[As SIEGFRIED approaches the sleeper again, he is again filled with tender emotion at the sight of her. He bends over her.]
Sweet and quivering, her lovely mouth.
A gentle gladness charms fear from my heart!
Ah! how enchanting her warm, fragrant breath!
[As if in despair] Awaken! Awaken! Holiest maid!-- from Siegfried, Act III, Scene 3 (singing translation by
Andrew Porter, used in the Remedios-Goodall performance)
[in English] Alberto Remedios (t), Siegfried; Sadler's Wells Opera Orchestra, Reginald Goodall, cond. EMI-Chandos, recorded live, August 1973
Lauritz Melchior (t), Siegfried; Berlin State Opera Orchestra, Robert Heger, cond. EMI, recorded May 12, 1930
Lauritz Melchior (t), Siegfried; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Artur Bodanzky, cond. Live performance, Jan. 30, 1937
Günther Treptow (t), Siegfried; Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Rudolf Moralt, cond. Myto, live recording of a 1949 concert performance of the act
Set Svanholm (t), Siegfried; Orchestra of the Teatro alla Scala, Wilhelm Furtwängler, cond. Live performance, Mar. 23, 1950
Wolfgang Windgassen (t), Siegfried; Bayreuth Festival Orchestra, Karl Böhm, cond. Philips, recorded live, July 1966
Siegfried Jerusalem (t), Siegfried; Bayreuth Festival Orchestra, Daniel Barenboim, cond. Teldec, recorded live, June-July 1992
[Note: We'll be hearing a fuller version of this scene in Part 2 of this post, when we'll talk a little about the performances. Meanwhile, I hope you're storing up your impressions of them! -- Ed.]
by Ken
As I explained in last week's still-unfollowed-up-on "post taste," "This is where we'd really like to start this week, but --," our inquiry into that starkly mysterious and foreboding character Hagen has led us back to the start of Götterdämmerung. Because what precedes in Wagner's Ring cycle is such a vast expanse of meticulously detailed music drama, it can be easy to forget how massive its final leg is in its own right -- at least until we're buckled in for the nearly two-hour expanse of Götterdämmerung's Prologue and Act I.
Götterdämmerung: Prologue: Orchestral prelude
Bavarian State Orchestra, Wolfgang Sawallisch, cond. EMI, recorded live at the Bavarian State Opera, November 1989
This two-minute prelude is the low-keyed and nevertheless magisterial opening of Götterdämmerung, aka Twilight of the Gods, the "Third Day" of The Ring of the Nibelung -- or by normal counting standards the fourth opera, since Wagner counted Das Rheingold, a massive expanse in its own right (running an uninterrupted two and a half to two and three-quarters hours), strictly as a prologue to the three "days" that follow.
What I'm trying to give a feel for is the way Wagner's unique operatic method enables him to create such finely detailed moments -- and there are no moments in the entire expanse of The Ring (let's call it roughly 14-15 hours; even among the handful of recorded Rings I spot-checked there were outliers: Böhm-Bayreuth 1966-67 at the quick end, at 13:39, and Goodall-English National Opera,1973-77, at the gradual end, at 16:03) that aren't finely detailed -- that are nevertheless bound musicodramatically to countless other moments in that vast expanse. In a bit we're going to hear the little Götterdämmerung orchestral prelude again and this time continue on a bit in the Prologue, taking in just a little of the chillingly awesome Norn Scene.
For now, though, let's just note that the music out of which this two-minute orchestral intro is fashioned is what I'm going to call "the 'Awakening' music," the music to which we witness Brünnhilde awakening from her long sleep in the final act of Siegfried, the "Second Day" of The Ring.
AS YOU'VE PROBABLY GATHERED, ONE OF OUR DESTINATIONS
TODAY IS THE "AWAKENING" ITSELF, BUT NOT BEFORE . . .
. . . we further remind ourselves that the "Awakening" music takes those of us with some experience of The Ring not just back to the "Awakening" itself but forward -- in a way that Wagner could hardly have anticipated when there would not only not likely be frequent live performances to enable enthusiasts to continually reexperience The Ring but of course there were no recordings to enable us to become closely acquainted with not just the tetralogy's large (perhaps we should say "gigantic"?) spans but its most intimate detailings -- forward to the whole shebang's culminating moment.
We might do well to listen to snatches of the three iterations:
(1) SIEGFRIED Act III, Scene 3: Brünnhilde's awakening
Bavarian State Orchestra, Wolfgang Sawallisch, cond. EMI, recorded live at the Bavarian State Opera, November 1989
(2) GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG Prologue: Orchestral prelude and beginning of the Norn Scene
On the Valkyrie Rock: The scene is the same as at the close of The Valkyrie It is night. Firelight shines up from the depths of the background.
