The concluding instalment of Kasper Holten’s Copenhagen Ring really does wrap it up as Brünnhilde’s story.  It’s very effective in so doing too.  Holten states that the central problem in interpreting the Ring is the ending and he points out that Wagner struggled with it for years before resorting to what Holten sees as a cop out; the tired, patriarchal device of wrapping things up by having the heroine sacrifice herself for her man.  Holten rejects this and instead offers us a living Brünnhilde as a symbol of hope and renewal at the end of a century of terrible strife.  I wish I were as optimistic.

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