tl;dr

First of all, let me say that, when I threw off in passing the remark about "the scenes in Valhalla" being so much less interesting than "the scenes on earth" (as an analogy with "threads about Cracky" being so much less interesting than "threads about camwhores") I didn't realize it was going to have to bear the whole weight of a "who's-more-cultured-than-who" flame-war. If I had, I might have formulated it in a more careful and nuanced way. But OK, let's not make a thing out of that. Your account of what I said is basically correct: the vivid, living core of the story lies, for most opera-goers, in the scenes on earth, and the long philosophical discussions between the gods are, for most people, pretty hard to sit through, both musically and on the level of the "dialogue".

enough of your boring bullshit, Alex, this is a board about Cracky.

>>3
I think we see this very clearly in "Die Walkuere", the opera to which you first referred with your remark on Wotan's "Der alte Sturm, die alte Mueh'". Obviously, there are no objective truths about which parts of Wagner are "accessible" and which aren't. But most books that I have read on Wagner recommend the First Act of "Die Walkuere" as the very best introduction to the truly great Wagner that most people don't even know about: the musician whose strength lay not in marches and great orchestral crescendos but in music of infinite delicacy and subtlety that only occasionally broke forth into beautiful flowing melodies. The First Act of "Die Walkuere", though, takes place entirely on earth, and no god makes any direct personal appearance in it. Siegmund and Sieglinde, its hero and heroine, are, admittedly, the children of Wotan. But the whole pathos of their position is that they do not know that they are. They believe that they are the children of Waelse, a mortal whom Wotan had adopted as a disguise.

This thread ain't over 'til the fat lady sings. STFU.

>>5
Again, of course, one can only speak for oneself. But, for me personally, the entirely and exclusively "mortal" First Act of "Die Walkuere" is far and away the most involving and exalting Act in the whole "Ring". It contains passages of unexampled beauty, both musically and poetically. Siegmund's narration of his life story to Sieglinde and Hunding would be, even without the music, one of the most beautiful, heart-wrenching things ever written:
"Whatever seemed to me to be right
Others thought it wrong.
Whatever I despised
Enjoyed the grace and praise of the rest.
When I reached out for joy
Pain was all I caused.
Therefore I must call myself 'Ruler of Woe'
Nothing but woe and pain were ever my dominion."
Even today, the role of Siegmund is an incredible flying in the face of all that has traditionally been understood by "Heldentenor" (the "hero tenor"). More than any other leading figure in an opera - more even than figures created in much later and more sophisticated eras, like Berg's Wozzeck - Siegmund is NOT A HERO. One can believe that he has known REAL WRETCHEDNESS, REAL ABJECTION....that he has had to crawl and beg for human support, human nurture, human affection and has been refused them again and again.

aspergers.exe

okay, so you're basically going to rehash/copy paste a book and tell yourself you won.

Just plonk down the ISBN numbers here, and be done with it.

Also, the Walkuere is generally considered boring (apart from the ride of the Valkeries, you might know it from the movie "apocalypse now"). Boring characters, boring story, some incest; that's about it.
Siegfried is generally considered the most awesome part by people who aren't talking bollocks about Wagner.

And not stop backpedaling and admit you were WRONG. In the ring the Gods are NOT infallible, and not even immortal (IT BLOODY STARTS WITH THE GODS EXPERIENCING AGING SINCE THE GIANTS SNATCHED FREIA AWAY).
And it even ends with Goetterdaemmerung, maybe you should up what that means at some point. It a pretty good indication that the Gods aren't having a Disney ending.

Now please stop writing and go back to where you came from; you know, the place with the easily impressed kids.

>>7
The First Act of The Walkyrie also contains a dozen other beauties: the sudden lyrical "Wintersonne wiche dem Wonnemond", of course - a Lied blooming forth out of all the Sprechgesang. But most of all the finale, which is actually physically terrifying in a good production. It's only in the finale that we realize that we are dealing with something that is genuinely forbidden, transgressive, horrible and obscene - something that creates a genuine painful ambivalence in us: the incestuous love between a brother and a sister. And the climactic "So blühe denn Wälsungenblut!" is an exclamation, screamed out over the whirling storm of the entire huge orchestra, that has left me, at least, literally physically shaking at performance after performance. You go out into the intermission thinking "What the FUCK is going to BECOME of these two? How in GOD's name will they survive?" even when you know what will, and that they won't.

