Post tease: Two case studies in ignorance -- Siegfried and Parsifal

Siegfried meets Fafner: Oh joy, Fafner's turned into a murderous dragon!

by Ken

One issue that's extensively tested in Wagner's Ring cycle, and that has been quietly bedeviling us in our enquiries, is whether we really know how to deal with innocence: recognizing it, understanding it, coping with it. I thought that at this point, as we're meeting Siegfried at perhaps his most exposed, we needed at least to drag it out into the open -- as it were, outside the opening to the cave where the giant Fafner, since murdering his brother Fasolt at the end of Das Rheingold and taking sole possession of the Nibelung hoard, including the all-power-conferring Ring and the Tarnhelm that enables the wearer to transform into any form desired, has Tarnhelmed into a murderous dragon and taken up solitary (he hopes) residence in a remote deep-forest cave, where he mostly sleeps on top of the hoard, guarding it against any would-be hoard-snatchers.

We're in Act II of Siegfried, earlier in the act than we were last week ("Not just a tease for next week's post: A little birdie told him"), when we heard Siegfried actually hearing and understanding tidings shared by a newsy Woodbird. Those mutually antagonistic lordlings Alberich and Wotan have just met for the first time since the final scene of Das Rheingold, when Wotan stole the Nibelung hoard from Alberich (who is of course "the Nibelung" of The Ring of the Nibelung) and Alberich, powerless to do anything else, placed a curse on the Ring -- as if that order of wealth didn't come with its own built-in curse. Or maybe Alberich was aiming his curse at some kind of certainty of enforcement of the curse implied by acquisition of all that treasure?


IT'S BEEN OCCURRING TO ME THAT THE THEME
OF SIEGFRIED'S HOPELESS IGNORANCE . . .

. . . tends to trigger a connect to that later Wagnerian ignoramus Parsifal, for example as he's beaten to deepest shame by the kindly Gurnemanz's rageful outburst in response to the young yutz's thoughtless murder of the soaring swan.

Last week we heard an orchestra-only version of Siegfried's "Forest Murmurs" that accompany Siegfried's blessedly solitary musings on this strange picnic his foster dad Mime (Alberich's brother, you'll recall) dragged him into the depths of the forest for. This week we hear the "Forest Murmurs" for real, or at least we will have heard them in full by the last of these three clips. There are also some points of interpretive interest in the succession of the clips -- notably, doesn't Siegfried seem more sympathetic in Clip 2 than in Clip 1? If so, any thoughts as to why that is?

From Scene 2 of Act II of Siegfried: "Forest Murmurs" scene --

Siegfried, "Dass der mein Vater nicht ist" ("That he's not my father") . . . Forest Murmurs . . . "Ein zankender Zwerg hat mir erzählt" ("A quarrelsome dwarf told me")

Except that day has now broken, the setting hasn't changed since Scene 1 of Act II, which in the dark of night featured the first meeting since the final scene of Das Rheingold of WOTAN and ALBERICH, who -- by odd coincidence! -- were both to be found within stakeout distance of the entrance to the now-"dragon"-ized FAFNER's cave.

Deep forest: All the way in the background, the entrance to a cave. The ground rises toward the middle of the stage to a small flattened knoll, sinking again toward the back, so that only the upper part of the opening is visible to the audience. To the left a fissured cliff is seen through the trees.

At daybreak SIEGFRIED and MIME entered, SIEGFRIED carrying a sword hung in a girdle of rope. MIME was supposed to be teaching SIEGFRIED fear, and attempted it by describing the hideously ferocious dragon FAFNER, but none of it had any effect on SIEGFRIED. Even as MIME proposed to leave SIEGFRIED for an unspecified time, SIEGFRIED angrily drove him off. MIME headed into the forest singing to himself, "Fafner and Siegfried, Siegfried and Fafner, if only they might do each other in!"

