Comment: The “Forest Murmurs” episode is celebrated for its sheer loveliness, which is a welcome respite in this opera of ugly dwarfs, dragons, plots, and crudeness. The music here is subtle and gossamer-thin. Do not expect the lush scene painting of, say, the meadow in Parsifal. The “bird” in this scene is alternately an oboe, a flute, and a clarinet. Listeners who are familiar with Das Rheingold will notice the Rhinemaidens’ song repeated by the bird, accompanying Siegfried’s yearnings for the mother he never knew (which Wagner highlights beautifully on solo violin with a single quotation of Sieglinde’s “You are the spring” motif). In Freudian terms, this is the longing for the infantile state of dependence on the mother projected to a longing for a primal state of natural innocence, as in the world’s various golden age myths.
Siegfried’s efforts on his “reed” are usually played to the comic hilt. It’s very amusing to see an audience of Wagnerites accustomed to full orchestral fortissimi straining to follow a single out-of-tune oboe. When Siegfried plays his unaccompanied horn, we hear variations on a tune associated with him that will be exhaustively explored throughout the remainder of the saga. He also interjects the sword motif. God knows where he learned that. The lurching bass music telling us that Fafner is stirring is every bit as comic as the “reed,” although it’s not clear that it was meant to be.
Fafner wearily asks who wakes him, and Siegfried announces he is one who seeks to know fear. Are you full of bravado? asks Fafner. Bravery or bravado, you will decide, answers Siegfried. Fafner is content. He came out looking for a drink, but now he gets a meal! They taunt each other further before fighting. Siegfried stays clear of the tail and the mouth. Fafner rears up to pounce on Siegfried, who stabs him straight to the heart with Notung.
Fafner is stunned by the wound, asking who goaded the boy to this deed, since his young mind never could have conceived it. Siegfried replies that he knows very little, but asks the dragon who he is. The last of the race of giants, he replies, warning Siegfried that whoever put him up to this deed now seeks his death. Siegfried notes that the dragon seems wise in his death throes, and asks for information about himself. He tells his name, and repeating the name “Siegfried!” with a sigh, Fafner dies.
Some of the dragon’s blood had spewed onto Siegfried’s hand, burning it. Instinctively, he puts his hand to his mouth to lick the blood off, and suddenly notices the forest bird is speaking to him. He can understand it! The bird tells Siegfried that the Nibelung treasure in the cave now belongs to him. The Tarnhelm would help him perform great deeds, but the Ring would make him ruler of the world! He thanks the bird, and goes into the cave of Neidhöhle.
Comment: Fafner asks Siegfried what is prompting him, and Siegfried, characteristically, does not know. The orchestra, however, repeats the Curse of the Ring theme, letting us know that Siegfried is also a pawn of fate for all his “independence.” The adversary who gives wise counsel in death throes is as much a part of fairy tales as the dragon itself. The metamorphosis of the bird-as-woodwind into bird-as-lyric-soprano is excellent. We are thrilled to hear a light, lovely woman’s voice after all these grumbling men. Those who enjoy understanding the Ring in psychoanalytical terms see great implications in the hero pulling the dangerous treasure out of a dark hole.
Mime and Alberich both approach the mouth of the cave at the same time, each telling the other to stay away from “his” property, and arguing over who has more rights to the gold. Mime offers to give Alberich the Ring in exchange for the Tarnhelm, but Alberich insists he will have the entire treasure. Mime answers that he will likewise share none of it with Alberich, and he will call on Siegfried to kill his brother. They notice Siegfried emerging from the cave, and curse as they see him carrying both the Tranhelm and the Ring. They hide.
Siegfried regards the Ring, not sure what it signifies but trusting the bird’s counsel. The bird now warns him to beware of Mime, who seeks his death. Siegfried will now be able to understand the meaning behind Mime’s words as if he could read his heart, the same way he can understand birds. He nods his head in acknowledgment.