>>10
The contrast between the "world of mortals" and "the world of the gods" as we pass from the First Act to the Second is extremely striking. Musically, there is certainly very little in the long - I think, fifteen- or twenty-minute - debate between Wotan and Fricka that makes up most of Act Two to compare to Act One's "Wintersonne wiche dem Wonnemonde" or the orgasmic Act One finale. More importantly, though, it is the QUALITY of what is said through the music and the Sprechgesang that is very different here.
I suppose it's necessary at this point to qualify and to make more nuanced, after all, my original statement about the "scenes among the gods" being more "boring" than the "scenes among mortals". Whether the long, immensely wordy Fricka-Wotan scene is "boring" or not depends, I suppose, on what you are actually LOOKING FOR from a scene in an opera. I have always LOVED the FIRST scene of "The Valkyrie" with a passion. But in the period when I was trying to write a book about the philosophy and the theology of "The Ring" - I gave it up eventually - it was the SECOND act (an affair between gods almost exclusively) that I found myself poring over and poring over, finding absolutely essential and precise meaning in every word.

Everything on ED about a fag answering his own posts is 100% true, so I guess the conjectures and innuendos on ED that Alex is a pedo are true as well.

>>11
This archetypal Wagnerian "scene among the gods" won't be "boring" for anyone who finds the philosophy of religion - and strangely enough, given that this is supposedly a work inspired by pagan, or at best by Buddhist/Schopenhauerian religious ideas, particularly the philosophy of the CHRISTIAN relgion - exhilarating, fascinating and inspiring. But, of course, people who find intellectual exhilaration in the Christian mysteries of the Incarnation, Redemption and so on make up a miniscule proportion of Mankind, so to that extent I CAN stand by my original statement that the "god scenes" are more "boring" than the scenes among the mortals. What the "god scenes" do - and the Fricka-Wotan scene most of all - is provide the superficially extremely DRY and ABSTRACT, but, on examination and meditation, immensely exciting THEORETICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL FRAMEWORK for the action of the "mortal" scenes.

I wish I could send tazer darts over TCP/IP...

>>13
Looking at "The Ring" this way is actually very useful as a way of avoiding the common "vulgar idiot's misconceptions" about the opera-cycle - the most vulgar and idiotic of which you actually trot out in your desperate, panicked attempt at intervention a few posts back.

Using a hopelessly imprecise, crudely hyperbolic language typical of the mall-prowling semi-illiterate ignoramus you probably are, you say that "Siegfried is generally considered to be the most awesome (!) part of the 'Ring' by people who aren't talking bollocks about Wagner."
It's a very telling indication of the pitiful level of musical and cultural sophistication that is the only level that you are able to operate on that you should think this.
It's not as telling, admittedly, as the REAL give-away of your expressing the opinion that "the only part of 'The Valkyrie' that is not boring is 'The Ride of the Valkyries'. It's the typical idiot's take on the opera, since 'The Ride' is the only part of it that EVERYONE knows and the only part where "Wagner sounds like Wagner is supposed to sound" (or like morons who've never really listened to his work THINK he's supposed to sound) i.e. lots of loud trumpets and drums and women wailing in chorus. I've already mentioned that all musical connoisseurs recommend the FIRST ACT of The Valkyrie as a creation representative of Wagner's TRUE genius - no drums, no trumpets, no vast military choruses, just elusive shifting half-melodies that weave in and out of each other and half-describe the secret sorrows and miseries of wounded, vulnerable, lonely souls like Siegmund's).

>>15
But let's concentrate on the OTHER opinion you express that classes you irredeemably among the vulgar and the shallow who will never experience other than a loud, banging and clashing caricature of the true Wagner. I mean the opinion that "Siegfried is generally considered the most awesome part." It is this opinion - in its hopeless misguidedness and utter lack of dramatic and philosophical insight and instinct - that is actually directly relevant to the topic we are discussing: namely, what function do "the scenes with the gods" perform in "The Ring" and how do they differ from "the scenes with mortals"?

Seriously, at this point, your little experiment was bound to fail. There is nothing you can say anymore that can foster sympathy here, as it would have to cut through all the animosity you have build up in every one.

The only reason for you to stick around is to fuel that stupid flamewar of yours.

So, sorry about that, but no request of yours will ever be met by me.

tl;dr Enough of your boring bullshit, Alex, this is a board about Cracky.

No-one likes a snob. Or a pseudo-intellectual. You know everything about fuck all, and fuck all about everything, Alex.

