The grand closing scene of the prelude now begins.  Wotan attempts to enter Walhalla, but all is veiled in oppressive mist and heavy clouds.  The mighty Donner, accompanied by Froh, climbs a high rock in the valley’s slope and brandishes his hammer, summoning the clouds about him.  From out their darkness its blows are heard descending upon the rock.  Lightning leaps from them, and thunder-crashes follow each other with deafening sounds.  The rain falls in heavy drops.  Then the clouds part, and reveal the two in the midst of their storm-spell.  In the distance appears Walhalla bathed in the glow of the setting sun.  From their feet stretches a luminous rainbow across the valley to the castle, while out from the disappearing storm comes the sweet rainbow melody.  Froh sings, “Though built lightly it looks, fast and fit is the bridge.”  The gods are filled with delight, but Wotan gloomily contemplates the castle as the curse of the ring recurs to him.  At last a new thought comes in his mind.  The hero who will make reparation is to come from the new race of mortals of his own begetting.  The thought appears in the sword motive, and as its stately melody dies away, Wotan rouses from his contemplation and hails Walhalla with joy as “a shelter from shame and harm.”  He takes Fricka by the hand, and leading the way, followed by Froh, Freia, Donner, and Loge, the last somewhat reluctantly, the gods pass over the rainbow bridge and enter Walhalla bathed in the light of the setting sun and accompanied by the strains of a majestic march.  During their passage the plaintive song of the Rhine-daughters mourning their gold comes up from the depths.  Wotan pauses a moment and inquires the meaning of the sounds, and bids Loge send a message to them that the treasure shall “gleam no more for the maids.”  Then they pass laughingly and mockingly on through the splendor to Walhalla.  The sad song still rises from the depths of the Rhine, but it is overpowered by the strains of the march, and pealing music from the castle.  The curtain falls upon their laments, and the triumphant entrance of the gods into their new home.

DIE WALKUERE.

In “The Valkyrie,” properly the first part of the cyclus, the human drama begins.  Strong races of men have come into existence, and Wotan’s Valkyres watch over them, leading those who fall in battle to Walhalla, where, in the gods’ companionship, they are to pass a glorious life.  According to the original legend, Wotan blessed an unfruitful marriage of this race by giving the pair an apple of Hulda to eat, and the twins, Siegmund and Sieglinde, were the result of the union.  When the first act opens, Siegmund has already taken a wife and Sieglinde has married the savage warrior Hunding, but neither marriage has been fruitful.  It is introduced with an orchestral prelude representing a storm.  The pouring of the rain is audible among the violins and the rumbling