Opera Review: The Boy Nobody Wanted

As Siegfried, Stefan Vinke triumphs at the Metropolitan Opera.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Anvil, no chorus: Stefan Vinke makes his debut in Wagner's Siegfried.
Photo by Ken Howard © 2019 The Metropolitan Opera.

For even the most dedicated Wagnerian, Siegfried is a challenge. The third chapter of the Ring is almost never performed as a stand-alone work, but only in the context of the other three operas. It is too often treated as an obligation by both performers and audiences. Siegfried is often the easiest Ring opera to get a ticket for, and is viewed as a long (but necessary) bridge between the glories of Die Walküre and the drama of Götterdämmerung. However, Saturday's season premiere of the opera at the Metropolitan Opera showed what a great and underrated opera this is.

Metropolitan Opera Preview: Siegfried

The third and least-loved part of the Ring has some of its most sublime music.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Badger, badger, badger, badger....the dragon Fafner emerges in Act II of Siegfried.
Photo by Ken Howard © 2011 The Metropolitan Opera.

What's more than five hours long and has very few women in it? The answer for opera lovers is Siegfried, the third segment of Wagner's massive tetralogy The Ring of the Nibelung. The Met offers three performances this spring.

The Chords That Bind

Superconductor explores a connection between Tristan und Isolde and Siegfried. 
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Left: Ludwig and Maria Schnorr von Carolsfeld as Tristan and Isolde.
Interrupting them: Jean de Rezke as Siegfried. Most rude of him. Equally rude photoshop by the author.

In the operas of Richard Wagner, there is a sort of musical interconnectivity that exists: not just between the leitmotifs of the four operas of Der Ring des Nibelungen but between the other operas too. Certain themes recur in operas with similar ideas. (A famous example is the "Dresden Amen") which appears in both Tannhäuser and Parsifal.) This morning, while having a listen to the 2012 Decca remaster of the Georg Solti/Vienna recording of the Ring, I discovered another such musical connection. In the first act of Siegfried I found the Tristan chord.

The Wagner Project: Siegfried

A boy's own adventure tale...interrupted.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Stefan Vinke as Siegfried in Act II of the opera that bears his name.
Photo by Elise Bakketun © 2015 Seattle Opera 

Like its title character, the opera Siegfried is quite literally the problem child of the Ring. The story of the early adventures of Wagner's mythic Nietszchean superhero was meant to be a light work, an optimistic opera that would help draw listeners to the Ring as a whole. And yet, it remains the least heard and least popular chapter of the enormous operatic cycle.

Recording Recommendation: The Shoe-String Ring

Valhalla on just $1.50 a day.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The original cover of Die Walküre. Clearly not marketing the music.
All Photos by Christopher Whorf © 1968, the artist.

Hans Swarowsky's recording of the complete Ring Cycle was made in 1968 in Nuremberg. The sessions were a by-product of the Soviet invasion of Prague, which forced most of the Czech Philharmonic to flee to southern Germany. Under Mr. Swarowsky, the so-called "South German Philharmonic" dashed off these recordings quickly, releasing the entire cycle on the budget Westminster Gold label as a bargain-basement alternative to the Decca Ring with Georg Solti and the Vienna Philharmonic.

DVD Review: The Wild One

The Guy Cassiers production of Siegfried storms La Scala.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

"D'you want to know how I got these scars?" Peter Bronder's Mime (right) prepares to tell
Lance Ryan's Siegfried (left) in Act I of Siegfried.> Photo © 2013 Brescia/Amisano/Teatro alla Scala.

Siegfried is the third and most problematic opera in Wagner's epic Ring Cycle. It's a three-act fairy tale about a lunk-headed hero who slays the monster, gets the treasure and (fumblingly) wins his woman over a five-hour stretch. But in the hands of conductor Daniel Barenboim in this 2014 Blu-Ray from La Scala (filmed in 2012 and released last year on the ArtHaus Musik label) , the languors of this opera seem to just fly by. It's not that Mr. Barenboim is fast, it's that he keeps the action moving forward producing the most exciting Siegfried on DVD since the one he made at Bayreuth in the 1990s.