SIEGFRIED [stretching out in the shade of a great tree]:
That he's not my father, how happy I feel.
Now for the first time I like the cool forest,
now at last blithe day smiles upon me,
now the loathsome creature has departed,
and I'll never see him again!
[He falls into silent meditation.]
What must my father have been like?
Ha! -- like myself, of course!
For if Mime had a son anywhere about,
would he not look exactly like Mime?
Just as filthy, senile, and gray,
little and crooked, hump-backed and lame,
with drooping ears and watery eyes --
away with the goblin!
I don't want to see him anymore.

Siegfried lies on his back and looks up through the branches of the trees.
From the orchestra: "Forest Murmurs"
But -- what did my mother look like?
That, I simply can't imagine to myself!
[very tenderly] Her lustrous eyes must surely have glistened
as brilliantly as the doe's -- only still more beautiful!
[very softly] When she had born me in travail and anxiety,
why did she then have to die?
Do all human mothers, then, die of their sons?
That would be sad indeed!
Oh, if only I, her son, might see my mother!
My mother! A human woman!
[He sighs softly and leans still farther back. Deep silence.]

Growing "Forest Murmurs"
SIEGFRIED's attention is at length caught by the song of a WOODBIRD.]
You lovely little bird, I've never heard you before!
Are you native here in the forest?
If only I understood its sweet twitter!
It would tell me something for sure -- perhaps -- about my mother?

"Ein zankender Zwerg hat mir erzählt"
("A quarrelsome dwarf told me")
A quarrelsome dwarf told me
that one might come to understand
the babbling of the tiny birds --
how might that well be possible?
Hey, I'll try to imitate it.

[His eye falling on a clump of reeds,
he cuts one with his sword and proceeds to whittle himself a rough pipe.]
Perhaps I might sound like it on a reed!
Suppose I leave the language and attend to the tune;
if I sing its speech thus, I might perhaps understand
what it is saying too!
It has stopped and waits listening -- so off I go then!

He tries to imitate the bird's notes, without success
[ruefully] That doesn't sound right.
On the reed pipe the blithe tune doesn't come right.
It seems, little bird, I'm slow;
it's not to be learnt from you easily.
I'm completely put to shame now before the roguish listener.
It's attending and can't hear anything.
Heida! then listen to my horn now!
Even though nothing came of it on the stupid reed!
A forest tune, the blithest that ever I can blow,
you shall hear now.
By it I have tried to entice my boon companions;
so far nothing better than wolves and bears has come.
Let me see then who it will attract to me now --
a boon companion, or no?

Throwing the reed aside, Siegfried blows a lusty tune on his hunting horn
The huge dragon FAFNER rears up from his lair in the cave and yawns loudly, upon which SIEGFRIED turns and, catching sight of FAFNER, laughs aloud in astonishment.

SIEGFRIED: Ha ha! My song has conjured up something
really lovely this time, I must say!
You would make me a pretty comrade!
FAFNER [surprised at SIEGFRIED's presence]: What is there?
SIEGFRIED: Hey, if you're a beast that's good for speaking,
might one perhaps learn something from you?
Here is someone who does not know what fear is --
can he learn it from you?
FAFNER: Are you cocky?

-- translation (basically) by Peggie Cochrane

1st section only -- (almost) up to "Ein zankender Zwerg"


Ben Heppner (t), Siegfried; Staatskapelle Dresden, Peter Schneider, cond. DG, recorded Sept.-Oct. 2005

Through the beginning of Siegfried's horn call


Plácido Domingo (t), Siegfried; Alan Garner, English horn; Simon Rayner, horn; Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Antonio Pappano, cond. EMI, recorded July 2001

All of it, through Fafner: "Hast du Übermuth?" ("Are you cocky?")


Siegfried Jerusalem (t), Siegfried; Kurt Rydl (bs), Fafner; Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Bernard Haitink, cond. EMI, recorded November 1990


"SO WHAT'S THE DEAL WITH PARSIFAL?" YOU ASK?

Oh, good point! It looks like that's going to require a second "post tease." Not to mention that I still owe you sung texts for this one. Stay tuned.

UPDATE: A second "tease post" is now up. On present schedule it's looking as if the main post won't hit till tomorrow (Monday).

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