No, the "true connoisseurs" are pretty adamant Siegfried is actually the best.
That you're attracted to "the secret sorrows and miseries of wounded, vulnerable, lonely souls", tells more about yourself than about any particular opera.
You're at best misguided, repeating what others tell you, and at worst a hack, trying to fake your way into ...uhm ... the hearts and souls of a bunch of random people on the internet who severely dislike you.

Please leave Wagner to the intellectuals, okay? Surely there is a website for emo related matters where your bullshit about "the secret sorrows and miseries of wounded, vulnerable, lonely soul" will get you laid. Might even cheer you up a little! Free absint for everyone.

>>16
"Awesome", of course, is hardly a term that has much currency in serious musicological criticism and debate. But I imagine that you mean by it that the third opera in the cycle, "Siegfried", and the eponymous hero whose story this opera tells, are the work and the character in which Wagner achieves most, dramatically and musically.
Now as to the work itself, I could cite at least one hugely-respected analyst of Wagner's oeuvre - George Bernard Shaw, whom of course you've never heard of in this or any other context, because he didn't appear in "Apocalypse Now" - who dismisses your opinion as utterly misguided. Shaw sees "Siegfried" as the part of "The Ring" where Wagner's "nerve fails". Everything that precedes it in the tetralogy - above all "The Valkyrie" - is that new, unclassifiable thing that was Wagner's great and essential achievement: a "Gesamtkunstwerk" held together by "endless melody". Everything from Act Two of "Siegfried" on is just "grand opera" again.

See the monkey dance when you pull its tail.

I always was more of a Verdi man myself, and Wagner not being regularly performed on this side of the pond, I actually only ever saw "Der fliegende Holländer", years ago.

But I must admit, you making such a fuss over it is turning me off just as much as the polemics this other unsavory Wagner character was having in his day, not to mention after his death.

Just another thing you are ruining for me. Happy now?

>>20
But in the context of the specific question you wanted to discuss here - what is the nature of the "scenes with the gods" and their difference from the "scenes with the mortals"? - it is perhaps more useful to concentrate on the CHARACTER Siegfried rather than the WORK "Siegfried".
I've said already that there are two vulgar misconceptions and misevaluations concerning "The Ring" which can help one to identify in a split second a shallow idiot who has no real understanding of the work. You happen, not surprisingly, to subscribe to both.
I've already talked about the typical vulgar misconception that you hold on the musicological level: namely, that there is nothing musically interesting in "The Valkyrie" except "The Ride".
The vulgar misconception that corresponds to this on the dramaturgical level - and that you have also stated that you hold - is that Siegfried (and not, for example, his father Siegmund) is the centre, hero and protagonist of the tetralogy.

Cracky shed her blood for THIS?

>>1

Are you the same wordy douche that banned me on Crackyhouse few days ago because he misinterpreted my post?

hehe, "Gesamtkunstwerk". I was waiting for that term. It's almost like you guessed my drinking game.
But yeah, appeal to authority, George Bernard Shaw no less. I'm not sure he would enjoy having his name dragged into a discussion by the likes of you.
Ever actually seen "Apocalypse now" ? It's based an a book. I suggest you read some (and actually read them, not just rehash what wikipedia tells you) and them come back to play. Maybe you'll even get some your facts straight.

verification:"deloge" ... brilliant

>>23
If you knew anything at all about the history of Wagner performance, you would know that the central defining problem of this performance history - at least as far as "The Ring" is concerned - has been how creative and innovative conductors and dramatic directors could possibly reconcile their INSTINCTS in this matter with the LETTER of Wagner's libretto. Look at the testimonies of any of the major figures who have worked in positions of musical or dramaturgical direction at Bayreuth or elsewhere - Götz Friedrich, Daniel Barenboim, Harry Kupfer, Pierre Boulez...oh but sorry, you have NO IDEA who any of these people are, do you, because you know fuck all about Wagner or anything else - and you will see that their DEFINING PROBLEM AND DIFFICULTY was their fundamental lack of sympathy with the figure that Wagner had APPEARED to place at the centre of his drama and their irrepressible moral empathy with SIEGMUND, who appears in only HALF AN OPERA, but morally and philosophically dominates the whole, at least for anyone with any deeper understanding of this whole.