Opera Review: We Don't Need Another Hero

Siegfried at the Metropolitan Opera.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Stick them with the pointy end: Jay Hunter Morris stars in Siegfried.
Photo by Corey Weaver © 2013 The Metropolitan Opera.

Richard Wagner's Siegfried is the least popular chapter in the Ring cycle. Wagner thought audiences would eat up this fairy-tale story of a blond muscleman who grows up in the forest and embarks on a career as a dragon-slayer before wooing the Valkyrie maiden Brunnhilde. But he didn't put any women in the first three hours of the opera. The 11am start time at the Metropolitan Opera House might also account for the number of empty red velvet seats at Saturday's matinee performance, the first of three this season.

Metropolitan Opera Preview: Siegfried

The third part of Wagner's Ring presents the greatest challenge for the tenor voice.

by Paul J. Pelkonen

Deborah Voigt wakes up on the Machine in Act III of Siegfried.
Photo by Ken Howard © 2011 The Metropolitan Opera.

Although it's part of the Met's much-hyped Robert Lepage production of the Ring Cycle, Wagner's Siegfried might have the worst reputation among the ten operas that are considered to be the German composer's main body of work. Wagner conceived the opera as the "light-hearted" section of the Ring. (In all fairness, it does have a happy ending!)

Concert Review: The Holy Egoism of Genius

Yannick Nézet-Séguin brings Bruckner back to Broad Street.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Yannick Nézet-Séguin in action. Photo by Marco Borggreve.

On Friday afternoon,  Philadelphia Orchestra music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin re-introduced a rapt Verizon Hall audience to the music of Austrian composer Anton Bruckner. Happily, the quality of Mr. Nézet-Séguin's performance indicated that Philadelphia listeners may have ten more Bruckner symphonies (including the "0" and "00") to enjoy in what will hopefully be a long and fruitful exploration.

Mr. Nézet-Séguin chose the Symphony No. 7 for this program, pairing it with the Siegfried Idyll. This gorgeous tone-painting by Richard Wagner is not an excerpt from the Ring. Rather it was intended as chamber music, and premiered as a private birthday present for Cosima, the composer's second wife. (The work does contains a number of key themes that were later incorporated into the final scene of Siegfried.)

Here, the Idyll was presented with a full symphony orchestra, adding weight to each leitmotiv. Mr. Nézet-Séguin took a slow tempo, allowing the music to breathe and painting tone-colors with a fine brush. With the expanded string section, previously buried themes from the Ring coalesced in the lower instruments. Woodwinds and horns produced a sound quality of dappled light. Bird-songs danced playfully around a  young hero's horn call. In the coda, a three-note figure appeared, hinting at the first bars of Parsifal.

2011-2012 at the Met: The Year of the Snake

Wrapping up the Met Season

by Paul Pelkonen

Our hero (Jay Hunter Morris) battles Fafner (right) in Act II of Siegfried.
Photo by Ken Howard © 2011 The Metropolitan Opera.

I wrote a lot of stuff this year about the 2011-2012 Metropolitan Opera season. From previews of every production to reviews of almost every show, the big house on W. 64th St. gets a lot of coverage on this blog.

The good news: this year had some exceptional revivals, including Satyagraha, The Makropulos Case and L'Elisir d'Amore.

The bad news: some new productions that ranged from decent (Anna Bolena) to disastrous. (For more on that, keep reading.)

The season's over and it's time to highlight the good and the bad of this season which saw the completion of the Robert Lepage Ring, the launch of several exciting new productions, and two, (count 'em, two!) premieres starring Anna Netrebko. All links will lead to Superconductor reviews of the operas in question.

Opera Review: The Machine of the Nibelungs

We break down (poor choice of words) the Lepage Ring.
by Paul Pelkonen

The new Ring cost millions. Hope rich Uncle Pennybags™ likes opera.
Card from Monopoly™ © 1936 Parker Brothers Games.

