Richard Wagner: Siegfried

Soloists:

Johnny van Hall, Frieder Aurich, Tomas Möwes

Orchestra, choir:

Staatskapelle Weimar

Conductor:

Carl St. Clair

Director:

Michael Schulz

Richard Wagner's Ring of the Nibelung reflects the composer's own life story as well as the political unrest of his time. As the work progresses, another character emerges as important as the hero Siegfried: the god Wotan, the mouthpiece of Wagner's ideas. "He is exactly like us: he is the sum of today's intellectual consciousness, while Siegfried is what we hope the man of the future will be, but whom we cannot shape, and who must create himself through our destruction!" Our own destruction as the foundation for a happier future? The second “day” – and third part – of Richard Wagner’s “Ring,” a musical saga that took the composer more than a quarter of a century to compose. It follows the rise of the young hero Siegfried, the illegitimate son of twins, whose story was told in Die Walküre. On the one hand, there is learning about life, admiration for nature and emotions; on the other, calculation and greed. This episode shows how Wagner wanted to change society, demonstrating that different kinds of people can exist, that the greedy petty bourgeois world can be replaced by greater humanity and freedom.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)