For a few moments the stage is empty, but the orchestra assures us that someone is hurrying toward the rocky crag. It is Siegmund and Sieglinde, the latter exhausted by flight and sorely troubled in her conscience. She loves Siegmund deeply, but she fears she has done wrong, and she wildly dreads the coming battle. Finally, she falls asleep, her head on her brother’s knee, and Siegmund bends silently over her and kisses her brow.
Suddenly Brünnhilde stands before him. Solemnly she tells him that he is about to die, that she has come to take him to Valhalla to join the other heroes there. Even his magical sword shall not save him, for its power has been withdrawn. All this he receives with dignified tranquillity; but when he learns that Sieglinde may not be with him, that she must remain on earth to bear his child, which she is already carrying, he bursts out wrathfully. He rejects Valhalla and says he would rather go to the lower regions than be parted from Sieglinde. He even raises his sword to kill the sleeping woman so that they may remain together. This gesture makes Brünnhilde change her mind. She now promises to shield him in battle, and she rides off swiftly.
Off-stage are heard the sounds of Hunding in pursuit. Light begins to fail; and in the semi-darkness Siegmund bids his sleeping sister farewell and hastens up the mountainside to meet the enemy. A moment later she awakens, calling for Siegmund, and is terrified by the sound of Hunding’s hunting horn. Up on the mountain a flash of lightning shows Siegmund already in battle. For a moment Brünnhilde hovers over the hero, defending him, but then a Ted light reveals Wotan, holding his spear between the two men. Siegmund’s sword is shattered on that spear, and Hunding drives his own into the body of his enemy.
As Brünnhilde rushes down to take up the body of Sieglinde, who has fainted away, Wotan turns contemptuously to Hunding. With a gesture of his hand he causes the desperate man to fall dead, and then, through the thunder and lightning, he sets off in pursuit of his disobedient child.
ACT III
The last act begins with the exciting Ride of the Valkyries, familiar in its orchestral garb to every concert-goer but far more exciting when the curtain goes up and the music is supplemented with the warrior maidens themselves, rushing over the mountain tops, first four, then eight of them calling to each other, “Ho-yo-to-ho!” (The stage directions require that the girls come riding on horseback, each carrying a dead hero on the way to Valhalla. Few if any opera houses have ever assembled so gifted a female choir as to be able to perform this scene literally as horse opera.) Of the nine daughters of Wotan and Erda one, however, is missing. This is Brünnhilde, and when she arrives late on the scene, she brings with her not a warrior but a pregnant woman—Sieglinde. Swiftly she explains to her sisters who Sieglinde is and why Wotan is pursuing her. They are afraid to help her for fear of angering their father; nevertheless, they tell her that in the East, the giant Fafner, changed into the shape of a dragon, is guarding the Ring. There, Brünnhilde knows, Sieglinde will be safe from Wotan as he does not dare go near the place. She gives Sieglinde the pieces of Siegmund’s sword, which she has saved, and tells her that someday her son may put them together again. Thrilled with her mission, Sieglinde thanks her savior and hurries away.
Amid thunder and dark clouds Wotan now arrives on the scene. At first her sisters try to hide Brünnhilde and to plead for her, but Wotan is adamant and calls on her to come forth. With great dignity she does so and asks for her sentence. It is that she may no longer serve her father, that henceforth she shall no longer be a Valkyrie, and that she shall serve, one day, a mortal husband. Again her sisters try to plead for her; again he turns on them; and he threatens that anyone who helps her shall share her fate. Then, on his stern command, they ride swiftly off, leaving Brünnhilde alone with Wotan. After a long silence Brünnhilde raises herself from her prostrate position and asks, “Was it so shameful, what I have done?” (War es so schmählich?) With fine feminine logic she points out that she did only what he himself wished he might have done. The fire of Wotan’s anger goes out of him, but not the steel. At great length, and with great sorrow, he tells her that they must now be forever parted. He must put her to sleep, and she shall belong to the first man who shall come upon her. At least, she begs, let it not be a coward who claims. Let him build around her sleeping place a fiery flame to guard her.