So now that Götterdämmerung has been broadcast in the movie theaters, it's time to take a look at all four parts of the Metropolitan Opera's multimillion dollar production of Wagner's Ring.

Canadian director Robert Lepage came to Wagner's operas with what seemed to be a deliberately naïve view: to use high technology and digital projections to recreate a fairly literal version of the Germanic myths that inspired the composer. The costumes were directly drawn from old productions of the Ring, right down to the little metal helmets worn by the Valkyries and Wotan's undersized partisan-shaped spear.

To be sure, this cycle developed over the year and a half it took to premiere, with Siegfried and Götterdämmerung showing advances in technology that solved some of the serious problems existent in the earlier opera. But the biggest problem with this cycle is Mr. Lepage's decision to minimize the acting surface of the Met stage, giving his singers almost nowhere to go except the narrow grey board-walk of planks that stood on the lip of the stage underneath the Machine, or a trench underneath that hid the singers' legs from the view of the audience and made it harder for them to sing.

DVD Review: We Ain't in Valhalla No More

The Copenhagen Ring concludes. 
by Paul J. Pelkonen
(This is the fourth and final installment in our ongoing review of the Copenhagen Ring Cycle, directed by Kaspar Bech Holten. Featuring the Royal Danish Opera conducted by Michael Schønwandt. Read the reviews of Das Rheingold, Die Walküre and Siegfried, also on Superconductor.)

Peter Klaveness, (Hagen) Guido Paevetalu (Gunther) and Stig Andersen (Siegfried)  in Act III of Götterdämmerung.
Photo by Martin Renne © 2006 Royal Danish Opera/Universal Classics.

In the final chapter of the Ring, director Kaspar Bech Holten updates this story of marriage, betrayal and murder on the banks of the Rhine to the 1990s. Mr. Holten poses modern problems for these heroes of German myth. Sometimes, he ignores the finer points of the libretto, but the result is worth seeing, a powerful operatic experience and an interesting spin on the whole saga. 

DVD Review: Bringing Up Knucklehead

The Copenhagen Ring continues with Siegfried.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

(This is the third installment in our ongoing review of the Copenhagen Ring Cycle, directed by Kaspar Bech Holten, performed by the Royal Danish Opera conducted by Michael Schønwandt. Read the reviews of Das Rheingold and Die Walküre, also on Superconductor.)

Chalk talk: Siegfried (Stig Andersen, right) explains genetics to Mime (Bengt-Ola Morgny.)
Photo by Martin Renne © 2006 Royal Danish Opera/Universal Classics.

This third opera is the "light" chapter in Wagner's mythological drama. But Siegfried presents the director with a mighty set of challenges. It is to Mr. Holten's credit that he ignores them, re-imagining the opera as a situation comedy. This approach is clear from the set designs for Mime's cave: a low-rent townhouse complete with an attic bedroom for the restless young hero, with comic books, posters, and a guitar on the wall.

Siegfried: How It's Done

Or, Remembrance of Rings Past.

Act II of the new Siegfried with Jay Hunter Morris as the hero taking on a Macy's™ balloon.

For those of you on your way to today's 12pm performance of Siegfried (or to the Met Live in HD broadcast) I thought I'd offer up these YouTube nuggets from other productions of the opera.

It's Wagner, the vay it oughta be.

(Oh great. When they scrap the Machine and bring this production back, that'll probably be the slogan. I'll get royalties, which I'll go sleep on in a cave.)

Act I: Part II of the Forging Song. Siegfried Jerusalem in the title role. Heinz Zednik as Mime.

Footage from the telecast directed by Brian Large.

 © 1989 Deutsche Grammophon/The Metropolitan Opera.

Act II: Siegfried's horn-call and the fight with Fafner. (Matti Salminen)

Unlike the new staging, nobody in the audience laughs at the dragon.

