Ah.

edible weaponry.

nice.

Interesting, Richard, that you say Rheingold comes closest to realising Wagner's concept of music-drama; without necessarily disagreeing with that, and certainly without denying some of the breath-taking originality of the score, I also think that in many ways the language itself (as against the formalisation of the structure that someone mentioned in connection with Gotterdammerung) still looks back to earlier grand opera models (Meyerbeer particularly - and there is some irony there!!!) more than any of the other parts of the Ring. I guess what I'm saying is that it is another example of how language and style do not have to be totally reinvented in order to create something which, in the broad sweep of musical history, is going to be of lasting importance and significance.

The harmonic "language" of Rheingold is certainly not as convoluted as that in its successors; what I meant, though, was that it's the only one which wholly embodies the precepts stated by Wagner in his essay "Oper und Drama" (I think that's what it's called), written shortly before the music of Rheingold, which is accordingly "naturalistic" in its lack of end-rhymes in the libretto, closed forms or ensembles in the score, and so on, although Loge's monologue has always seems suspiciously like an aria to me.

who rattled your cage? 

...ahem...finished yet...?

nonsense words include:

Wallala! Lalaleia! Leialalei!
Heia! Heia! Haha!
Schäme dich, Albe!
Schilt nicht dort unten!
Höre, was wir dich heissen!
Warum, du Banger,
bandest du nicht
das Mädchen, das du minnst?
Treu sind wir
und ohne Trug
dem Freier, der uns fängt.
Greife nur zu,
und grause dich nicht!
In der Flut entflieh'n wir nicht leicht!
Wallala! Lalaleia! Leialalei!
Heia! Heia! Hahei!
     *****     
Heiajaheia!
Heiajaheia!
Wallalalalala leiajahei!
Rheingold!
Rheingold!
Leuchtende Lust,
wie lachst du so hell und hehr!
Glühender Glanz
entgleisset dir weihlich im Wag!
Heiajahei!
Heiajaheia!
Wache, Freund,
Wache froh!
Wonnige Spiele
spenden wir dir:
flimmert der Fluss,
flammet die Flut,
umfliessen wir tauchend,
tanzend und singend
im seligem Bade dein Bett!
Rheingold!
Rheingold!
Heiajaheia!
Wallalalalala heiajahei!

     *****
Rheingold! Rheingold!
Reines Gold!
O leuchtete noch
in der Tiefe dein laut'rer Tand!
Traulich und treu
ist's nur in der Tiefe:
falsch und feig
ist, was dort oben sich freut!

     *****     

probably more than Froh, Donner and Freia put together, mind, and the words *are* important.

Thank you, Reiner, that's what I was trying to say. As to why this "new" way of doing things gradually gave way to something else, as we've said before here this must have something to do with the way the "Ring" libretto was (broadly speaking) written in the opposite order to the music, but that doesn't really answer the question - maybe it's something as simple as Wagner's composerly sensibilities getting the better of him as he started examining the implications of the leitmotiv technique, leading eventually to the "discovery" that the orchestra has so many more affective dimensions than the voices that what they sing doesn't have to be as upfront as he thought when writing his essay and then Rheingold.

I think it was more strategic than a 'ban', at least as far as The Ring is concerned. And even more so if you expand that idea outwards to include 'choruses', however defined. The Valkuries' 'ride', and even better, the hymn of praise to Hagen in Gotterdammerung by his soldiers ('Hagen, the Grim One!') are both exquisitely calculated ensembles in their respective dramatic contexts, all the more telling because of the relative paucity of such instances elsewhere.

Perhaps it's a stage whisper but this exposes a limitation of Wagner's scheme. Imagine you're Siegfried and everywhere you go your associated themes are played. It would drive you nuts and the people you visit.