RICHARD WAGNER Siegfried, Act III

Transcription

1 RICHARD WAGNER Siegfried, Act III Wilhelm Richard Wagner was born in Leipzig, Saxony, on May 22, 1813, and died in Venice, Italy, on February 13, His work on Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Nibelung s Ring), the tetralogy of which Siegfried is the third, began as early as At first he planned to call it The Young Siegfried in the first prose sketch for the libretto, drafted in May The twenty-year process by which it was finished is briefly described below. The first performance took place as part of the first complete cycle of Der Ring des Nibelungen, which opened the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, in August 1876, Siegfried being heard for the first time on August 16. In addition to eight solo singers, the score calls for four flutes (third and fourth doubling piccolos), four oboes (fourth doubling English horn), four clarinets (fourth doubling bass clarinet), three bassoons, eight horns, two tenor tubas and two bass tubas (the so-called "Wagner tubas," played by four of the horn players), three trumpets and bass trumpet, four trombones (fourth doubling contrabass trombone), contrabass tuba, timpani, cymbals, triangle, gong, glockenspiel, six harps, and strings. In addition onstage and offstage there are an English horn, horn, forging hammer, and thunder machine. Duration is about 80 minutes. Wagner began composing the music for Siegfried in the autumn of The entire opera (or music drama, to use Wagner s preferred term) was completed in February But it was only one panel in a much larger creation conceived as early as 1848 and finally realized on the stage only in 1876, with the first production in his own theater at Bayreuth of the complete tetralogy Der Ring des Nibelungen. Few artistic creations of such scope and power exist in the entire European tradition. Perhaps only two literary works Dante s Divine Comedy and Goethe's Faust can be mentioned in the same breath with Wagner s gigantic composition. All three of these mighty creations present an all-encompassing world view in a work of epic size that spanned the entire universe, dominating the creative lives of the artists who envisioned them. The characters and basic outline of the plot for the Ring come from old Norse and Germanic myths in which Wagner read widely during the 1840s and which, in the end, he blended and fused with great freedom and imagination. Time and time again in his operas including the two youthful works already finished by the mid-1840s, The Flying Dutchman and Tannhäuser, Wagner chose a dramatic situation in which the principal character or characters were in need of redemption, and this usually came from the self-sacrifice of a noble, courageous woman. In the Ring, Wagner casts his tale of redemption on the grandest possible scale, covering more than one generation in chronology and the entire physical world from subterranean caverns to rocky mountain heights in geography. Although the Ring ostensibly deals with gods, giants, dwarves, dragons, magic helmets and an all-controlling ring of power, its philosophical and ethical basis grows directly out of midnineteenth century European social problems, particularly those generated by the unfettered capitalism of the industrial revolution. It is surely no coincidence that Wagner wrote an essay on The Nibelung Myth as a Sketch for a Drama in 1848, the same year that Marx and Engels published The Communist Manifesto. In their characteristically different ways (Marx with an outline for a formal essay in economic philosophy, Wagner with a draft for a theatrical work), both men addressed the theme that wealth was a dominating force, potentially destructive, in

