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Richard Wagner Start‑class

This article falls within the scope of the Richard Wagner WikiProject, a collaboration to develop articles on the composer and his operas. The project talk page is a place to discuss issues and exchange ideas. New members are welcome!Richard WagnerWikipedia:WikiProject Richard WagnerTemplate:WikiProject Richard WagnerRichard Wagner Start This article has been rated as Start-class on Misplaced Pages's content assessment scale.

Opera Start‑class

This article falls within the scope of WikiProject Opera, a group writing and editing Misplaced Pages articles on operas, opera terminology, opera composers and librettists, singers, designers, directors and managers, companies and houses, publications and recordings. The project discussion page is a place to talk about issues and exchange ideas. New members are welcome!OperaWikipedia:WikiProject OperaTemplate:WikiProject OperaOpera Start This article has been rated as Start-class on Misplaced Pages's content assessment scale.

Other Translations?

Translations I have heard for the word "Götterdämmerung" include:

• "Dawn of the Gods"
• "Twilight of the Gods"
• "Doom of the Gods"

Explanations for these very different translations can be found on the above Google links. I would love to see a section in the article breaking down these various translations, their accuracies, and their sources. --4.65.244.206 18:02, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Perhaps you should note that Twighlight of the Idols is also occasionally used (particularly appropriate for comparisons with Nietzsche).

(Comment by reader: Nietzsche's use of the the title "Twilight of the Idols" was an intentional mocking of Wagner's title, and was understood as such by both at the time. So any use of this translation for the opera is merely a mistake. See Nietzsche's "Nietzsche Contra Wagner" or any into to his "Twilight". The actual German for Nietzsche's book title is different: Götzen-Dämmerung.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.20.191.160 (talk) 18:15, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

You're above translation includes opposites "Dawn" and "Dusk" (Twilight). This is appropriate to the German dämmerung which may be either according to the prefix (Morgendämmerung and Abenddämmerung respectively). Wagner clearly intended it as Dusk or Twilight, when one assesses the content of the opera - so I am not sure Dawn of the Gods is appropriate...--OldakQuill 14:05, 16 May 2004 (UTC)

As far as the opera is concerned, I've never heard it translated as anything other than "Twilight of the Gods". --Camembert

Final Performance

The final perfomance before the fall of Berlin in WWII by the Berliner Philharmoniker on April 12th 1945 was the finale from Gotterdammerung, as it was felt to be entirely fit for the situation, should this be mentioned in the "Notes" section?

Only if it can be verified by a source. Do you have a source for it? --Alexs letterbox 01:44, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Albert Speer "Inside The Third Reich"

Then by all means add it, citing that book using Misplaced Pages:Footnotes. --Alexs letterbox 08:27, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Do we really want to declare Albert Speer a "reliable source"? --OliverH 11:53, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

You got something to suggest that he isn't? 74.140.211.161 14:45, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

• A vivid description of this event is to be found in Cornelius's Ryan's epic of the fall of Berlin The Last Battle. The performance of the piece was the signal from the conductor that the orchestra members should abandon the city immediately after the performance was completed.RM Gillespie (talk) 23:11, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Removal of Trivia

I have removed:

At War With The Mystics, the eleventh album by American rock band The Flaming Lips, features a track entitled "Pompeii am Götterdämmerung".

As it appears to have nothing to do with the opera (as well as being irrelevant). --Alexs letterbox 23:27, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

I concur heartily; we don't want trivial pop/rock connections to major operas! --Allansteel 03:07, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

But at the same time, the title of Friedrich Nietzsche's "Twilight of the Idols" (Götzendämmerung) was an intentional, punning reference to the concept treated by Wagner in this play. Should something about that be included in the article? AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 16:23, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

End of the plot

I havent seen it, but from this article i dont get the reason for the death of the gods? --82.131.86.22 13:57, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

As far as I can recall, the fire from the funeral pyre reaches into the sky and basically burns Valhalla and the Gods.

