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Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods)

Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods), is the final opera in Richard Wagner's cycle of four operas titled Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung, or The Ring for short). It premiered at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus on 17 August 1876, as part of the first complete performance of the Ring.  

The Twilight of the Gods is dominated by an ambiance of gloom. Wotan and the rest of the cycle's characters face the consequences of their actions in the first three operas of the Ring. As predicted by the three Norns in the "Prelude" to this opera, the curse of Alberich (the dwarf or "nibelung") on the ring is prophetic: anyone who becomes its owner is ultimately destroyed. Although Wotan's disempowerment was foreshadowed in Siegfried by the breaking of his spear by Siegfried, the doomed fate of the gods and their All-Father Wotan is sealed when Alberich's evil son, Hagen tricks and murders the brave hero Siegfried. Thus, The Twilight of the Gods, which is "a panorama of love and betrayal, good and evil, subconscious and overt events, grand, pictorial and private, intimate scenes" is "the climax of the whole Ring cycle" and "shows Wagner at zenith of his powers" (Alan Blyth).