5 - Hunding's Horns, Wotan's Storms, Sieglinde's Nightmare
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 November 2014
Summary
Brünnhilde, Erda, and Fafner sleep for years in Wagner's tetralogy—transforming, divining wisdom, or being lazy, quietly and mostly out of sight. Sieglinde's sleep in Die Walküre is brief by comparison, and we see her while she slumbers. Her sleep is also markedly dramatic, disturbed as it is by the refreshed memory of a traumatic event that she describes aloud just before waking (act 2, scene 5). Even before that we glimpse her potential to experience a place and time other than the dramatic present. When she envisions Siegmund being ravaged to death by Hunding's dogs, in the middle of the second act, she is exhausted or consumed by the experience. Siegmund catches her in his arms as she collapses and then gently lowers her to the ground, where she remains motionless throughout the “Todesverkündigung” or “Annunciation of Death” scene. Siegmund cautions Brünnhilde not to wake her, in an effort to shield Sieglinde from the news that he is marked for death. When he fully grasps that his sword will fail him in battle, however, he threatens to kill the vulnerable creature at his side. Surely it would be better for her to die by his own hand than fall victim once more to Hunding and the Neiding clan. Brünnhilde's subsequent offer to protect Siegmund and his sister radically changes his outlook. As the Valkyrie heads off to the battleground, Siegmund lingers for a few moments.
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- Wagner's VisionsPoetry, Politics, and the Psyche in the Operas through 'Die Walküre', pp. 156 - 214Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2014