Michel Fustier
THE LEGEND OF SIEGFRIED
Siegfried is the Germanic hero that Wagner made the main character of his Ring
Cycle. He took Siegfried's character from the northern legends and in particular
from The Song of the Nibelungen, an epic saga of the Middle Ages. However Wagner,
a revolutionary in politics as well as in art, transformed this saga into a
parable which announced the end of the bourgeois world of the years 1850-1880,
founded on violence and wealth. Written one hundred years before the Nazi regime,
some have considered it as a kind of prophecy of its rise and fall.
CHARACTERS
The King of gods Wotan, the goddess of Wisdom Erda,
the blond hero Siegfried, the Walkyrie Brünehilde,
the blacksmith Mime, the Dragon, the traitor Hagen
-1-
ERDA – I am Erda, the goddess of Wisdom. From the heights of heaven I
look down at men and gods struggling miserably on earth. They both have done
lots of stupid things and committed many awful misdeeds… But suddenly
there appears among them a young hero, free, daring and ignorant of fear. Maybe
it is he who will save the world. His name is Siegfried.
MIME – Ô Siegfried, I am a professional blacksmith and I will advise
you as to the making of your sword. In conformity with your destiny you must
forge it yourself.
SIEGFRIED - Like that? (he forges…) I have done my best!
MIME Excellent, Siegfried. Now fasten the handle and the guard of your sword
and, after sharpening it, you will be able to go and conquer the world.
-2-
ERDA - And Siegfried, having sharpened his sword, set off… Now Wotan,
the God of gods, enters… (he enters) Look at him : he has a patch on his
right eye… The reason is that Wotan, in order to obtain the gift of Knowledge,
has agreed to sacrifice one of his eyes. So Wotan, though one-eyed, understands
everything.
WOTAN - Now that I, King of the gods, have Knowledge, I must also take hold
of Power… Here is the sacred tree which supports the world… I am
going to cut off one of its branches and I'll make a spear out of it. And with
the help of that spear, I'll impose laws on men that they will have to obey.
(he cuts off a branch of the tree and makes his spear)
SIEGFRIED - (enters) Ô God of gods, who allowed you to take possession
of the things of the earth and lay your hands on the sacred tree which supports
the world so as to transform it into an instrument of domination?
WOTAN - I am the master of the world and I have the right to take from Nature
all that is necessary to assert my power. Get out of my way, Siegfried.
SIEGFRIED - I will not allow you to enslave men. You have already used violence
to have your Hall of Walhalla constructed and now you refuse to pay the workers
who toiled for you…
WOTAN – Don't argue. They are my slaves…
SIEGFRIED - It's clear : you confess that you have made men your slaves. I'm
going to destroy you. Take guard!
WOTAN - Aren't you afraid of me: I am King of the gods!
SIEGFRIED - And I am Siegfried who is afraid of nothing (they fight and Siegfried
breaks Wotan's spear). Now depart, Wotan, since your power has just been destroyed.
You are no more than the King of nothing.
WOTAN - I acknowledge my defeat. I will leave and entrust you with the universe…
I wish that you succeed better than I did. (he leaves)
-3-
ERDA – However Wotan was not the only one to oppress men. The exploiter
Alberich made them work to extract gold from the earth in which it was concealed.
He had accumulated great quantities of it. But by dint of carrying heavy bags
of gold in the low corridors of the mines, the workers had become hunchbacked
dwarfs. All these treasures were guarded by a terrible dragon.
SIEGFRIED - Ô dragon, I do not know what fear is. Come out of your cave.
DRAGON - (terrifying voice) Here am I! Impudent young man, earth's treasures
are not destined for you. I am a dragon who blows out death and, believe me,
I'm going to teach you fear.
SIEGFRIED - The treasures of the earth are destined for me and it is not you
who will teach me fear… (he plunges his sword deeply into the breast of
the dragon) What do you say now?
DRAGON - You struck me in the heart and I am dying… But let me take a
look at you: who are you, young man with blue eyes and fair hair, who has not
been afraid of me?
SIEGFRIED - My name is Siegfried. I don't know yet exactly who I am, except
that I am the one who killed the dragon.
DRAGON - Alas, I will not see the end of the story, it's going to continue without
me… (he dies)
ERDA - And Siegfried withdrew his sword from the breast of the dragon and a
flood of blood spurted out which entirely covered Siegfried. And the blood of
the dragon turned Siegfried's skin into a kind of shell which made him invincible.
And Siegfried took possession of Alberich's gold, put it in a safe place and
kept only for himself a golden ring, the ring of the Nibelungen, and an armour
which could make him invisible. Striking his chest, he said:
SIEGFRIED - Now, I am the master of the world.
-4-
ERDA – And Siegfried left brandishing his sword… He marched through
the forest and listened to the song of the birds. Since he had been covered
by the dragon's blood he had become able to understand the song of the birds…
After a few days march he stopped and said:
SIEGFRIED - I have the strength of the sword, I have the power of the gold,
I understand the voices of nature… Still I lack something… I lack
the love of a woman. (leaves)
ERDA - And Siegfried went in search of the love of a woman… However it
happened in this time that the fearsome Walkyrie Brünehilde, the daughter
of Wotan, the God of gods, had an argument with her father whom she had disobeyed.
Here she comes…
BRUNEHILDE - (enters) I am full of rage and fear. I disobeyed my father and
to punish me for my disobedience, the God of gods deprived me of immortality
and condemned me to become a mere woman.;
ERDA - However, as he had an infinite love for her, Wotan allowed her, clothed
in her armour, to go to sleep on earth surrounded by a barrier of flames…
BRUNEHILDE - How unfortunate I am! (she lies down and goes to sleep)
ERDA - …So that only a man afraid of nothing and able to pass through
fire could come to her, wake her up and lay claim to her hand.