2 human relations. Wagner imagined his story in terms of powerful and flexible symbols that could be visualized on the stage. Gold, in itself an innocent natural object, is stolen from the bed of the river Rhine by the Nibelung dwarf Alberich, who has learned that by forswearing love, he can fashion the gold into a Ring that will give him supreme power over creation. The gods, chief of whom is Wotan, enjoy the highest respect of any race in this mythical world, partly on the strength of the fact that Wotan is the protector of agreements and treaties by which all creatures live. These are carved on his spear, the visual representation of his power. Wotan and the other gods have contracted with the giants, Fasolt and Fafner, to build them a strong and secure castle, Valhalla. According to the contract, Wotan agreed to give the giants Freia, the goddess of youth and love, in return for his fortress. In doing this he has, in moral terms, foresworn love in return for power, just as Alberich had done. He has no intention of keeping his bargain, however, once the castle is finished. The ingenious Loge, god of fire, promised to find a substitute payment. When gods and giants alike learn from Loge of Alberich s theft of the Rhine's gold and fashioning of the Ring of power, the giants agree that Alberich s horde of wealth would be a suitable payment, while Wotan himself longs to gain control of the Ring. But the only way he can acquire both the horde and the Ring is through trickery and violent theft a denial of the very agreements he is supposed to uphold. Alberich, naturally enough enraged at the loss of his power, lays a fearful curse on the Ring: it will bring doom to all who possess it and envy to all who do not. When Wotan presents Alberich s assembled gold to the giants, they now declare it is not enough; they want the Ring as well. Wotan refuses at first, but finally yields on the advice of the mysterious, all-knowing earth-goddess, Erda. Immediately the giants fight over ownership of the Ring; Fafner kills Fasolt for it, demonstrating the efficacy of Alberich s curse. The situation is perilous for the gods. The vicious Fafner controls the Ring, though he is content simply to convert himself, through magic, into a dragon and to sleep on his new golden horde. But if Alberich should ever recover it, the power of the gods would be completely undone. Wotan determines to act though he must do so indirectly, since to attack Fafner and take back the gold would be to break his own contract, and in so doing would destroy his own divine power. Already tainted through one theft, such an act would leave him morally bankrupt. Wotan s solution has two parts. First he visits Erda again to learn as much as she will tell him of the future. Like the Greek Zeus, the Nordic Wotan spreads his wild oats far and wide. His visit to Erda has a significant consequence; she bears him nine daughters, the martial Valkyries, who ride through the sky over battlefields, choosing the bravest heroes to bring to Valhalla, where they can serve as a defensive force in the event of war with Alberich. (Wotan's favorite from among these daughters is Brünnhilde, who first appears in Die Walküre, the second part of the Ring.) Wotan next tries to solve his moral dilemma by creating a human hero who can act for him in regaining the Ring, but of his own free will thus, Wotan believes, he can avoid the moral taint that would come if he acted himself. Through a liaison with a mortal woman, he has two children, fraternal twins, Siegmund and Sieglinde. He arranges matters so that Sieglinde is carried off and forcibly married to the brutish Hunding. Their mother is killed and Wotan simply disappears without trace, leaving the young Siegmund to fend for himself. Operating invisibly in the background, Wotan arranges for Siegmund to be driven, at the last stages of exhaustion, to

3 the house in which the unhappy Sieglinde is living. After Hunding, drugged by Sieglinde, has gone to sleep, the two talk. She tells him that years before, during the post-nuptial drinking that accompanied her forced wedding to Hunding, a stranger Wotan, we learn stalked into the house, which is built around a great ash tree, and drove a sword deep into the tree s trunk, from which none of the wedding guests was able to budge it. Siegmund realizes that this was the weapon promised by his father in his hour of greatest need. Realizing that Sieglinde, with whom he has fallen in love, is his long-lost sister, he pulls the sword from the tree and the two rush away together. Wotan orders his favorite daughter, the Valkyrie Brünnhilde, to protect Siegmund in the inevitable fight with Hunding. Unfortunately, Wotan s wife Fricka forces him to admit, against his will, that by providing Siegmund with the sword and arranging his life so as to leave him no choice but to act under compulsion, he has failed to create the free hero. If Siegmund kills Fafner and reclaims the Ring, it is morally no different than if Wotan himself had done the deed. Reluctantly Wotan agrees to order Brünnhilde not to protect Siegmund in the coming battle. She, however, understands that, in his heart, Wotan wants Siegmund to win; so she disobeys her father. But Wotan ensures that Siegmund s sword shatters during the battle, allowing Hunding to kill him. Brünnhilde, fearing her father s anger, rushes away with Sieglinde. Although Wotan s plan has failed so far, a development he had not anticipated seems to have saved it. The warmth of Siegmund and Sieglinde blossomed into a passionate love. Though Siegmund is dead, Sieglinde carries his son, to be named Siegfried. He will be the free hero growing up without Wotan s support, who will be able to reclaim the Ring. But Brünnhilde herself faces severe punishment for her misbehavior. She will lose her immortality, and be left asleep on a mountain height, to be taken by the first man who comes along. She pleads with Wotan, begging that at least she may be taken by a hero, not some craven coward. Moved by the pleas of his favorite daughter, Wotan agrees to surround her sleeping body with a magic fire that will frighten away all but a great hero. We have now reached Siegfried. At Brünnhilde s urging, Sieglinde had ridden horse far the depths of the forest, where she had collapsed in exhaustion. Mime, the half brother of the Nibelung Alberich, cared for her at his forge-cabin until she died in childbirth, leaving Mime with a baby to be called Siegfried. Mime s main desire is to get hold of the Ring, which is guarded by the dragon Fafner. The timid Mime knows that he cannot accomplish this by himself. But he hopes to entice young Siegfried to help him, especially as the boy grows into vigorous, strapping manhood. A mysterious Wanderer (Wotan in disguise) has told Mime that only a sword remade from the broken pieces shattered in Siegmund s fight with Hunding will avail against the dragon. Mime has tried repeatedly to reforge the sword, without success. But the boisterous Siegfried does it himself and proves its strength by using it to cut the anvil in half. Like Alberich, Mime has a murderous mind. He plans to persuade Siegfried to slay the dragon (on the pretext of giving him the experience of fear, which the boy has never felt and about which he is curious). Once the dragon is no longer a threat, Mime will offer Siegfried a refreshing drink, which will be drugged. Once Siegfried is asleep, Mime can use the sword to chop off his head. While waiting in the forest for the sleeping dragon to appear, Siegfried ponders life s mysteries, including his awareness that he knows of no other creatures like himself (surely he is not the offspring of the loathesome Mime!). He hears a forest bird and wishes he could

