Preview: Brünnhilde asks, "Who am I if I were not your will?" Question: Is it ever OK for a daughter to say such a thing to her father?

Deborah Voigt as Brünnhilde and Bryn Terfel as Wotan in the new Met production of Die Walküre, 2011

BRÜNNHILDE [answers WOTAN softly]:
To Wotan's will you're speaking;
you can say what you will;
what am I,
if not your will alone?

-- English singing translation by Andrew Porter

[A]

[B]

[C]

[D]

Our four Brünnhildes could be drawn from this list (in alphabetical order): Kirsten Flagstad, Rita Hunter, Birgit Nilsson, and Astrid Varnay

by Ken

There are, of course, parents who truly don't want their children to be independent -- indeed, whole cultures that depend on squelching any such impulse. But through time there have also been lots of seemingly enlightened parents who wish this devoutly, as long as said independence leads the children to think and behave exactly as they would wish. It doesn't usually work out this way. It's a dilemma.

Now Wotan has particular reasons for needing independence in his children, which we won't go into now, except to wonder how feasible it is for his own flesh and blood to be truly independent of him. This week we're continuing to deal with his unbearable pain at being forced to part with his Valkyrie daughter Brünnhilde, as he does in the great Farewell at the end of Die Walküre, which we heard last week ("Can we fully feel Wotan's pain knowing that it's mostly self-inflicted?"). It's after he has been bitch-slapped by his wife, Fricka, over the whole mess he's gotten into, dating back to his flagrant breach of contract with the giants Fasolt and Fafner, violating a contract he never had any intention of honoring, that he finds himself in dialogue with Brünnhilde.

Brünnhilde has found her father in a state of despair unlike anything she has ever seen, and has implored him to open up to her. He responded with one of the musical literature's most extraordinary outbursts -- an expression of rage and self-pity (which we're going to hear in a moment). Getting a bit of control of himself, he asked whether unburdening himself might not cost him the grip of his will. She responds with the extraordinary passage we've just heard.


LET'S HEAR OUR FOUR BRÜNNHILDES AGAIN,
THIS TIME PROPERLY IDENTIFIED