What Are You Listening To?

[Tiggi]

Opens with the three Norns - who weave the world's destiny in the form of a rope - recapping, before they manage to snap the rope.

Switches to Siegfried & Brunnhilde where the last Opera left off. He goes off in search of heroic adventure having exchanged trinkets with Brunnhilde. She gets the ring.

Meanwhile, Hagen (Alberich's son, who has been raised to try to secure the world domination that his father lusted after), Gunther (Ruler of the Gibichung race), & Gutrune (Gunther's sister) are in the Gibichung palace on the banks of the Rhine. Hagen hatches a plan to track down Siegfried, to get access to Brunnhilde, who he suggests Gunther should marry, thus getting access to the ring, the tarnhelm, and the treasure.

Siegfried sails past the palace, and they invite him ashore. Hagen gives Siegfried a potion that will make him forget Brunnhilde, thus using the Tarnhelm, he can breach the flames on the mountain disguised as Gunther, and bring her to the palace to marry Gunther, and secure the fortune. In exchange for this, Siegfried will marry Gutrune, with whom he's become infatuated.

The plan works, but Siegfried grabs the ring from Brunnhilde's finger whilst disguised as Gunther. Brunnhilde is stunned when siegfried reveals himself at the palace, but doesn't recognise her.

To cut a very long story short, Hagen kills Siegfried on a hunting trip, and when his body is brought back to the palace, Gunther is killed in a fight with Hagen, Brunnhilde orders a huge pyre built for Siegfried, and once lit, rides her horse into it, telling two ravens to tell Loge to use his fire to burn down Valhalla, since she believes all this trouble is the fault of Wotan.

As the fire purifies the ring of its' curse the Rhine overflows, and the Rhine maidens swim into the extinguished pyre to recover the ring. As they do so, they drag Hagen into the river to drown him. The last thing the Gibichungs see before the Opera ends, is the glow in the distance of Valhalla burning, bringing an end to the saga: The Twilight of The Gods.

15 CDs, and over 16 hours. Epic, and brilliant...