Its complicated. In the prologue, the Norns tell us that Wotan has felled the World Ash Tree, and has piled its timber around Vahalla. Brünnhilde sends ravens to her rock to tell Loge to go to Vahalla. He does, and it burns. The actual process of Vahalla's destruction is of little consequence: we know that the Gods are going to die as early as scene iv of Rheingold. --Alexs letterbox 02:00, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Here's my $0.02 on this: There is no good reason, plotwise, for the gods to burn! If Hagen had gotten the ring, then it might make sense, but under the circumstances it's totally inconsistent. The premise is Wotan is doomed because he didn't give the ring back to the river-sprites. This is why Loge abandons him and considers burning him at the end of DAS RHEINGOLD. In GDAM Waltraute makes it very clear, and Alberich repeats, that the disaster can be averted by returning the ring to the sprites. So Brunhilde's doing so, just before immolating, should have saved Wotan. Why didn't it? Wagner knew that if the audience left wondering what happened, they'd talk about it longer. What we now call the "2001-A-Space-Odyssey Principle". So you mustn't try to be too logical about GDAM and especially don't try to make it fit with the other three chapters. GDAM was conceived first, and it is dictated by the desire to stage certain scenes from epic poetry--Brunhilde-recognises-ring,-makes-scene, and, Hagen-impales-Siegfried-from-behind--than by the desire to make a bigger point. Wotan and the superman-redeems-corrupt-outdated-morality stuff and the curse and the ring having magic powers came later. George Bernard Shaw wrote that for him the Ring Cycle, as a philosophical work, ended at the last chord of SIEGFRIED; GDAM was just a sequence of operatic cliches. The heroic-friendship-duet, the leader-rallies-followers scene, the dying-tenor-aria, the funeral march, the final soprano-aria, all standard conventions. SingingZombie (talk) 08:32, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

UPDATE: this is similar to Lohengrin. At the end, Lohengrin laments that if only Elsa had let him stay with her for a year before popping the question, then Gottfried would have been disenchanted and restored to leadership. Having said this, he promptly... disenchants Gottfried and returns him to leadership! Wagner loved to make the villains win, but he was unable to stomach their victories. 68.173.17.250 (talk) 01:40, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I'll chip in a penny. My memory of the curse is that Wotan is to return the ring. Having forever to do so, he doesn't and someone else does. Opps. htom (talk) 21:10, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Battle of Berlin?

What does the name "Götterdämmerung" have to do with the Battle of Berlin? The note at the top implies some relationship, but I don't see any information in the other article that would enlighten me. -- SCZenz (talk) 17:31, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Removed the "other use" reference. I can't find a valid reason either for that being there.Theshoveljockey (talk) 17:35, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Marvel Comics

FYI I don't know how to incorporate this into the article, but in Thor (Marvel Comics) a Marvel Comics wrote a short series based loosely on this, the Nibelunglied and the Volsunga in between issues #292-300.MPA 23:03, 16 April 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by MPA (talk • contribs)

Smear Words

Deleted a short paragraph that worked to defame Wagner's work by claiming Nazi policies were based on it / Norse mythology, which is utterly absurd. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.41.55.88 (talk) 05:53, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Brunnhilde's rock

I am watching the Spanish production of this. Why does Siegfried leaves Brunnhilde on the rock? Also,if she is human now, would he have left her there to starve? Luckily she is saved by the fake Gibichung. Myrvin (talk) 11:12, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Infobox

Götterdämmerung
Opera by Richard Wagner
Scene from Act 2, Gwyneth Jones as Brünnhilde in Patrice Chéreau's centenary 1976 staging at the Bayreuth Festival
Translation	Twilight of the Gods
Librettist	Richard Wagner
Language	German
Premiere	17 August 1876 (1876-08-17) Bayreuth Festival, as part of the first complete performance of the cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen
Other	operas by Wagner Die Feen (1833) Das Liebesverbot (1836) Rienzi (1840) Der fliegende Holländer (1843) Tannhäuser (1845) Lohengrin (1848) Tristan und Isolde (1859) Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (1867) Der Ring des Nibelungen: (Das Rheingold (1869) Die Walküre (1870) Siegfried (1871) Götterdämmerung (1874) Parsifal (1882) )

To treat the four parts of The Ring equally, I added an infobox as an option of project opera, replacing the redundant composer navbox. Kindly leave it in place unless you consider it harmful, and discuss here if it is to stay and how to be improved. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:38, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

