Die Gotterdammerung begins with an elaborate prologue. The three Norns
sit in the night on Brynhild's mountain top spinning their thread of
destiny, and telling the story of Wotan's sacrifice of his eye, and
of his breaking off a bough from the World Ash to make a heft for his
spear, also how the tree withered after suffering that violence. They
have also some fresher news to discuss. Wotan, on the breaking of his
spear by Siegfried, has called all his heroes to cut down the withered
World Ash and stack its faggots in a mighty pyre about Valhalla. Then,
with his broken spear in his hand, he has seated himself in state in
the great hall, with the Gods and Heroes assembled about him as if
in council, solemnly waiting for the end. All this belongs to the old
legendary materials with which Wagner began The Ring.
The tale is broken by the thread snapping in the hands of the third
Norn; for the hour has arrived when man has taken his destiny in his
own hands to shape it for himself, and no longer bows to circumstance,
environment, necessity (which he now freely wills), and all the rest of
the inevitables. So the Norns recognize that the world has no further
use for them, and sink into the earth to return to the First Mother.
Then the day dawns; and Siegfried and Brynhild come, and have another
duet. He gives her his ring; and she gives him her horse. Away then he
goes in search of more adventures; and she watches him from her crag
until he disappears. The curtain falls; but we can still hear the
trolling of his horn, and the merry clatter of his horse's shoes
trotting gaily down the valley. The sound is lost in the grander rhythm
of the Rhine as he reaches its banks. We hear again an echo of the
lament of the Rhine maidens for the ravished gold; and then, finally, a
new strain, which does not surge like the mighty flood of the river, but
has an unmistakable tramp of hardy men and a strong land flavor about
it. And on this the opera curtain at last goes up--for please remember
that all that has gone before is only the overture.