Sunday Classics: Wotan's bad behavior goes back even before the carving of the spear

1st NORN: At the World-Ash-tree
once I wove,
when fair and green
there grew from its branches
verdant and shady leaves.
Those cooling shadows
sheltered a spring;
wisdom's voice I heard in its waves;
I sang my holy song.
A valiant god came to drink at the spring;
and the price he had to pay
was the loss of an eye.
From the World-Ash-tree
mighty Wotan broke a branch.
and his spear was shaped
from the branch he tore from the tree.
As year succeeded year,
the sound slowly weakened the tree;
dry, leafless, and barren --
death seized on the tree;
whisper waters then failed in the spring;
grief and sorrow stole through my song.
And so I weave at the World-Ash-tree no more;
today I use these branches to fasten the cord.

-- English singing translation by Andrew Porter,
used in the Goodall-ENO recording

Lili Chookasian (c), First Norn; Berlin Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan, cond. DG, recorded Oct. and Dec. 1969, Jan. 1970

by Ken

We're not going to get as far as I was hoping in Friday's preview, when we reviewed the triumphant love scene of Siegmund and Sieglinde at the end of Act I of Wagner's Die Walküre. Eventually you'll hear why that was important, but for today we're going to jump to another image of Wotan, from the Prologue to the final Ring opera, Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods), as the three Norns spin their web of fate and occupy themselves by remembering and predicting.

Eventually I hope to have the complete Norn Scene here, but my server has been balky all afternoon. So for now we're just going to have to make do with the opening and the first contributions of the First and Second Norns, the two older of the trio.

Remember that in looking at Das Rheingold, we saw how Wotan abused his spear from the very moment of its making, inscribing on the symbol of his authority a totally bogus contract for the building of Walhalla, one he never had any intention of honoring. From the Norns we learn that the making of that spear was even more corrupt and corrupting. We hear Wagner the ecologist, with the First Norn painting an extraordinary picture of the rich life systems supported by the great World-Ash tree.

HERE'S THAT LARGER CHUNK OF THE NORN SCENE

Götterdämmerung: Prologue, Norn Scene opening (1st and 2nd Norns)

On the Valkyrie Rock. The scene is the same as the close of Die Walküre. It is night. Firelgiht shines up from the depths of the background. The three NORNS tall female figures in long, dark veil-like drapery. The first (oldest) is lying in the foreround on the right, under the spreading pine tree; the second (younger) reclnes on a rock in front of the cave; the third (the youngest) sits in the center at the back on a rock below the peak. Gloomy silence and stillness.

1st NORN [without moving]:
What light shines down there?
2nd NORN: Can it be day so soon?
3rd NORN: Loge's flames
leap and flicker around the rock.
It is night.
And so we must sing as we spin.
2nd NORN [to the 1st]:
Let us be spinning and singing;
but where, where tie the cord?
1st NORN [rises, unwinds a golden rope from herself, and ties one end of it to a branch of the pine tree]:
Though good or ill may come,
weaving the cord, I'll sing now.
At the World-Ash-tree once I wove,
when fair and green
there grew from its branches
verdant and shady leaves.
Those cooling shadows
sheltered a spring;
wisdom's voice I heard in its waves;
I sang my holy song.
A valiant god came to drink at the spring;
and the price he had to pay
was the loss of an eye.
From the World-Ash-tree
mighty Wotan broke a branch.
and his spear was shaped
from the branch he tore from the tree.
As year succeeded year,
the sound slowly weakened the tree;
dry, leafless, and barren --
death seized on the tree;
whisper waters then failed in the spring;
grief and sorrow stole through my song.
And so I weave at the World-Ash-tree no more;
today I use these branches to fasten the cord.
Sing, my sister, take up the thread:
what will happen now?
2nd NORN [winds the rope that has been thrown to her round a projecting rock at the entrance of the cave]:
Wotan made holy laws and treaties;
then Wotan cut their words in the spear;
he held it to rule all the world,
until the day a hero broke it in two;
wth shining sword
he destroyed the god's holy laws.
Then Wotan ordered Walhall's heroes
to hack down the World Ash's trunk,
and to cut its branches to pieces.
The Ash-tree fell;
dry were the waters of the spring!
And so today I must tie our cord to the rock.
Sing, my sister, take up the thread.
What will happen now?

-- English singing translation by Andrew Porter,
used in the Goodall-ENO recording

[in English] Anne Collins (c), First Norn; Gillian Knight (ms), Second Norn; Anne Evans (s), Third Norn; English National Opera Orchestra, Reginald Goodall, cond. EMI-Chandos, recorded live, December 1977

Margarete Klose (ms), First Norn; Hilde Rössl-Majdan (ms), Second Norn; Sena Jurinac (s), Third Norn; Radio Italiana Symphony Orchestra, Wilhelm Furtwängler, cond. EMI, recorded live, 1953

Helen Watts (c), First Norn; Grace Hoffman (ms), Second Norn; Anita Välkki (s), Third Norn; Vienna Philharmonic, Georg Solti, cond. Decca, recorded May-Nov. 1964

Lili Chookasian (c), First Norn; Christa Ludwig (ms), Second Norn: Catarina Ligendza (s), Third Norn; Berlin Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan, cond. DG, recorded Oct. and Dec. 1969, Jan. 1970

Simone Schröder (ms), First Norn; Ulrike Helzel (ms), Second Norn; Edith Haller (s), Third Norn; Bayreuth Festival Orchestra, Christian Thielemann, cond. Opus Arte, recorded live, July-Aug. 2008

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