Short Summary
Siegfried, the son of Siegmund and Sieglinde, grows up in the forest with Mime, the blacksmith.
He has never learned to fear. So he manages to forge the sword Notung and use it to kill the dragon Fafner. He wins the Ring of the Nibelung and is led by the forest bird to Brünnhilde, who has been put to sleep by the god Wotan. Siegfried awakens Brünnhilde and they both fall in love with each other.
Storyline
Siegfried grew up with Mime, the blacksmith, in the forest. When he searches for his parents, Mime tells him about Siegfried's mother, who died giving birth to him, leaving behind only the broken sword Nothung, which his father carried in his last battle.
When Siegfried is once again out and about in the forest, a Wanderer appears, who is recognized as Wotan, and challenges Mime to a wager of knowledge, which he loses. Mime learns from the Wanderer that only someone who does not know fear can reforge the sword Nothung. Mime knows that this person is Siegfried and promises him that he will learn to fear by fighting the dragon Fafner. He secretly hopes that Siegfried will help him obtain the Nibelung ring and the Nibelung hoard guarded by Fafner. Siegfried succeeds in forging the sword Nothung at the first attempt.
The Wanderer, who visits him, announces the arrival of Mime and Siegfried. Alberich's attempt to persuade Fafner to hand over the ring fails. Siegfried kills Fafner after a brief battle. After the dragon's blood has wetted Siegfried's mouth, he understands the language of the birds. A forest bird draws Siegfried's attention to the Ring, the Tarnhelm and the hoard. He kills Mime, who has rushed back to Siegfried's side and is seeking his life, with the sword Nothung and follows the forest bird, who tells him about the sleeping Brünnhilde.
The Wanderer wakes Erda and tells her that he wishes to abdicate in favor of the young Siegfried.
Siegfried rushes over and treats the Wanderer no differently than he did Mime. He smashes the Wanderer's spear, which once broke Siegfried's father Siegmund's sword, and makes his way to the rock. There he finds the sleeping Brünnhilde, whom he awakens.
Both awaken in love for each other.
The production of the Ring tetralogy at the Vienna State Opera is by Sven-Eric Bechtolf, who has created a series of directorial works at the Haus am Ring. Wrapped in a timelessness, he tells the Ring story as a model of the world, whereby the director does not want to set any concrete contemporary political or social interpretations: "If one refrains from beautiful blue-eyedness and refrains from moving smoothly from A to B, the Ring is worldly even without a "message". Despite or through abstraction. Rich in conflict, not stringent. Completely contradictory, but effective. In my eyes, it touches on the big questions and issues of our existence in a richly associative way, without having answered anything or held out the prospect of anything."
"Siegfried: this is also the utopia of the reconciliation of nature and man, this is power and sensuality turned into music, this is an emphatic commitment to that blossoming, redeeming love that Wagner had already found described by Ludwig Feuerbach. However, Wagner, not least under the influence of his reading of Schopenhauer, subjects the bright fairy-tale figure to the inexorable laws of a myth of doom. The work of redemption originally intended for Siegfried must fail; the abolition of man's alienation from nature, also invoked by Karl Marx, is not based on love, but on doom." (Konrad Paul Liessmann)
