Siegfried
![]() | Georg Solti | |||||
Orchester der Bayreuther Festspiele | ||||||
Date/Location
Recording Type
|
Siegfried | Manfred Jung |
Mime | Peter Haage |
Wotan | Bent Norup |
Alberich | Hermann Becht | Fafner | Dieter Schweikart |
Erda | Anne Gjevang |
Brünnhilde | Hildegard Behrens |
Waldvogel | Sylvia Greenberg |
It is getting late in the game here and Sir Peter Hall still has not dropped a hint as to what his new production of Wagner’s ”Ring” is all about. The suspicion grows that it may be about nothing at all. Thursday evening’s premiere of ”Siegfried,” the third installment in the four-work cycle, came and went without the appearance of any vital connective thread. It is as if the British director, having decided against imitating all recent interpretations of the ”Ring,” found himself with an empty bucket.
There is no work in the opera repertory that cries out more loudly for a definite point of view, whether Marxist-Socialist, Naziracist, Freudian-Jungian, or simply the voice-versus-orchestra struggle so dear to Metropolitan Opera audiences down through the years. But, though this ”Ring” had its occasional high and frequent low points so far, no discernible philosophical motive or consistency of theatrical style has yet emerged. It is neither simple and childlike in a legendary style nor complex enough to be interesting on any other intellectual level.
In fact, another Sir Peter Hall disaster seems to be building up here. This is the same director, you may recall, who produced last season’s misbegotten ”Macbeth” at the Metropolitan.
For two acts, ”Siegfried” goes along amiably on a traditional 19th-century path, with representational settings. A tree is unequivocably a tree, a man dressed as a bear almost looks and acts like a bear, the wading pool in front of Fafner’s cave contains real water, and so on. The dragon, which resembles an overgrown mutant grasshopper, bellows convincingly and is clearly a dragon. For two acts, then, we are in what used to be considered standard Wagner opera land.
In the last act, however, the production inexplicably leaps to the bare-stage austerity and symbolism that Wieland Wagner knew how to exploit so well and with which he revolutionized opera productions 30 years ago. Sir Peter, in this 1983 ”Ring,” seems to have no more interesting idea than to throw together in jarring juxtaposition styles drawn from a century of Wagnerian history. A scene works here and there, but the unifying concept, if any, never does appear.
”Siegfried” did arrest the eye more consistently than this week’s two earlier productions. The forging scene was remarkable for its detailed exposition of foundry technique – if you think you might ever need to know how to forge a sword, don’t miss Act I. But Manfred Jung, who obligingly stepped in as Siegfried when Reiner Goldberg left the production after the dress rehearsal, was never more than a serviceable substitute.
Of course, if your idea of Siegfried is a feisty little fellow with a light comic touch and a voice to match, Mr. Jung may be your man. Unfortunately, his tone is now so strangulated that he had to bark his music most of the night. Another last-minute substitute, Bent Norup, filled in for Siegmund Nimsgern, who was ill, and, after a weak and muffled beginning, warmed to his work and let out his rather rough and tremulous voice to better effect.
Still, it was once again chiefly the presence of Hildegard Behrens as Brunnhilde and Sir Georg Solti as the conductor that gave this performance its flashes of quality. Miss Behrens not only sang and acted with endearing conviction and a lieder singer’s expressiveness. She also earned this season’s Bayreuth medal for bravery by surviving one of the most extraordinary trials that an opera director has ever visited on a soprano. While the end of this third act’s first scene was being played out by the Wanderer and Siegfried on a flat slab of simulated rock, Miss Behrens hung out of view, shackled and strapped to the underside of the same set. The slab then flipped like a pancake in slow motion, revealing Miss Behrens beneath the shield where Brunnhilde had been left by her father, Wotan, at the conclusion of ”Die Walkure.”
It is hard to imagine Kirsten Flagstad or Birgit Nilsson submitting to this sort of Houdini stunt, but Miss Behrens is obviously a real trouper. As clearly as any moment this week, that directorial stage trick pointed up the deep confusion of this ”Ring.” As a Brechtian device for destroying stage illusion, it might have worked, but it served no real purpose in this performance but to keep the audience wondering throughout the opera’s final scene about how Miss Behrens felt during her Ferris wheel trip.
Other than Miss Behrens, the cast was adequate at best. Hermann Becht raged in his familiar way as Alberich, Peter Haage was a suitably insidious Mime, Anne Gjevang made something but not enough of Erda’s dire words and Sylvia Greenberg sang the Waldvogel’s warbling accurately but harshly.
Donal Henahan | July 31, 1983


![]() | CA, Fiori, PO |
A production by Peter Hall (premiere)
Manfred Jung replaces Reiner Goldberg as Siegfried and Bent Norup replaces Siegmund Nimsgern as Wotan/Wanderer.
This recording is part of a complete Ring cycle.