The home of Richard Wagner in Bayreuth. From a photograph.
]
The immediately subsequent letters are full of his determination soon to
begin work on “Siegfried’s Death”; but when he attempted it, he found
that there was too much explanatory matter, and he decided to embody
that in a prefatory drama to be called “Young Siegfried.” Here again,
however, he found the same difficulty, and on Nov. 20, 1851, he writes
to Liszt that “this ‘Young Siegfried’ also is no more than a fragment.”
He continues thus:—
“Two principal motives of my myth, therefore, remain to be represented,
both of which are hinted at in ‘Young Siegfried,’ the first in the long
narrative of Brünnhilde after her awakening (Act III.), and the second
in the scene between Alberich and the Wanderer in the second act, and
between the Wanderer and Mime in the first. That to this I was led not
only by artistic reflection, but by the splendid and, for the purpose of
representation, extremely rich material of these motives, you will
readily understand when you consider the subject more closely. Think
then of the wondrously fatal love of Siegmund and Sieglinde, of Wotan,
in his deep, mysterious relation to that love, in his dispute with
Fricka, in his terrible self-contention when, for the sake of custom, he
decrees the death of Siegmund; finally of the glorious Valkyrie
Brünnhilde, as, divining the innermost thought of Wotan, she disobeys
the god, and is punished by him; consider this wealth of motive
indicated in the scene between the Wanderer and the Wala, and at greater
length in the above-mentioned tale of Brünnhilde, as the material of a
drama which precedes the two ‘Siegfrieds’; and you will understand that
it was not reflection, but rather enthusiasm, which inspired my latest
plan. That plan extends to three dramas: (1) ‘The Valkyrie’; (2) ‘Young
Siegfried’; (3) ‘Siegfried’s Death.’ In order to give everything
completely, these three dramas must be preceded by a grand introductory
play, ‘The Rape of the Rhinegold.’ The object is the complete
representation of everything in regard to this rape; the origin of the
Nibelung treasure, the possession of that treasure by Wotan, and the
curse of Alberich, which in ‘Young Siegfried’ occur in the form of
narration.”
[Illustration: