Siegfried (review)

Very few major opera houses or companies are able to manage a full production of The Ring of the Nibelungen by Wagner. It requires at least three days to perform all four operas (Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Siegfried, and Götterdämmerung), nearly fifteen hours of music and thirty-four characters, as well as numerous staging and costume hands.

The opera Siegfried fits into the middle of the three days, between Rheingold and Walküre on the first day and Götterdämmerung on the third day. This review is on Siegfried only, performed at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona in June 2004. This particular Ring cycle was staged by Harry Kupfer, a disciple of Komische Oper Berlin director Walter Felsenstein. Kupfer produced the Bayreuth Ring cycle in 1988, as well as a version for the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin which is also performed here. Kupfer focuses on humanity's capacity to destroy the world in which it lives, which is embodied by the gigantic ash tree that appears throughout this production. As technology spreads, the tree withers until it finally dies. In Siegfried, the ash tree appears as a gigantic limb over Fafner's cave, where Wotan (as the Traveller) watches events unfold.

The first of the three acts of Siegfried finds the dwarf Mime working hard to make a sword for Siegfried, one that won't break. He does not understand why the young man hates him so much. Siegfried enters and describes his hatred for Mime, whom he cannot believe to be his father, since he bears no resemblance to him. Mime is eventually persuaded to tell Siegfried the truth about his parents, and he shows him the broken sword Notung. Wotan arrives in the form of the Traveller, and challenges Mime to a riddle contest. Mime loses, since he cannot answer the riddle as to who can forge the sword that is to kill the dragon Fafner. The end of the first act shows Siegfried successfully reforging Notung and preparing to challenge the dragon. In the second act, Alberich, Mime's brother, argues with the Traveller about recovering the ring and the gold from the dragon. Mime and Siegfried appear, and after a short battle with the dragon (whose feet and various parts appear briefly during the battle), Siegfried kills Fafner, who then appears as a human with various computer and technological appendices as his arms and armor. The dragon's blood allows Siegfried to understand the song of the birds, as well as hear the evil thoughts and intentions of Mime, whom Siegfried then kills. The bird tells Siegfried about Brünnhilde, and his love is aroused as he sets off to find her. In the third act, the Traveller invokes the Earth goddess Erda, mother of Brünnhilde, and tells her that he will relinquish his power to Siegfried as the new redeemer of the world. Wotan and Siegfried battle in front of Brünnhilde's sleeping form, and Siegfried is able to break Wotan's spear made out of the all-powerful ash tree. Siegfried awakens Brünnhilde, one of Wagner's greatest love scenes. Brünnhilde at first rejects Sieg-fried's advances, but then accepts the human condition and yields to passion.

Overall, the performance was done very well. Considering that "authentic" Ring performances are done in Bayreuth, there are a growing number of opera companies that have taken on the massive production in recent years, the Gran Teatre del Liceu being one of them. Graham Clark, who plays Mime, is the right size for the part, almost looking like a dwarf in comparison to John Treleaven as Siegfried. Being a dragon lover, however, I was unimpressed with the portrayal of the dragon being slain. Hoping for some type of interesting representation of a dragon, there was...