Meltdown in Valhalla

What begins with the borrowing of some capital ends 14 hours later with cataclysmic disaster. It is a drama thousands and thousands in the western hemisphere watch these days — from Seattle to New York, from London to Milan, and from Munich to St Petersburg. Ticket prices are high, although sponsorship money flows in luxuriant quantities hand-in-hand with public subsidies; after all, the show (which originally was intended to be produced only once, the set consumed for ever in the last scene’s flames) is notoriously expensive to produce.

The show in question is, of course, Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen, arguably the greatest and surely the longest piece in the repertoire that the opera houses of the world have to stage in order to be taken seriously. And never more so than now…with Wagner’s 200th birthday looming.

In the Ring’s first scene a credit relationship is established. Alberich receives some valuable capital from the Rhinemaidens, the Rhinegold, which they did not use for productive purposes (if we put aside the joy of its glimmer). The transaction is not voluntary but from an accounting point of view this hardly matters. Alberich has some debt-financed capital and the Rhinemaidens have a new ‘receivable’ (an amount owed to them) in their accounts. But what really matters is that Alberich, an entrepreneurial genius of the highest order, gets the capital moving. In no time, he creates a successful industrial business that generates a massive surplus and he celebrates his success by commissioning the eponymous ring.

Same time, different place. God Wotan’s new house, Walhall, is almost finished. Wotan has had a few good times but, right now, is broke. The construction company, Fasolt & Fafner Inc., had feared as much when they accepted Wotan’s building contract and, fortunately for them, had insisted on some collateral, which Wotan had somewhat flippantly granted in the form of his sister-in-law, Freia.