(Photo: Bernd Uhlig)

“Siegfried” is a deceptively complicated opera, perhaps one of the most difficult in all “Der Ring” to pull off both musically and scenically. The main reason is that much of Wagner’s storytelling brings its characters to realizations within themselves, with inner drives and motivations lashing out often in vehemence and violence. What’s more, the once-recognizable leitmotifs are mutated, disguised and merged. The road to oneself is illusive and torturous. It is as if they all drop their Jungian persona masks in vain attempts to face themselves through others, confessing their weaknesses and mistakes.

It is often stated that “Siegfried” is the Ring opera closest to nature by way of Fafner in the woods, the “Forest murmurs,” the Wood Bird, and even Siegfried’s tales of his relationship to animals in his growing up in the wilderness, fearless and innocent as few. In Herheim’s opening pantomime, Wotan wanders in agitation alone upon a stage of collapsed suitcases, and a half-buried pianoforte. A sneaky, observing Alberich tiptoes about and as the English Horns penetrate us with incessant slurred notes, honking as geese, he begins whispering hatefully as he focuses upon his missing finger, perhaps a symbol of castration. He and Wotan glare at each other, then a face off between a heated-tip spear and a clawing hand of four fingers. Alberich is forced by Wotan to play the pianoforte, which sinks into the underground where Mime is hammering away at yet another sword. The ceiling of his workshop is laden predominantly with hanging Wagner tubas, an instrument created by Adolphe Sax (yes, the saxophone) upon the composer’s request in 1853, 23 years before the Ring’s first representation in Bayreuth.

These are a slick series of scene changes, perhaps that ‘uncertain, shifting ground’ Wagner envisioned. This is one of the better visual moments of this Ring. Deft also the score of Siegfried with the broken sword Sieglinde gave him in “Die Walküre” hidden in the piano bench, albeit a plastic sword as those found in Halloween kits. Here, the bear chasing Siegfried is none other than Alberich-Joker in a long coat, hooded: a weak, perplexing solution to a difficult imagined presence; a major error as the bear gives testimony to Siegfried’s ease and grace living in the purity of the wilderness.

It seems by now that Herheim will continue to create a theatre-within-a-theatre reality, his child’s puppet show wherein the reality of Wagner’s text is abandoned in favor of creating spontaneous situations within a staged tableaux vivant.

Production Details

As to the staging of Mime’s dialogue with Siegfried, we have the essence of the stage director’s use of gesture to carry a scene. Mime has already used the ‘rock the baby to sleep’ gesture a few times by now, seen at the end of “Die Walküre” while delivering Siegfried, “A suckling babe, I brought you up,” he proclaims, and it is lullaby time. Mime insists, and for four times, he grabs Siegfried’s arm, rocking him gingerly in a maternally protective way, which becomes through repetition annoying even to Siegfried. Another gesture that indeed becomes obsessive, and less dynamic, occurs when various characters pretend to be directing an orchestra, and at times for more than three minutes. Even more distracting is when Mime (as Wagner) below the earth, mouths the words of Wotan above. Mime, gripped by uncontrollable forces he cannot deal with, senses that his Will is impelled by suggestions of over whelming power, yet remains weak and confused.

The three-riddle scenes (Mime to Wotan, than Wotan to Mime) are well-handled scenically. We understand that Wotan is tortured by his past dealings with the Nibelungs, the Giants and the other Gods. He will talk to anyone, play any game to relieve his inner tensions, an indication of selfish communication. Mime is under greater pressure as he cannot know who will forge the sword so that Siegfried can slay the dragon guarding the gold, which he will then attempt to steal. But then, Wotan throws the score of Siegfried into the fire within the pianoforte, and it soon comes back as flying sheets, a somewhat ineffective image; it looks as if they are Post-it notes attached to those Diary Trees we unwillingly receive as gifts.

Beneath the menacing black clouds of Act Two, we have another invented prelude pantomime, this time for Alberich, and lasting all of five minutes. To those harsh, crushed muted horns chords associated with him from “Das Rheingold”, he moves his mouth in angered frustration, as if scolding someone, and then begins choking himself. Five minutes is a long time, to say little, and to distance oneself from Wagner’s psychologically probing music, a dark symphony depicting Fafner’s melody. It is also “lyrical” as Wagner demanded. The music contains Alberich’s “World Mastery” motif, and this should suffice, reaching the ears of both the knowledgeable Wagnerian and novice.

The scenes are intense when Wotan tells Fafner that he will die. Fafner is first portrayed as the bell of a tuba within the bosom of the pianoforte, an image recalling the surreal Salvador Dalí, or perhaps, it is a 78-rpm gramophone speaker, first as a single instrument on his beginning utterances, then as nine of a group representing this hideous monster’s backbone or teeth.