Deeply moved, Wotan raises her to her feet and sings his noble and heroic farewell, promising the fire that she has requested. Slowly she falls asleep; he lays her on a grassy mound; he kisses her once more, covers her with her shield, and solemnly walks to the center of the stage. Lifting his spear, he commands Loge to appear. This is where the Magic Fire Music is played. Fire starts springing up on every side as Wotan directs; and when it is all over the stage, he pronounces a final spell: “Only the man who does not fear my spear may walk through this fire!” Then, after one last look at his beloved daughter, he strides through the fire himself.
SIEGFRIED
Opera in three acts by Richard Wagner with
libretto in German by the composer
WOTAN, disguised as the “Wanderer” Bass-baritone
SIEGFRIED, son of Siegmund and Sieglinde Tenor
BRüNNHILDE, formerly a Valkyrie, now a mortal Soprano
ERDA, the earth goddess Contralto
brother Nibelungs
ALBERICH Baritone
MIME Tenor
FAFNER, a giant transformed into a dragon Bass
FOREST BIRD Soprano
Time: mythological
Place: Germany
First performance at Bayreuth, August 16, 1876
Again a number of years have passed between the operas of the Ring cycle, though this time it is easier to estimate about how many. Sieglinde left the last act of Die Walküre to wander in the direction of the home of the Nibelungs. There she was found by Mime, Alberich’s smithy brother; there she died giving birth to her son, who, Brünnhilde had told her, was to be named Siegfried; there he had grown up, with Mime as his foster father, into a healthy, arrogant, rude young man, delighting in the creatures of the forest and despising the dwarf who has raised him.
ACT I
Shortly after the curtain rises, we learn of Mime’s motives in having taken the trouble to rear the child. He sits at his forge in a forest clearing outside the cave he inhabits, muttering aloud to himself as he works halfheartedly at a sword for Siegfried—halfheartedly because he knows that the powerful youngster will disgustedly smash it to pieces as he has done with all of Mime’s other inferior swords. Someday he hopes an invincible sword may be made of the pieces of Nothung, which Sieglinde had left with him, but he is not strong enough to forge them himself. With this sword, Mime believes, Siegfried will be able to slay Fafner and give his foster father the Ring, with all the power it carries. Fafner, for his part, having seized the whole hoard of gold (at the end of Das Rheingold), has used the Tarnhelm to change himself into a huge dragon and is so dull-witted that he can find nothing better to do with the gold than to lie on it.
With this much exposition out of the way, Siegfried comes in hallooing and driving before him a young bear which he has brought simply to frighten the dwarf. He insults Mime, wondering why he ever comes home when the animals are so much better company than this ugly fellow. Whiningly (but not without considerable justification, it would seem) Mime complains of the shabby reward he gets for having brought Siegfried up, serving both as father and as mother. Siegfried remains unimpressed by these complaints, which he has doubtless heard often, and finally manages to elicit from Mime what little he knows of his mother, that is, her name and the circumstances of his birth, for Mime professes ignorance of her distinguished paternity. Nor will he tell Siegfried who his father was. But he does tell him about the broken sword that Sieglinde had left and, demanding that Mime forge it for him at once, Siegfried dashes off once more to rejoin his furry and feathered friends.
With Siegfried gone, Mime has a second visitor—a distinguished-looking old gentleman with a staff and a long blue coat, who boast
s of his great wisdom and calls himself “Wanderer.” Mime is not receiving this afternoon and unceremoniously asks the old fellow to be on his way. Quite unperturbed, the Wanderer seats himself at the hearth and offers to demonstrate his wisdom by answering any three questions put to him. His head shall be the forfeit if he fails. Mime, who has been boasting of his own native intelligence, cannot resist the offer and comes up with three questions in a category on which the Wanderer is the top expert—for, as can be learned from the Cast of Characters, he is Wotan in disguise. The questions are: who inhabits the deepest caverns, who rests on the “back of the earth,” and who lives in the cloudy heights? The answers—each given with additional detail—are the Nibelungs, the giants, and the gods.