>>25

Meet Alex Reynolds. He runs the show for CH.

the only thing we ever asked for is for you to fuck off

I guess you took it as a request tell us more about Wagner instead

so please, please, please, we're asking you, tell us more about Wagner

>>27
OK...well...I'm not giving myself Carpal Tunnel Syndrome writing down ALL I have to say about this question of "gods" and "mortals" in "The Ring" tonight.
I think that's enough for now. I'll continue with the thread tomorrow.
I'm sorry if it's annoying a large number of people. I would have been happy to drop it. But this sad pathetic guy who is standing on the sidelines shouting about how "I've never read a book" and "I'm cutting and pasting it all" and yet STILL keeps making weak, vulgar objections to what I'm saying because he KNOWS, despite all his bullshit, that I have been writing for the last two hours out of stores of REAL, LONG-RIPENED knowledge, WOULD insist on "calling me out".
He hasn't, I think, QUITE crawled back whining into his kennel just yet. That's for tomorrow.

A lot of assumptions there about people I can't possibly know. Has to suck to run into someone who actually knows Wagner and calls your bullshit.

I'm sorry I'm better than you, but it's not like you haven't had this coming (probably for a long time, judging by the comments. I had/have no idea who you are.)

>I'm sorry if it's annoying a large number of people

Alex, it is you yourself. I will stop insulting you for now to tell you - you are your own worst enemy. You have maybe heard this all your life, but perhaps you should learn from experience when to back off.

>I'm sorry if it's annoying a large number of people.

no, your not, especially since you just promised said you'd keep going tomorrow

>>33
Yes, I'm sorry. For ONCE, I will keep going until people finally TAKE SOMETHING LIKE POST NO 31 BACK!
It is fucking ABSURD that some guy should be able first to write on a board "You talk about Wagner but you have no idea what you are talking about" and then, after 3000 fucking words of intelligent discourse on the topic, with him shouting "you cut-and-pasted it!", "Apocalypse Now!" from the sidelines, is STILL so pathetically self-deluding as to say: "Sorry I'm better than you haha!"

And all this while everyone throws shit at ME!

I suggest you take a stress pill, and think things over.

>>30
Why are you doing this Alex? Who are you trying to impress?

You've already burned us all, there is nothing to be gained by this.

Unless you're doing this for yourself, to prove yourself you are "better" than all the Crackyfags or some other ridiculously futile reason like a will to "punish" us for our non-recognition of your superior intellect...

For a smart guy, you sure act dumb.

WHY WOULD NUMBER THIS THREAD? HOW LONG DO YOU EXPECT THIS TO GO ON?

No but seriously Alex at this point everyone on here hates you, even if you manage to win this futile argument people will still "throw shit" at you.

>>36
Look. I realize it's ridiculous. It's basically, I know, that cartoon with the wife calling her husband into bed - not that I have a wife - and him saying: "I can't come now. Someone is WRONG on the Internet."
And yes, I know, if I managed to raise Wagner from the grave and sat him down in front of this guy and got him to say "Alex Reynolds has a sound understanding of my work and you are a fucking Dummkopf", he would STILL be prancing around with his "I won I won nahnahnahnaaaahnah!"
So yeah, maybe I'll give up.
But it's really NOT about my ego.
Just about TRUTH and FALSITY - and trying to get people to realize that such things at least DO EXIST.

>>37
Why would you

I didn't say "haha".

Also, "3000 fucking words of intelligent discourse on the topic" is a peculiar way of saying "writing walls of text around the initial subject where I was found wrong".

facepalm.exe

>>34

People throw shit at you for a good reason, you deserved this whole Wagner debacle through the way you have been treating people online who NEVER even said anything to or about you.

So what if many of people here and there are as thick as pig shit, YOU HAVE NO FUCKING PLACE TO ADMONISH THEM FOR IT.

If you don't like a retarded thread then just say out instead of being a bully just because you were bullied by someone else somewhere else.

It's not about winning. It's about you being wrong and trying your darndest to hide that by spouting trivialities and insults as fast as you can.
I'm pretty sure that Wagner thought Siegfried was the most awesome part too btw.

>>34
Thing is, we only care about the burr up our asses, not yours. Must have something to do with how you've already called us a sad hollowly pretentious community, to quote only the last blanket statement in a very long line.

You're on your own, so enjoy the shitstorm, you've earned it.

And, frankly, I dont believe you are sorry one bit.

>>41

I just imagined Cracky saying to me "can't we just cuddle?"... I think I'm melting...

>>45

We all better pray for forgiveness. Sorry, Cracky.