4 understand her cheerful song. He plays his hunting horn in response to the bird. This awakens the dragon whom, after a fight, Siegfried stabs mortally. A drop of the dragon s blood falls on his hand, burning hot. Instinctively he puts the hand to his mouth and finds that he can now understand Mime s thoughts as well as the song of the bird. Though Mime pretends just to be offering a drink, Siegfried hears his murderous thoughts. In anger, Siegfried kills the evil dwarf. The forest bird now tells him where he can find one of his own kind, sleeping on a high rock not far away. Siegfried rushes off to find it. This is the beginning of Act III. Wagner often starts the final act of his operatic works with a significant orchestral introduction. The short prelude lasting just over two minutes that opens Act III of Siegfried, superbly illustrates Wagner's ability to express dramatic qualities in purely orchestral music. It might reasonably bear the title The Tragedy of Wotan, who will soon make his final stage appearance in the work. Wagner intertwines all of the themes that have been associated with the once-powerful ruler of the gods once noble and glorious, now driven and agonized just as he is about to lose the last symbol of his power, his spear. Everything Wotan has attempted in order to undo his fatal moral error at the beginning of Das Rheingold has gone against him. Soon, confronting his grandson Siegfried, he will find that he can no longer direct events at all. The scene is a forest glen in front of the dragon s cave. The waiting Wanderer (Wotan) decides once more to summon the all-seeing Erda to learn whether there is any hope left for him. But she is finding it increasingly difficult to see the future and suggests that he consults the Norns. or three fates, who nightly spin the web of destiny. Then she suggests that he ask Brünnhilde, whom she bore him. Erda wishes to return to her sleep; before she parts, Wotan explains that he no longer fears the downfall of the gods. In fact, he wishes it. Led by the forest bird, Siegfried arrives to be confronted by what appears to him an intrusive, boring old man. Though Wotan takes frank pleasure in the fine figure of his grandson, they argue when Siegfried wishes to pass on to the top of he mountain. As he had promised Brünnhilde, Wotan attempts to stop the youth from continuing by holding out his spear, warning Siegfried that this spear once before had shattered the sword in his hand. Siegfried angrily strikes the spear and breaks it, thereby shattering Wotan s power. The once mighty god can no longer prevent his passage. Siegfried moves through the wall of fire as the orchestra plays a brilliantly illuminated passage to express the fire soaring to cover the stage (thus allowing the change of scene to the top of the mountain, where Brünnhilde still lies in her magic sleep). The fire dies down as the new scene becomes visible, with Siegfried just stepping out of the surrounding fire. When he notices the figure on the ground, he takes it at first for a man in armor. Even when he has removed the helmet, he still sees a warrior. But when he loosens the breastplate, he realizes, to his astonishment that this is no man. He has never seen a creature like this before and he feels fear for the first time in his life. He kisses her lips, and she slowly awakens, rises, and greets the bright sun. She realizes that this must be Siegfried, whose impending birth she had foretold before being put into her magic sleep. Siegfried wonders whether she might be his mother. She explains how she had protected his mother from Wotan s wrath, so that he might be born. He attempts to

5 embrace her, but she is frightened, still coming to grips with her mortal status. Yet she looks fondly on him and eventually yields to his intense passion. Enthusiastically they celebrate this new turn of things, saying farewell to the world of the gods and looking forward to a laughing death. Siegfried ends with music of extravagant joy, the only such conclusion in the Ring cycle. But, of course, this is only the third part of the cycle, which still has to pass through all the events that will come in Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods), in which Siegfried will be treacherously murdered partly through Brünnhilde s doing, owing to a tragic misunderstanding. But in the end the world is remade; everything is destroyed and built anew. The world of the gods is cast away, and the new universe based on the redeeming idea of love, arises from the ashes of the old. Still, all that is in the dark future. At the end of Siegfried we are only aware of a man and a woman who have found one another and have discovered that they are passionately in love. Steven Ledbetter