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 . . .

"Spurn not the nobly born": No, not the proper post planned for this week, but we do make a little progress, and we hear some really nice music

"Spurn not the nobly born," exhorts Earl Tolloller to the no-way-no-how-interested-in-high-rank Phyllis (who has much else to say and sing on the subject); here they're John Elliott and Kate Holt, in a 2009 Iolanthe production by Woodley Players Theatre (Stockport, U.K.). You won't hear much in the video clip, but naturally we've got a slew of audio clips --

GILBERT and SULLIVAN: Iolanthe: Act I, Phyllis, "Nay, tempt me not, to wealth I'll not be bound" . . . Earl Tolloller, "Spurn not the nobly born"

PHYLLIS: Nay, tempt me not;
to wealth I'll not be bound.
In lowly cot
alone is virtue found.
CHORUS OF PEERS: No, no; indeed high rank will never hurt you,
the peerage is not destitute of virtue.
EARL TOLLOLLER: Spurn not the nobly born
with love affected,
nor treat with virtuous scorn
the well-connected.
High rank involves no shame --
we boast an equal claim
with him of humble name
to be respected!
Blue blood! Blue blood!
When virtuous love is sought,
the power is naught,
though dating from the flood,
blue blood!
Spare us the bitter pain
of stern denials,
nor with low-born disdain
augment our trials.
Hearts just as pure and fair
may beat in Belgrave Square
as in the lowly air
of Seven Dials!
Blue blood! Blue blood!
Of what avail art thou
to serve us now?
Though dating from the flood,
blue blood!
CHORUS OF PEERS: Of what avail art thou
to serve us now?
Though dating from the flood,
blue blood!

Elsie Morison (s), Phyllis; Alexander Young (t), Earl Tolloller; Glyndebourne Festival Chorus, Pro Arte Orchestra, Sir Malcolm Sargent, cond. EMI, recorded Oct. 21-24, 1958

Mary Sansom (s), Phyllis; Thomas Round (t), Earl Tolloller; D'Oyly Carte Opera Chorus, New Symphony Orchestra of London, Isidore Godfrey, cond. Decca, recorded September 1960

Elizabeth Woollett (s), Phyllis; Phillip Creasy (t), Earl Tolloller; D'Oyly Carte Opera Chorus and Orchestra, John Pryce-Jones, cond. Jay Productions-Sony, recorded June 28-July 2, 1991

by Ken

No, as noted above, we have no proper post this week -- it just got too hard, and too stressful, and even though I got most of the audio clips made and had a pretty good idea (I think) of where and how the real post was/is intended to go, I just couldn't do it. (And after all, to anybody but me what does it matter?) Still, I've rallied enough to cobble together a sort of coulda-shoulda post-substitute, drawing on some of those already-made audio clips, which we'll hear in the click-through, but also with some additional clips made to order.

In the later stages of the time spent so busily not producing a post, I found myself reflecting me that the plight facing the operatic character we'll be hearing from in the click-through of this non-post, society's unyielding prejudice against persons of rank and privilege, isn't unique on the musical stage, which is how we come to be hearing from the implacable Phyllis and the imploring Earl Tolloller and chiming-in fellow lords.


JUST WHAT MIGHT A PERSON OF RANK ENDURE TO
OVERCOME SOCIETY'S SCORN FOR THE PRIVILEGED?