Everybody knows what a foul is. That’s why there is such unanimity among fans, players, coaches, and officials whenever a whistle blows (or does not blow).
Here, Waltraute (Marvellee Cariaga) commits a classic reach and grab foul against her sister Brunnhilde (Ute Vinzing), in the second quarter of Gotterdammerung. Brunnhilde would go on to get a hot hand and torch her former team mates in what would become a real barn-burner by the end. But that’s not how the officials saw it. In fact there were no officials actually watching this particular play since it was likely at a dress rehearsal, and the ball wasn’t actually present. Waltraute is grabbing her sister’s hand which is wearing Alberich’s ring. Not about basketball at all. Somebody doctored the photo.
So why Brunnhilde anyway? I discovered Wagner operas about the time I graduated from high school. Whenever my young daughters would ask me “Daddy, what should I name my [doll, stuffed animal, pet gerbil, etc.]”, I would invariably say “Brunnhilde.” Brunnhilde being a very strong and important character in the “greatest work of art conceived by a single person.” My daughters never accepted my suggestion. But over the years, Novell fileservers, WebSphere MQ queue managers, numerous windows and linux hosts have all had some form of the Brunnhilde name.
Why TeamBrunnhilde then? At least in Die Walkure, Brunnhilde and her sisters are high school age, although the opera singers are generally anything but. The famous music you’ve heard from Die Walkure, featured in numerous commercials and movies, is the beginning of Act III in which the she and her sister Valkyries ride their flying horses carrying fallen heroes up to Valhalla. They have a lot of fun doing so. Making jokes about dead dudes they are packing up to see daddy. They are a team. Young strong women who have fun, play tough, and kick butt when they need to. Sounds like the kind of basketball team I’d like to watch.