Mime comes to Siegfried, asking if he has slain the dragon and learned fear. Siegfried replies that he has not yet learned fear. The dragon’s death saddens him, since there are worse creatures who still live unpunished! Mime bids him quiet, since he won’t have to endure him much longer. Do you mean to harm me? asks Siegfried. Did I say that, my son? I have always hated you and your kind. Now I’ll take the treasure you’ve won, and your life! Siegfried is glad to hear the dwarf has always hated him, but balks at giving him his life. Mime insists he is misunderstood. He only wants to give Siegfried some refreshing soup, which will put him to sleep, after which Mime will kill him and win the Ring. Slay me as I sleep? asks Siegfried. Is that what I said? asks Mime. I only want to chop off your head! Now drink this soup and choke to death so you never taste another drop! Taste this! cries Siegfried, who kills Mime with one stroke of the sword. Alberich, hidden, laughs hideously.
Siegfried casts Mime’s body into the cave to rot on the treasure he envied, and stretches out again on the ground. He is hot and tired. The bird flies about, and Siegfried speaks to it. How lonely he is! The bird must have friends, brothers and sisters, a father and a mother, but he has no one. All he ever had was a detestable dwarf. Does the bird know of a companion for him? The bird says it knows a wonderful wife for him, sleeping on a rock surrounded by fire. Whoever could cross that fire would win Brünnhilde! Siegfried’s heart burns at the news. Shall he cross the fire? Can he waken the bride? Only one who does not know fear can cross the fire and wake Brünnhilde, advises the bird. I am the idiot who does not know fear, replies Siegfried, candidly. He sought fear from Fafner, but perhaps will learn it from Brünnhilde! He bids the bird to lead on—he will follow it to the mountain!
Comment: Mime never shuts up in this act. Did Wagner feel a pang of guilt in killing him off this way? Siegfried has three warnings about the dwarf’s intentions (his own premonition in the first act, then Fafner and the bird). Then there is the scene in which he can read Mime’s thoughts, which is amusing but rather belabored. If Wagner’s intention was to have Mime annoy us to death with his endless chatter, so much so that we are tempted to cheer his murder, he succeeded.
Not to criticize, but if there’s any chunk of the Ring that could benefit from a prudent restructuring, Act II of Siegfried is it. There’s no shortage of brilliant music here, nor of characterization and development, nor least of all of action, but the pacing and unfolding of events is untypically halting. Instead of the great sweeping arc of music and drama that we get in most acts of Wagner’s operas, what we get here is a dramatic structure that is difficult to fathom. Siegfried has two long soliloquies—one before he slays the dragon and one after he kills Mime. That he is able to lie on the ground and pine for mother love after killing (twice) may be illustrative of his character, but it’s no easier on the audience for all that.
Commentators have a nasty habit of implying that those who get restless in places like this are stupid, boorish, bourgeois, or some other adjective that implies it’s “their fault if they’re bored.” People don’t fall for that as easily as they once did, so another answer must be sought. Wagner, of course, is beyond reproach, so the blame usually falls on the tenor, and has since the first performance. Siegfried almost always disappoints, but we must be careful not to overindulge in this facile pastime. For a mere mortal to sing, act, and look the part of Siegfried is an accomplishment beside which the mere slaying of a dragon and walking through a fire might be regarded as paltry.
The end of the act also strikes many as an anticlimax. Basically, the bird says “Now go find Brünnhilde!,” not bothering to explain who this Brünnhilde woman might be, and Siegfried replies, “OK, I will!” He then scampers offstage to some remarkably “cute” music, notwithstanding the corpse-strewn stage. We can be forgiven if we mutter, on our way to the lobby, “Well, Wagner had to bring the curtain down somewhere!”
Act III, Scene 1
Setting: The base of a rocky mountain. Night.
In the Prelude, the full orchestra gives out a complex counterpoint of themes.
Comment: Everything and everyone connected with the Ring have either just confronted each other or are just about to.
Wotan magisterially calls Erda, the Wala, to wake and hear him. She arises from the sleep of wisdom, a frost-covered apparition emerging from a cleft in the rock, emitting a blue light. Who calls her? Wotan announces himself as one who has wandered the world in search of wisdom. None is wiser than she, the eternal woman! All is known to her—what connects mountain and valley, air and water. So he has come to her for knowledge. “My sleep is dreaming,” she replies, “my dreaming meditation, my meditation the mastery of wisdom.” But the Norns are awake while she sleeps, spinning what she knows. Why not speak to them? Wotan will not be put off by this. The Norns spin, constrained by the world. They can change nothing, but from Erda he must learn how to “hold back a rolling wheel.” Men’s deeds make her mind dusky, she replies. For all her wisdom, she was once overpowered by Wotan, to whom she bore a wise maiden. Why not go ask her? Brünnhilde flouted the Stormfather, permitting herself to do what he had wanted to do but did not permit himself. She is now punished with sleep until the chosen hero awakes her. Why speak to her?