"part of the first Der Ring des Nibelungen" sent me searching for the second part. It's superfluous under the heading "Premiere" – as is the whole box (info? what info?) -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 10:44, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

I would like to include that it was premiered as part of the first complete performance of the cycle, please word better and change, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:59, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

I have reverted the infobox. This major change to the article - which also reflects on the other Ring operas and other Wagner operas - should not have been undertaken singlehandedly without discussion. Some notification to the Wagner and Opera projects would also have been polite, as well as to editors who have worked on the article. Contrary to what Gerda writes above, the composer infobox is not regarded generally as 'redundant', and there is no authority of any sort, as she seems to imply, from the WPOpera project to replace navboxes with infoboxes. Even if the project had expressed such opinion, Gerda knows very well that, by Misplaced Pages conventions, it does not own opera articles or has any right to issue instructions about them. It ought to operate by seeking consensus; and so should Gerda. --Smerus (talk) 16:35, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

I politely disagree with several of your assumptions. As explained on the arbcom case, I will not seek "permission" - and whose? - before making an edit. I do what I feel is right, you do what you feel right. The redundance is no matter of "regarding", there is nothing in the side navbox which is not repeated in the footer navbox, matter of fact. If you insist to also have the "other" works on top: the infobox has a parameter for that. (I personally think it's nonsense when a footer navbox is there.) Every contributor on Misplaced Pages has the same authority to make an edit, - I don't understand what you think I "imply", - I said "option" and meant "option". - Let's discuss the merits of the infobox. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:15, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

As an alternative to the original proposal, here is a version with a picture related to the specific work and a possibility to see the other stage works also, to be refined, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:46, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

As twiddling with it continues, that infobox is becoming less and less appropriate. I agree with its removal as it is no improvement for this article. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 06:21, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Call it "fiddling", I call it thinking about improvement. Showing a place and time of the topic itself at a glance is a service to the readers. To show the other "operas" within the infobox is meant as a compromise, not what I think is the best way, because I don't believe that a reader should navigate away on entering the article. - I was told that using abbreviations in an infobox is not wanted, and I learned. The clever little symbol for discography is not easily recognised, whereas in the footer navbox {{Richard Wagner}} - with much more room than on the narrow side - you can clearly spell out "Discographies". --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:18, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

I invite Gerda to explain precisely in what ways she believes the infobox would improve the article, as oppposed to considering ways of improving the infobox itself. In this way we can commence a discussion as to whether or not an infobox is a useful and appropriate item for the article, and in what ways (if any) it may be more appropriate than the template.--Smerus (talk) 20:22, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

I repeat what I just wrote for the case workshop: "An infobox, added by an author other than the principle contributors, possibly adds value to an article, - if not to you personally, perhaps to someone else." Please look again at Infobox vs. side navbox on the project talk and take the general points to this example:

• "It supplies an image that gets close to the specific work, for example the composer at the time when he wrote it or a scene/stage from the opera" - here I feel right in the action, motivated to read further, - vs. seeing the same template in all stage works by Wagner as if they were all created equal

That picture is awful.

It could be the composer's portrait, if you prefer and I originally suggested, for a more consistent look. For this work, it shows him at the right age. For Tannhäuser, it doesn't. Gerda Arendt (talk)

• "It is about the article, not leading the reader away as soon as he enters it", on top of the navigation in the side navbox duplicating information in the more general and more site-consistent footer navbox.

And a couple of first links to Gwyneth Jones and Patrice Chéreau are more helpful?

They are an offer for those (probably few) who don't know and want to know more, whereas the side navbox' only purpose is to lead away. Quiddity pointed out (repeatedly) the problem of "collapsing" in general. Gerda Arendt (talk)

• "It supplies a date in templated form  () that can be used for sort, compare, calculate, and that can be rendered in different forms, cultures and languages - a service beyond the English Misplaced Pages." A reader who enters the article by chance finds at a glance that the article topic is located in Bayreuth in 1876.

This is the English Misplaced Pages; you may be confusing its purpose with that of Wikidata. As for Bayreuth 1876: I see exactly that when I glance at the 1st paragraph.