>>38
fuck you, it's all about ego with you

someone has challenged YOUR authority, dragged YOUR character in the mud and YOU are now going to keep at it until we vindicate YOU and accept YOU as the foremost expert on something YOU care about though it has nothing to do with this board, except by it's indirect connection to YOU

also, you lie constantly, as was proven to me by the deleting of threads and the subsequent shameful denials on CH

you know, the ones where you admitted starting flamewars on Filipino philosophy site that you would then fuel for years, all to alleviate your boredom, which you only brought up to say something like "sorry .71, you're nothing special, I get into these types of flamewars all the time"

this has nothing to do with truth, and everything to do with ego, winning and possibly also with all you care to say it's not

and nothing you could ever say will ever obscure those facts

>>45

Dont you know that she has never cared about the community?

>>48

If the first thing she seen on this site was a giant wall of text like something a student would write after smoking his first joint, I wouldn't blame her one bit.

Well, at least he was right at least once. "one lying bluffing bullying little shit will just have NO CHOICE but to crawl back into his hole and die."

To paraphrase George Bernard Shaw, playing Robert Duval playing Kilgore:
"There is nothing like the smell of charred ego in the morning. Smells like ... victory."

WHERE IS YOUR APOCALYPSE NOW, BITCH ?

and for those innocent bystanders who are wondering what the hell this thread is about.

"The Ring" is a cycle of operas by Richard Wagner. It's pretty good stuff once you get used to the talkative style of singing and you can follow the story line.
One of the most obvious underlying arcs is how the gods, potent though they are, bring about their downfall by being idiots; basically having "flaws and shortcomings whom one can love and hate", whereas in the human storyline, they do nothing particularly wrong, being pious and heroic on every occasion, but being propelled by destiny, still have no other option left but to work towards their doom. In the end, everyone dies. Pretty classic stuff, but also diametrically opposed to what our expert claimed. And when attended to this error, got all defensive deferring authority to people (right down to a resurrected Wagner) who agreed with him (or more likely, whose opinion he copied so as to appear learned on the subject), and walls of text concerning trivia which had nothing to do with his initial mistake.

So there.

As for Verdi, it's a very different style of opera, but don't be put off. Just make sure to get a bi-lingual booklet (or libretto, as we Wagnerians call it) and follow along with the story. Once you start picking out the "Leitmotive", which are little melodies that are tied to certain people, object, or events, and how these are woven into the score, chances are you'll be delighted. In spite of its reputation, it's humourous, violent, and even touching at times. If you're not sure, just get the first part "Rheingold". It's short, and has a comical angry dwarf in it, especially if you realize at the end, that the whole goddam mess could have been avoided if those Rheinbitches would have shown our poor dwarf some tlc.

tl;dr
your retarded

>>52
To be fair, you might be tryi... pushing it a little. When you say that Verdi is a different style of opera, it's a bit off. You should rather say that Italian opera significantly different from German opera.

Apart, obviously, from Mozart who was on his own planet, and had operas with librettos in both German and Italian although that's not what really sets him apart, German operas are, as one would expect "colder" than the more sensuously "warmer" Italian operas.

Personnally, I find, German operas more boring, and static, than the more dynamic Italian ones. I said I only saw the Flying Dutchman, of which I only remember the overture, but I just remembered seeing Tristan und Isolde, and being bored to tears.

It's all subjective. It doesnt matter except to the person it concerns.

I like Verdi, Pucini, Mozart, Massenet, and I strongly dislike Wagner. There is a very strong possibility that I have been in a theater while an opera was performed many more times than anybody else here. Yes, even you Alex. My opinion on composers and librettists, just like Alex and the other anon, are still subjective. As such, they all are valid.

Alex, give it up, man. You are the one making it a "who's-more-cultured-than-who" flame-war, whether you started it or not, and simply because you've put in the most fuel. And you were already in flamewar mode anyway.

You can cram your second part back up your ass, aint no way no how I will ever have a civil conversation with somebody who has gratuitously called me a quarter educated cunt so many time, and who will not allow a different experience of culture than his own as a valid one, even in the face of the absolute subjectivity that experiencing arts should be all about.

You will remain in my eyes a contemptuous and contemptible man with a personality disorder, intent on shitting up the Crackyverse out of spite, and you will be so no matter if you are the most qualified person in the world to talk about Wagner, which I have no doubt you are not.

I'm pretty sure that everybody is aware that the only reason you will post again on this subject is to piss every body off. Hell, given how disruptive you have been those last few years, simply posting would do the trick.

So go on and burn some more bridges else where, it should be obvious to you that you are done here. Go on, give us one last blast of utter contempt and be on your fucking merry way. For good this time.