a view of a time that never truly existed.

Therefore, the fundamental idea of Valhalla is art and society corrupted. It becomes a symbol of needless luxury within art. By paying the giants with the ring, which Wotan himself gained through deceit and theft, the sacred hall becomes a symbol of corrupted art acquired through immoral means. Valhalla, thus, becomes a commodity via the ring. The commodification of Valhalla, spurred by the insistence upon strict rules and contracts, causes both the ring and Valhalla to symbolize the very essence of Kunstwaarenwechsel, or the art-bazaar. It also comes to symbolize a German culture that is built upon the “corrupted” wealth of Jewish citizens and the materialism of German princes. It serves as an anti-Semitic warning of Germany’s glory and its loss of the “true” German Spirit and by condemning the gods of Valhalla as false and weak, the Rhinemaidens reinforce Wagner’s conviction that this corrupt and materialistic societal structure must collapse, necessitating a complete return to the “true German essence” to revitalize the German Spirit.