The three Norns, tall female figures in long, dark, veil-like drapery. The First (the oldest) is lying in the foreground on the right, under the spreading pine tree; the Second (younger) reclines on a rock in front of the cave; the Third (the youngest) sits in the center at the back on a rock below the peak. Gloomy silence and stillness.
FIRST NORN [without moving]: What light shines down there?
SECOND NORN: Can it be day so soon?
THIRD NORN: Loge's flames leap and flicker round the rock.
It is night. And so we must sing as we spin.
SECOND NORN [to the FIRST]: Let us be spinning and singing;
but where, where 'tis the cord?
FIRST NORN [rises, unwinds a golden rope from herself, and ties one end of it to a branch of the pine tree]:
Though good or ill may come,
weaving the cord, I'll sing now.-- singing translation by Andrew Porter
Marjana Lipovšek (c), First Norn; Ingrid Karrasch (ms), Second Norn; Penelope Thorn (s), Third Norn; Bavarian State Orchestra, Wolfgang Sawallisch, cond. EMI, recorded live at the Bavarian State Opera, November 1989
If you're thinking, Wow, would I like to hear more, you're not alone -- I can't tell you how much I love this scene, which itself is only half of the Götterdämmerung Prologue, you're in luck, at least a little. We are going to hear more, but alas only a little more: namely, the First Norn's narration. By the way, if you've detected that the Norns' music is really hard to sing, you betcha, in particular the Norns at the range extremes. The First Norn needs to be able to handle those plummy vocal depths with command and plummy tonal beauty, Sawallisch's Marjana Lipovšek being an outstanding example, while the Third Norn is simply a killer of a role, asking for, essentially, a Brünnhilde-type soprano -- in fact, any number of singers who went on to sing Brünnhilde, or were already singing the role, emerged less scathed as Brünnhilde than as Third Norn (we're going to hear some more successful efforts at it).
(3) GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG Act III: The Ring's culminating event:
Brünnhilde! Holy bride!
Wake up! Open your eyes!
René Kollo (t), Siegfried; Bavarian State Orchestra, Wolfgang Sawallisch, cond. EMI, recorded live at the Bavarian State Opera, November 1989
And as I pointed out when we first heard this music, if we continued on, it would take us to this famous orchestral setpiece, which in common Wagnerian practice happens also to be music to accommodate a scene change:
Götterdämmerung Act III: "Siegfrieds Trauermarsch"
(usually known in English as "Siegfried's Funeral Music")
Bavarian State Orchestra, Wolfgang Sawallisch, cond. EMI, recorded live at the Bavarian State Opera, November 1989
Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemperer, cond. EMI, recorded Feb.-Mar. 1960
Much as I appreciate the hardly-failing good sense of the Sawallisch-Munich Ring, for this outpouring of world-shaking grief I thought it would be appropriate to bring in some reinforcement, and the Klemperer recording gives us a higher-stakes take on the event being memorialized, the death of Siegfried.
THAT'S OUR THREE ITERATIONS OF THE "AWAKENING" MUSIC. BEFORE WE CAN MOVE FORWARD IN GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG . . .
. . . as we're going to do eventually (you'll have to trust me on this), we need to continue the backward look we've been "advancing" here in Part 1 of this post, which is what we'll be doing in Part 2.
First, as we began doing at the top of this post, we're going to go back to Siegfried Act III, where we'll find out what Siegfried has to do to actually get poor Brünnhilde awake. One crucial thing we'll find that he's already done by the time we join him in Scene 3 of the act, was to pass through the normally impenetrable ring of fire that surrounds Brünnhilde on her rock, a feat that, by design, can be accomplished only by the bravest of heroes, a design that was established in frenzied, desperate pleading by Brünnhilde to her father, Wotan.
That fire is in fact what the Norns were observing when we met them beginning their day's spinning of the world's fate. You'll recall that the Third Norn explained that the light they were seeing wasn't daybreak, as the Second Norn was speculating. Rather: "Loge's flames leap and flicker round the rock." Not just any rock, the rock. We learned in the stage directions for the first scene of the Prologue that the Norns are doing their spinning "on the Valkyrie rock," the very site of the final scene of Die Walküre, where Wotan took his final leave of his most loved daughter, Brünnhilde. So I think we're being drawn directly back to that scene, to hear, at least, how Wotan came to press the demigod Loge, god of fire, into service as a "Magic Fire" protecting the daughter he's forced to abandon to her fate as punishment for her disobedience.
Die Walküre: Act III, Wotan, "Wer meines Speeres
Spitze fürchtet" ("Magic Fire Music")
Whoever fears the tip of my spear
shall never pass through the fire!
Robert Hale (bs-b), Wotan; Bavarian State Orchestra, Wolfgang Sawallisch, cond. EMI, recorded live at the Bavarian State Opera, November 1989
In addition, as promised, we're going to return to the Norn Scene and continue into it a bit more -- by way of setting the stage for some planned further forward movement through Götterdämmerung.
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