Erda is confused—the world is wild and twisted! Does he who taught pride punish pride? Does he who is responsible for the deed punish the deed? Does the ruler of right and trust rule by lies? Oh, let me sleep, she pleads, and seal my wisdom! But Wotan retains her. She planted the thorn of anxiety in his heart, and now she must tell him how the god may conquer his anxieties. “You are not what you call yourself!” she hurls at him, requesting sleep again. “And you are not what you think you are!” is his retort. The time of Erda’s wisdom is passing, and will crumble before his will. Does she know what his will is? The passing of the gods! What he once feared, he now wills! Siegfried, his hero, will awaken Brünnhilde, and she will perform the deed that redeems the world! Erda descends to eternal sleep, and the night grows calmer. Wotan turns and awaits the inevitable in the moonlight.
Comment: Erda freely admits that she’s grown foggier at this point than she had been in the time of Das Rheingold. In that opera, she came to Wotan uninvited, and gave unsolicited, if murky, advice. Here she does not even recognize him.
Wotan has achieved a certain philosophical evolution in this scene. To align the personal will with what must be is the goal of most religious discipline.
Siegfried appears. He has lost the bird. The Wanderer asks what he seeks. The way to the fire-belted rock and the sleeping woman, he answers. Who told you to seek the rock and crave the woman? The forest bird, he replies. How did you understand the chatter of a bird? The blood of the dragon I killed at Neidhöhle scarcely touched my tongue, and I understood bird talk, answers Siegfried. Who incited you to slay the dragon? Mime, a lying dwarf who wanted to teach me fear, he answers. And who made the sword strong enough to kill the dragon? I did myself, the boy declares. But who made the sturdy pieces from which you made the sword? How would I know? answers Siegfried, growing impatient. But they were useless splinters until I forged them again. Wotan laughs heartily, saying he agrees with the boy on that point. The laugh annoys Siegfried, who orders the old chatterbox to direct him or get out of his way. Wotan advises patience and respect for his elders, but Siegfried blows up. All his life there’s been an old man in his way, and if this one isn’t careful, he’ll end up like Mime! Furthermore, why do you wear such a big, floppy hat? That is the custom of Wanderers, Wotan replies. But one of your eyes is missing. Was it plucked out by some other person you were annoying by standing in his way? Wotan replies mysteriously that his missing eye is now in Siegfried looking at him, but this is lost on the dumb boy.
Siegfried laughs, but demands that the old man move. Wotan replies that he has always loved Siegfried’s race, but he knows how to chastise them when he has to. Siegfried tells him again to move, because he knows that this is the path to the woman. The bird told him so before it flew away. It feared for its life, answers the old man, since it saw the Lord of the Ravens. Wotan forbids passage, and points out first the glow, then the flames engulfing the mountain. Would he walk through fire? Siegfried insists he will, and the Wanderer says if the fire will not stop him, he will use his Spear. This very Spear once shattered the sword the boy carries. Overjoyed to meet his father’s foe at last, Siegfried shatters the shaft of the Spear in one blow. There is a peal of thunder, and a flash of lightning running from the broken Spear up to the mountaintop. Wotan regards the broken pieces of the Spear with perfect calm, picking them up after a moment and saying, “Go. I can no longer stop you.” He disappears in complete darkness.
Comment: Farewell, Wotan! The once-magnificent god quietly retires from the stage at this point. (In theory, we should see him again at the end of Götterdämmerung, burning up in Valhalla, but few productions bother.) The confrontation of Siegfried and Wotan can be understood psychologically (the Oedipal moment), politically (the new smashing the old), or in classic terms of tragedy (the rescuer and the victim have traded roles). Whatever concept the production is emphasizing, it goes without saying that this scene should be impressively portentous.
Siegfried makes his way up the fiery mountain, undaunted by the flames in which he “bathes.” Not a single hair on his head is singed. He finds himself at the summit of the peak.