SIEGFRIED – (entering) And I am precisely this very man. I know it, I
feel it… And now I am crossing the wall of flames: but I thought I would
find a woman here! Who is the warrior I can see here lying asleep on the ground?
He is clothed with a splendid armour. I want to ascertain the matter and I will
strip him of his armour. (he does it) But it's not a man, it's a woman…
It's the woman I was looking for. Ô woman, wake up! (he kisses her)
BRUNEHILDE - (awakening) Ô mortal man, how handsome you are!
SIEGFRIED - I am Siegfried, for whom you are destined. The fire that surrounded
you now burns in my veins and I love you. Rise and let us go and fulfil together
our mission: love will reign upon earth. (they stand at the rear of the stage,
holding one another by the hand)
-5-
HAGEN – (enters) I am Hagen, the German, who never laughs and opposes
all that is new. Now it's impossible that Siegfried rule the world, since he
pretends to be free and doesn't respect laws. He must die… Anyhow, he
presently happens to be in possession of power, wealth and love: which is forbidden.
It's impossible to enjoy all three together. I'll kill him! ...Siegfried, won't
you go hunting with me?
SIEGFRIED - With pleasure, ô dark Hagen.
HAGEN - I'll take advantage of the hunt to kill him. I know that he is not totally
invincible since a lime tree leaf, stuck on his shoulder, prevented the dragon's
blood from protecting him completely. It is there I will strike him when he
bends down to quench his thirst after the hunt… The hunt has been exhausting,
aren't you thirsty, Siegfried
SIEGFRIED - You are right, I am very thirsty. Thank you, Hagen.
HAGEN - Then bend down and slake you thirst with the water of the fresh brook
which runs at our feet. (Siegfried drinks and Hagen stabs him on the shoulder)
SIEGFRIED - (standing up) Aaah, Hagen, you knew my secret.
HAGEN - Yes, I knew it (Siegfried falls and dies)
BRUNEHILDE - Hagen, you traitor, what have you done?
HAGEN - I have just saved the world from a great calamity, since it can't live
without laws.
BRUNEHILDE - You will be punished for your treason…
ERDA - And Brunehilde had a great bonfire lit on top of which they laid Siegfried's
body. And then she threw herself into the fire. And then the flames reached
the Walhalla, the palace of Wotan and the gods. And the world of gods, built
on wealth and violence, collapsed into the flames. I, Erda, the goddess of Wisdom,
I must confess, I don't know what will happen now. Since, being who I am, I
never interfere with the business of men or gods.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Wagner is one of the great German composers of the nineteenth century. Born
in Leipzig in 1813, he died in Venice in 1883. He was not only a composer, but
also an intellectual and a poet who wrote the text of his operas himself. A
very independent and powerful temperament, he took part in the revolution of
1848 in Germany by the side of the anarchist Bakounine. For that reason he was
exiled and only allowed to come back to Germany fifteen years later. Then came
the episode of the sponsorship of Ludwig II of Bavaria, who supported him financially,
and his move to Bayreuth, where he built a theatre specially adapted to the
performances of his operas.
Wagner was the inventor of a new type of opera whose powerful music adheres
exactly to the text of the libretto and underlines the smallest nuances of it
by attributing to each character a specific musical motif (the famous leitmotiv!).
He took the subject of his operas from German mythology and put its gods, kings,
heroes, monsters on the stage… In *particular he wrote Lohengrin, Tannhäuser,
Tristan and Isolde, Parsifal and, above all, the Ring Cycle…
The Ring Cycle is a series of four operas (The Reingold; the Walkyrie, Siegfried,
The Twilight of the Gods) in which Wagner used German mythology to criticize
the civilized world of his time (1840-1870…). He considered it to be a
world which ignored "love" and was to be condemned because of the
growing wealth and violence of the rich. Although uncertain of his power, Wotan
is the supreme god of that mythical universe, the dwarf Alberich the exploiter;
Brunhild the woman whose love is impossible and Siegfried the luminous figure
of the hero by whom salvation could have come if he had not succumbed to treason…
Many other characters strut about in a complicated intrigue which takes a good
dozen hours to reach completion: that is why, in the above text, we have greatly
simplified matters. The Twilight of the Gods, the last of these operas, describes
the complete failure and the destruction of an order based on violence: the
whole world, earth and sky, men and gods, disappear in a great conflagration.
This Germanic mythology reveals the mentality of an essentially warlike people,
whose warriors are the only persons of importance. When they die in the battle
they are taken care of by female-soldiers, the Walkyries, who lead them to Wotan's
Paradise. In that paradise, which is called Walhalla, they spend their time,
not worshiping their god, but waging war. As they have become immortal, they
cannot be killed any longer and rise again every morning to go on fighting…
So on for ever and ever!
The character of Siegfried as a Germanic hero, can be compared to many other
mythical heroes, saviours of their people and destroyers of evil: Hercules,
Theseus, Indra (India), Gilgamesh (Mesopotamia), Saint George (Christianity).
Like them he fights monsters and tries to free men, but also like them, he is
overcome by the unconscious forces of greed and egotism.
Non commercial use allowed. Reg. SACD - Michel Fustier, 4 Chambfort, 69 100 Villeurbanne, France. Tel: 00 33 (0)4 78 84 25 28.