Admitting the answers to be quite correct, Mime again invites his guest to leave. But Wotan insists that he too now has the right to ask three questions, and his are much harder. The first two are answered without difficulty, the correct answers being “the Wälsungs” and “Nothung.” In giving these answers, with added detail, Mime shows that he knows a good deal more about family history than he has yet divulged to Siegfried. But the third question (an unfair one, as it deals with the future) floors the dwarf. It is: who is going to put the pieces of Nothung together again? And when Mime, in great fright, admits he does not know, Wotan tells him that it will be someone who has never experienced fear. However, he will not demand Mime’s head: let that be taken, also, by one who knows no fear. And the Wanderer wanders off.
Left alone, Mime is overcome by fright. The orchestra whips up a fury of forest sounds; in the distance the bellowing of the dragon is heard; and, thinking that Fafner is on his trail, he hides, trembling, behind the anvil. When Siegfried returns, demanding his sword, he cannot at first find the dwarf. Finally the little fellow comes out, tells him that Nothung can be fashioned only by one who has not experienced fear, and asks Siegfried whether he knows anything about that emotion. Siegfried does not (Mime blaming himself for never having “taught” it to him) and demands instruction. But no matter how vividly Mime describes the frightening sounds of the forest at night and the reactions they produce in himself, the simple Siegfried cannot make sense of it. Maybe, suggests Mime, Siegfried could learn fear by visiting the cave of the fearsome dragon who lives not very far away. Siegfried, ever eager for instruction, begs to be led there, but first he must have the sword. And, as Mime clearly cannot fashion it himself, Siegfried takes up the pieces and begins to work at the forge. Mime, sitting by, offers professional counsel, but Siegfried, apparently inspired, goes about it eagerly in his own way. Meantime, the dwarf hopes that if Siegfried makes the sword and kills Fafner, he himself will bring him a drink with a sleeping potion in it, kill the youngster, and then make himself master of the gold. Siegfried, pounding away at his work, sings the exciting Forging Song (Nothung! Nothung!), and when the sword has been plunged into the water trough and the hilt fashioned, he waves it aloft exultingly and crashes it down on the anvil, which splits in two. Mime falls terrified to the ground.
ACT II
Deep in the woods, Alberich squats in the dark outside the cave of Fafner, awaiting the day which shall see the dragon slain. No love is lost between him and Wotan, who comes by and exchanges a number of unpleasant speeches with the dwarf. Wotan tells him of the hero who is coming to fight the dragon, a youngster who knows nothing about the gods or about the Ring, and who is acting wholly without guidance. Together, Wotan and Alberich awaken the dragon, and the latter suggests that a fight with a well-armed enemy can be avoided if he will just give up the Ring. Fafner’s laconic answer is a request to leave him alone (Lasst mich schlafen!). With a laugh and a suggestion that Alberich keep an eye on his brother Mime, Wotan disappears into the forest.
With Alberich once more in his hiding place, dawn begins to break, and presently Siegfried and Mime arrive on the scene. “This is the place,” says Mime, and Siegfried hopes now to learn about fear. Mime describes the terrors of the dragon graphically enough, including the fierce, snapping jaws, the poison that drips from the mouth, the powerful tail that can snap a man’s bones as if they were glass; but Siegfried only wants to know whether the beast has a heart which may be pierced by Nothung, and then he drives his mentor away.
Waiting for the dragon to come out for his midday drink, Siegfried lies down under the trees, and the episode known to concert-goers as Forest Murmurs (Waldweben) ensues. Siegfried wonders about his mother; he listens to the songs of the birds; he tries to converse with them through blowing first on a reed, then on his horn; but he cannot understand what the birdcalls seem to be telling him. His homemade music, however, awakens the dragon, who comes forth to see what is disturbing him. Siegfried—not the least disturbed by the dragon’s horrible features or by the bellowing basso whose voice reaches him through a speaking trumpet in the dragon’s jaws—asks to be instructed about fear. Annoyed by the young man’s brashness, the dragon attacks him; Siegfried wounds him in the tail; and then, when the monster rises in wrath, the opportunity presents itself to stab him to the heart. With a final warning to beware whoever it was who put him up to this murder, Fafner shudders and expires. But as Siegfried draws out his sword, a drop of blood falls on his fingers; he puts them into his mouth to wipe it off; and, lo, he can now understand the birds. The voice of one of them (an off-stage soprano) tells him about the hoard of gold, about the Tarnhelm, and about the omnipotent Ring. With thanks Siegfried enters the cave.