The whole “Forest Murmurs” scene begins with shaded fern greens projected on a white sheet backdrop. Within the density of this mass of green, Siegfried sees his father and mother, here as angels dressed in white. He is an orphan who is obsessed with meeting his true parents. Soon, Siegfried will gather up sheet music torn from the score. He waltzes and sings the murmur melodies, as if this was one of his favorite pieces of music. The Wood Bird appears, here a boy soprano, and not a woman coloratura. The Deutsche Oper team states that it was Wagner’s ‘original’ intention to have a boy, yet Wagner did resort back to a soprano, and it seems he was right. The bird must be natural, its singing floating through the woods, sure of itself, delicately close to us humans. The boy soprano here struggled, shrieked, perhaps pretending to be flat.

There is a sense of musical humor as Siegfried rolls sheet music into a panpipe, and blows out dissonant notes in an effort to communicate with the bird. His parent angels cringe at the harshness of these sounds. The Wood Bird follows all this and conducts the music to an invisible orchestra with little effect.

The scenes from the appearance of Fafner to his death are questionable. Two red eyes glare from cracks in the cave’s walls of suitcases. The underground dragon’s mouth. It all looks like an entrance to an amusement park’s House of Mirrors, wherein images of a dozen teeth, or be they backbones, wiggle wrapped in gauze. Siegfried unfurls one of them, and discovers that it is Fafner. He is unattractive and in underwear. A letdown, as when Dorothy discovers the Wizard of Oz himself maneuvering his mechanical riggings. And so, Fafner is slain by the rosy-cheeked radiant youth and fearless knight. The ongoing stage action is moving, and well-paced. Fafner, in a volte-face, transforms his soul into that of a good man, desiring to save Siegfried from those who will kill him, fueled by their desires to possess the gold. Yet, the return of the bird is irksome to watch. The boy’s fluttering fingers represent too little to convey his lightness, his dizzying flight of notes. The bird is also stained in the dragon’s blood, perhaps representing Nature as now contaminated. This is a crowded scene as Mime and Alberich arrive, yet Herheim has Fafner resurrect, only to later bump into a distracted, clumsy Mime, and die again. Fafner awakens one more time and the scene ends with the Wanderer entering, looking to the future in the distance.

More Highlights

The realities set up in Act Two allow many characters to change their self-images to dying or hoping. In “Siegfried,” the change of Brünnhilde from God to mortal heightens the power of human love, one of the Ring’s greatest themes. Maestro Runnicles plummets us into the Act Three Prelude with orchestral force, and right from the second bar the two tenor tubas hit the sforzando notes as perhaps only Karl Böhm does. They almost sound like trumpets. Meanwhile, the Wanderer pounds away at the pianoforte as Erda is summoned in desperation, sight-reading her part. As the Wanderer tells of his worldly travels, Erda plays through the music, however, this action appears as unneeded. The effect of the piano serving as a symbol of an opera-in-an-opera has worn off.

Here is a more diverse Erda than the one seen in “Das Rheingold”, both musically and emotionally. Herheim shows her in a different light. She rightfully steps outside herself as the Earth, and analyzes her sleep-waking states: “My sleep is dreaming, my dreaming brooding, my brooding the sway of knowledge”. There is an endless flow of leitmotifs related to her and others, some of these among the most beautiful in the whole Ring. One telling moment is the mention by Erda of how brave and wise Brünnhilde is: a mixture of the Rhine maiden’s theme, made into Loge’s “love” fire music representing Brünnhilde’s slumber and rest upon the rock. These are harsh words for Wotan, and here Erda seems to act as his wife Fricka, blaming him for this situation. It is striking to see her holding the sharp point of the spear between her hand fearlessly as she calls Wotan a breaker of oaths, only to return to her sleep so destiny can have its way.

Erda tells Wotan she bore him a Valkyrie. Brünnhilde and the immigrants are listening. They are now face to face with an angered Wotan, who admonishes them threateningly for listening in, as if to say that they cannot partake, only observe. This is a great touch by Herheim as it is Wotan, the Wanderer and powerless outsider who must stay out of the action. Thus, he thrusts his frustration upon the wanton souls ostracized once again. Wotan’s agitation reaches new heights as he presses his spear into her body relentlessly, as he has done with others. There is a reason for this anger: the God of All has lost power, and now the destiny of the world is no longer in his hands.

Act Three Details

The staging during Act Three wears on us. The piano remains fixed in centre stage, and the piled-up suitcases induce a sterile wasteland. Overall, this production’s use of space does not create an interesting perspective. Yes, the mountains and sheets were projected modest images that looked panoramic, but the perspective depth for the spectator is never created. It is true that a no-scenery performing space shrouded in darkness creates a mysterious infinity. Any welcomed use of lighting provided vast possibilities, yet were somewhat limited in this production.