I confess that I think of some editor in an African language (for example) who could easily create a stub in that language from structured information in an infobox but not from the prose. Gerda Arendt (talk)

• It supplies other key facts in structured form "at a glance" which is for some readers more accessible than prose", here the festival, the fact that the composer is also the librettist, the fact that it is part of the Ring cycle.

See previous point. Accessibility is disputable – some prefer fully formed sentences.

Nobody suggests to take the full sentences away. Please see the argument by Sphilbrick for looking up a specific fact more easily in an infobox than the prose. Gerda Arendt (talk)

• "It is site-consistent". Many more articles have an infobox than a side navbox.

Many more opera articles don't. Remember, the question is: how would the infobox improve the article, not that the infobox is not harmful.

I think consistency with the rest of Misplaced Pages is more desirable for the reader than within opera, which is not consistent to start with. Many operas don't have a side navbox. Gerda Arendt (talk)

• "It can be more attractive". May Wagner forgive me, the drama in the pictured scene speaks much more immediately to me than his ever-repeated portrait. The clear design of the infobox pleases me more than the unaligned boxes in the side navbox, my POV ;)

Exactly.

• "Wikidata will draw information from it". You don't want to hear that, what can I do?

No it won't; it works the other way round.

This argument is kosboot's. Please explain: what do you think where the information on Wikidata comes from? Someone needs to collect it, or we can supply it, as a service. Gerda Arendt (talk)

I had invited above: "Kindly leave it in place unless you consider it harmful". Should I conclude that you found it harmful? If so, please explain why, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:22, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Threaded comments by Michael Bednarek (talk) 07:16, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Gerda, as you know, no editor, not even you, owns an article or can instruct editors not to interfere with their edits. As you appear to refuse my offer to explain and debate your reasons, do you mean by this that you have no arguments to offer in favour of change? If so, then the case is cut and dry, and we can leave things as they are with the template.--Smerus (talk) 21:28, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

I gave you six reasons not to do so above, plus the invitation to kindly consider that even if YOU don't see the advantage of the infobox, it may still exist for others. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:45, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

The reasons are very simple. An infobox should relate to the article in question, not the vehicle to garnish one specific picture on a vast multitude of articles. -- Agathoclea (talk) 05:26, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Thank you Gerda, don't WP:SHOUT; it's 'never appropriate', to quote the WP guideline. That may be helpful to you in the mission to improve articles of yourself and your paretners in your "collaboration resource", as you call it, PumpkinSky, Montantabw and Pigsonthewing. I do not agree that any of the excuses you gave above were evidence-based reasons to install an infobox, and clearly neither does Michael Bednarek, with whose comments I agree. I await evidence based reasons as to why an infobox should be installed here.--Smerus (talk) 07:41, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

I didn't mean to shout, I only wanted to stress one word. - I feel like I am pleading with you as Abraham with God (Genesis 18:17–33): If there are only 10 readers who profit from the structured information about this article in the infobox, would you deprive them of it? Don't tell me that a single reader profits from the side navbox: information that he can find both by looking up the composer and in the footer navbox, if he really wants to get away from the article he just entered.

Or just go by the simple reason mentioned by Agathoclea above. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:38, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

If there are 10 readers who profit from the link to Wagner's other operas, would you deprive them of that benefit? But in fact we have not the slightest evidence that 10, or nil, or 1 million readers profit or 'benefit' from either - only subjective opinions. Either you have an evidence-based reason for change or you have not. What argues against your proposal is that the material in the infobox is in any case avaialble immediately to its left - and thus noone is deprived of anything by removal of the infobox. I am still awaiting an evidence based reason or reasons. If the only one you can advance is Agathoclea's not liking the picture, I am perfectly amenable to replacing the picture in the template with something appoprriate to the opera. That doesn't require, however, the repetitive and redundant information of the infobox. PS You will be rleeived to learn that I am not God; and Abraham, as you will read in Genesis, was pretty intransigent himself to those whom he conceived of as his enemies - moreover, he did not realise until it was almost too late that angels had visited him. Best, --Smerus (talk) 11:22, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

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