The disappearance of Siegfried is the signal for the two Nibelung brothers to steal in from their respective watching posts. Neither is pleased to see the other, and they engage in a snarling contest probably intended to be funny. Alberich, the more forceful of the two, gets the upper hand, denying Mime even the Tarnhelm from all the hoard, which Alberich fully expects to get for himself.
But when Siegfried emerges from the cave, they see that he already has both the Tarnhelm and the Ring, having taken them on the advice of the bird and passed over all the rest of the gold. The Nibelungs slink away in different directions; and when Siegfried has put the Ring on his finger and stuck the Tarnhelm into his belt, he hears the bird offering further advice. “Don’t trust Mime” is what he hears; and he is also told that by the power of the dragon’s blood he has drunk he will be able to understand the real meaning of Mime’s words no matter what he appears to be saying.
Thus it is that when Mime speaks to him again and tries to wheedle Siegfried into trusting him, the words that come out betray his real intent. He hates Siegfried and his whole race, and he plans to murder him with his own sword as soon as he has got him to sleep. And when he actually offers him the drugged drink, Siegfried, in utter disgust, kills him with one blow of the sword. He wastes no sentiment on the death of his foster father, but throws the body into the cave and then drags the body of the dragon to guard over it. As for Alberich, he emits a peal of laughter from his hiding place when he sees his brother killed.
Once more the hero lies down below the branches and meditates on his aloneness in this world. Once more the bird cheers him up. “Hi, Siegfried,” it calls, and proceeds to tell him about the glorious bride that awaits him, asleep and surrounded by fire. Her name is Brünnhilde, and she will belong to one who can go through the fire and who knows no fear. Laughing delightedly, Siegfried cries, “I’m, the stupid boy who doesn’t know how to be afraid,” and he asks the bird to show him the way. By flying overhead before him the bird does just that as the act closes.
ACT III
Scene 1 It is a wild night at the foot of a great mountain, and Wotan calls upon Erda, the nature goddess and the mother of the Valkyries, to aid him once more with her wisdom. Looking very strange in a bluish light, her hair and cloak glowing, she rises through the ground, irritated, in a dignified manner, over being awakened from a long slumber. He tells her what is troubling him, but she is not much help. First she advises him to go to the Norns, the weavers of fate; and when he tells her that they cannot advise him, she suggests that he co
nsult Brünnhilde. Only then does she learn what has happened to her daughter. She thoroughly disapproves of the whole business and only wants to go back to sleep. But before she goes, Wotan tells her that he is now completely resigned to the destruction of the gods, and that his power shall be inherited by young Siegfried, who is full of the joy of love, who knows no malice, and who shall awaken Brünnhilde. And when Brünnhilde awakes, she shall perform a great deed for redeeming the world.
Erda returns to her underground slumbers; the scene grows brighter; and a few moments later Siegfried is led in by the bird, who flies off on sight of Wotan. Siegfried naturally does not recognize his grandfather and demands to know the way to the sleeping maiden. The old man answers him with a great many references to things the boy can scarcely understand (and the audience may be expected to have some difficulties as well.) Finally, however, he makes it clear that it was he who had put the girl to sleep, whereupon Siegfried assumes that the Wanderer must be an enemy of the family. Therefore, when Wotan puts up his spear, barring the way up the mountain to Brünnhilde, Siegfried impatiently shatters it with his sword, Nothung. This is apparently a convincing and not entirely unsatisfactory symbol to Wotan of the waning of his own power and the growing might of the new order. He invites Siegfried to advance and he himself disappears. “The whole stage,” to quote the directions, “fills itself with a sea of surging flames,” and Siegfried disappears into them, blowing his horn, and crying, “Hoho! … Now I shall catch me a darling companion!”
100 Great Operas and Their Stories Page 40