Siegfried’s coming of age is well-blocked out. The movement is constant, so much so that Siegfried possesses the Wanderer’s “Borsalino”, wrapping one of those bits of white silk around its brim. During their dialogue, the Siegfried score falls into Siegfried’s hands, and he ponders over it, almost excluding
himself from the stage action. This idea of the score being an active part, a score-within-a score opera, is excessive, hinting perhaps that the idea was not a good one from the beginning. His parents appear again, but dressed in black. They are now ravens of ill-omens through shamanistic magic. It is only the drive and energy of Wagner that carries this scene off. The ravens pull up a huge sheet of a projected forest. Siegfried, through the help of the score, realizes he will not be saved. In anger, he cuts down the huge silk sheet, bringing us to the rock that bears the sleeping Brünnhilde encircled by fire.

A gaping hole is created in the scene change, and one wonders if perhaps this could have been the first time the music is simply played before a theatre curtain. As Brünnhilde arrives up through the pianoforte, Siegfried wanders about the stage, score in hand until it is time to wake her. The magic is lost as the stage gestures are over-choreographed. Siegfried crosses his arms and the wanderers do the same. It becomes a bit too ritualistic here, and one thinks of the Grail Knights in “Parsifal.”

The gesturing from here onward is basically orgiastic love making. Siegfried, the ham, in a signal of being victorious, raises his arms, calling for the wanderers to applaud. He takes the score to the side of the stage, and beckons all the wanders to follow him. They follow the love-duet action between Siegfried and Brünnhilde, commenting to each other and to themselves. Herheim is asking the wanderers to remain on foot and follow the entire love duet. Then the wanderers, in underwear, take an active part in the physical emotions of Siegfried and Brünnhilde. They jump about in couples, lay down, fall into lovemaking. It is just too much, and worse, Brünnhilde and Siegfried fade into the crowd. The score is ripped to shreds by all, and the last flurry of stage action to the act-ending music is debauched. The framework and parameters here can no longer sustain the opera Wagner has given us. Too much of what is not at all necessary crowds the music, the words, the stage.

Musical Highlights

What, for some, saved this part of the tetralogy was Maestro Runnicles’s pacing through the score, the real score. His interpretation never sought to under or over-play either the great dramatic moments, or the relationship between the orchestra and singers. The orchestral colors seemed light, breezy, yet all-enveloping as our involvement in the dramatic action continued. This is quite an achievement when compared to other versions of those who run through the music of “Der Ring” as if being non-Romantic, or less suitable for today’s impatient, time-pressed audiences.

Maestro Runnicles brought out the emotionally bombastic moments, and the orchestra played beautifully throughout. For some, there was a great moment, the reawakening of Brünnhilde, here with the tension withheld. It seemed as spiritual, exotic, and miraculous as it must be; a great E minor chord stopping the universe. Indeed, a scale in that key does reverberate as something from classical Indian music. We know that Wagner flirted with Buddhism, and wrote a prose sketch for an opera, “Die Sieger” in 1856, a few years after “Lohengrin.”

The singing here held court, and it did seem that, in a special way, each character displayed the changing inner-monologues of their development. Especially so as characters who were meeting not for the first time. Credit must be given to both Runnicles and Herheim for unifying the flow of music and action. This is not always the case, and for sure, without adequate preparation, not possible.

Iain Paterson as Der Wanderer was an impressive presence on stage, in movement and when not. The vocal subtleties of truly being another God within were excellently carried off. His communication with the others in playing various roles, seeking understanding, yet also raging in frustration aptly convincing. Alberich was forceful, both in acting and in singing. His Wanderer was lurking, motivated, and entrapped within his evil doings.

Mime also flew above the vocal and psychological range in every moment of his dialogues with Siegfried, his duplicitous discourses with him brought out his uncertainties of living with himself these 18 years, hoping now to reap his rewards. Fafner fell into his change of heart characteristics smoothly. He appeared as the tragic soul who had murdered his brother, Fasolt, only to now live in fear and doubt for his involvement with the Gods. His voice was malleable both as a threatening force, as then an all-too-human sympathizer caught up in his slayer Siegfried’s fate. Erda, as mentioned, also softens in her rigidness while dictating the laws of the Earth, but makes no compromises. Lindsay Ammann partook fully in the ‘human’ drama, and the range of her mezzo-soprano voice conveyed her wishes to return to her natural state, far from the dealings of humans who have created their entangled predicaments. The Wood Bird, Nicolas Schröer, was deeply involved in what this production made into an even greater role.