Brunnhilda commands the funeral pyre to
be built and the body of Siegfried placed on it; she chants her song in
praise of love, mounts her horse Grani, and rides through the fire into
the Rhine. Shouting "The ring!" Hagen dashes after her; the ring has
returned to the maidens, and Loge, unchained, mounts up and Walhalla is
consumed. So ends the third subsidiary drama of the _Ring_.

The music is the last Wagner wrote in his ripe period; when we get to
_Parsifal_ his powers were waning. In point of structure it is the same
as that of _Siegfried_. It has less of springtime freshness than the
_Valkyrie_, and the prevailing colour is sombre and tragic; but there
are magnificent things. The Norns scene, the Journey of the Rhine, the
Waltrante scene, the funeral march, and Brunnhilda's final speech, are
Wagner in the full glory of his strength.

The complete _Ring_ was given for the first time at the opening of the
Bayreuth (Wagner) Theatre in 1876. The performance did not pay, and the
expenses had to be covered by selling the dresses and scenery. Bayreuth
was by no means in those days the fashionable summer resort it has since
become. Nevertheless, the immediate effect felt throughout Europe was
electric, stupendous. As a mere advertisement, it proved more effective
than anything devised for pills and patent soaps. Hundreds who went to
Bayreuth to pass the time, or at most in a spirit of intelligent
curiosity, came away converted to the new faith; many who went to sponge
remained to pay; and all preached the doctrine of Wagnerism wherever
they went. Well they might. As I was an infant at the time, my
recollections of the first performances and of Wagner's speech are not
so vivid as those of some of my younger colleagues, who, like myself,
were not there; but, according to all creditable accounts, the
representations must have been a nearer approach to perfection in all
respects, save the singing, than anything seen before. In one sense
Wagner had attempted no revolution in stage-craft; but in another sense
it was, perhaps, the best sort of revolution to secure the ablest men,
and make them take care, pains, with their work. Anyhow, if tolerable
operatic representations can now be seen in every country of Europe save
Italy, the credit must go to Wagner, who first taught the impresarios
what to aim at and how to achieve their aim, and gave the accursed star
system a blow from which it is slowly dying. Carefully nursed though