Michael Trimble, Dale C. Hesdorffer and Robert Letellier, The Mystery of Wotan’s Missing Eye

November 2013, Volume 7, Number 3, 26–37.

Everyone who attends to a performance of Wagner’s Ring must be immediately aware that Wotan is always portrayed with a damaged eye. Interesting questions are why, where and when Wotan lost his eye. There has been much discussion on these points already in the literature, and Joachim Köhler has recently opined that the eye patch ‘remains puzzling’. It has come to our attention that in most productions of the Ring cycle, it is Wotan’s left eye which is shown as damaged or missing. We examine the frequency with which the left eye is damaged and explore the possibility that this choice has significance for the interpretation of Wotan’s character.