Comment: The orchestra plays a magnificent interlude, juxtaposing sleep, fire, and Siegfried’s horn calls, summoning a new excitement for this critical moment.
If the psychoanalytically inclined are titillated by Siegfried’s pulling the treasure out of the cave in Act II, they are permitted a field day here. One doesn’t have to be a classic Freudian to sense something going on. Siegfried’s passage through the flames can be understood as an interior journey through the terrifying subconscious to the gratifying union of male and female aspects of the self.
Shaw saw it all in blunt socialist terms. Wotan, signifying the church, had invented the flames of hell to cower the masses and bar them from a dangerous empowerment. The fire around the mountain is as “imaginary” as the flames of hell, but only the all-free anarchist Siegfried would dare to challenge the illusion.
Act III, Scene 2
Once on the mountaintop, Siegfried immediately notices the sleeping, armored figure. A companion at last! He removes the helmet. How beautiful the hero is, but the breastplate is constricting his breathing. He cuts the breastplate away, but leaps back in terror at what he sees. “That is not a man!” he cries. Who can help him? He calls on his mother, begging for aid in this strange new feeling. Is this—fear? He must wake her by kissing her lips, even if it kills him. After a long kiss, Brünnhilde opens her eyes.
Brünnhilde greets the world and the gods, asking who the hero is who wakened her. Siegfried tells her his name, and she joyously repeats her greeting to the world, the sky, and the sun. He joins her in blessing the elements, since now he can see these two eyes that captivate him so. She blesses his mother and the earth that nourished him, and tells him she has always loved him, even before he was born. Siegfried asks if Brünnhilde, then, is his mother. She tells him his mother will not come back to him. But she, Brünnhilde, fought for him, defied Wotan, and was punished, all because she did not think, but only loved—Siegfried! He revels in her beauty and her words, seeing that she has caused him his first anxiety but has not taken away his courage.
Brünnhilde notices her horse, Grane, grazing nearby. It, too, was awakened by Siegfried’s kiss. She then notices her armor stripped away. She has become a defenseless woman, and Siegfried’s ardor is growing. No god ever came so close to her, and heroes bowed before her virginity! “I am Brünnhilde no more!” She becomes more fearful despite his urgings, pleading with him to love her by letting her be, but he continues. She must awaken to laughter and life, and be his. “Oh, Siegfried,” she replies, “I was al
ways yours!” He embraces her and she responds, wondering if her wildness does not consume him. He responds that they set each other’s blood ablaze equally, and yet that fear that she so recently taught him he has forgotten. She cannot resist this childlike hero, this lordlike boy. Laughing, she will love him, and let them perish while laughing. She bids farewell to Valhalla and the gods, and let the night of annihilation descend. Siegfried loves her, he is hers in beaming love and laughing death! He hails the day and the sun and the world in which the waking Brünnhilde dwells, and repeats her sentiments that she is his in beaming love and laughing death.
Comment: Beaming what and laughing huh? What on earth are Siegfried and Brünnhilde talking about here? This may be one instance in the Ring when you’re actually better off not knowing what the characters are saying.
This celebrated scene remains popular with audiences in spite of its capacity for low comedy. The music is sublime throughout, from Brünnhilde’s awakening to graceful orchestral tones to the unveiling of passion later. People recognize two melodies from the sublime Siegfried Idyll, one of Wagner’s few nonvocal pieces and one that is heard often on the radio and in the concert hall. The climax is thrilling if both singers are in good voice, and it’s a relief to hear Wagner relaxing his dogma about lovers singing at the same time and allowing them a bit of overlap.
This, however, is not your standard love duet. Anna Russell famously called it “Anything you can sing, I can sing louder,” and it does have a competitive feel to it. The two “contestants” are famously mismatched, with the tenor having sung at the edges of his capacities for several hours and the soprano coming in for the last half hour and stealing the show. There is a contrary school of thought on this subject, which says that the advantage is actually to the tenor, since he is warmed up, whereas she must come on cold and hope for the best. This may be true, since Brünnhilde’s role here, though brief, is no picnic. Although it doesn’t have the scope of the role in Die Walküre or Götterdämmerung, it has the highest tessitura (average pitch) of any of the three Brünnhildes, and some sopranos insist it is the hardest of the three.
Wagner Without Fear Page 29