Footage from the telecast directed by Brian Large.
 © 1989 Deutsche Grammophon/The Metropolitan Opera.


And finally, 'cos I couldn't find any footage from Act III at the Met, here's a rehearsal of Hildegard Behrens singing Brunnhilde's Awakening, opposite the medium-quality Siegfried of German tenor Reiner Goldberg. He never sang the role in front of an audience, and was replaced for the premiere by veteran tenor Manfred Jung.

This is rehearsal footage from Bayreuth, 1983, with Sir Georg Solti conducting. Enjoy.

"Heil dir, Sonne! Heil dir, Licht! Heil dir Leuchtende Tag!"

Kerplunk!

Machine malfunction mars Met Siegfried.

Grounded: Deborah Voigt (left) and Jay Hunter Morris in the final scene of Siegfried.
Photo by Ken Howard © 2011 The Metropolitan Opera.

Siegfried didn't get up the mountain on Tuesday night.

According to a report on parterre box, the Metropolitan Opera's multi-million dollar "Machine" Set, the centerpiece of the company's new Robert Lepage production of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen malfunctioned in the third act of Siegfried. Singers Deborah Voigt (Brunnhilde) and Jay Hunter Morris (Siegfried) performed the finale from the lip of the stage. No one was injured. 

The malfunction occurred in the third and final act of the five-and-a-half hour opera. The Machine was executing a complicated series of gyrations, transforming itself into the Valkyrie Rock, the fiery sleeping-berth of the heroine Brunnhilde. Siegfried was supposed to climb across the top of the set and wake the Valkyrie Brunnhilde. But it didn't work that way. 

According to the parterre report, the set stopped moving, most likely due to a triggered safety interlock. Ms. Voigt entered from the wings and lay down on the acting surface below the Machine. The two singers sang their 37-minute duet downstage as the empty, stalled Machine loomed above them. As they sang, the "magic fire" effect (computer-generated flames) remained, projected onto the stalled set.

Designed by longtime  Lepage collaborator Carl Fillion, the Machine consists of twenty-four matching metal planks mounted on a horizontal axis between two large towers. A high-tech computer-controlled system allows the planks to be spun, moved and reconfigured to meet the complicated scenic needs of Wagner's myth-based dramas.  In the course of the Ring, this unit set forms everything from the bed of the Rhine River to high mountain peaks, forests, and even a great hall in the last opera Götterdämmerung.

A similar problem happened at last Thursday's prima of Siegfried. In the middle of the same Act III contortion, the Machine paused in mid-movement, jamming visibly and emitting an ugly, audible "thunk." It was later reported (by Daniel J. Wakin in the New York Times) that first malfunction happened when one of the planks hit a not-fully-retracted stage-lift.  Conductor Fabio Luisi slowed the orchestra to a crawl, and the device righted itself. But no such relief came tonight.

This is the latest in a series of technical malfunctions that have plagued this new production of the Ring, a premium event in the Met's calendar that carries a whopping $45 million price tag. The first took place at the Sept. 26, 2010 premiere of Das Rheingold. With just minutes to go in the opera, the multi-ton set stopped dead when a safety interlock was accidentally triggered. The contraption would not configure itself into the castle of Valhalla, which Wagner's Germanic gods move into at the end of that opera.

At the April 22 opening night of Die Walküre, Ms. Voigt slipped while climbing one of the planks at her Act II entrance. The diva slid a few feet and landed on the narrow acting surface, singing her "Hojotohos" from downstage. A more serious problem happened six nights later. On April 28, soprano Eve Gigliotti was playing one of Brunnhilde's fellow Valkyries, who ride the Machine planks like hobby-horses in the famous "Ride of the Valkyries." Ms. Gigliotti fell and hit her head while sliding off her plank and down to the stage. She returned to the stage and finished her performance. 

Siegfried is the third installment in the Ring and one of the most challenging operas in the repertory to stage and sing. The production will be seen in a live Met in HD broadcast on Saturday, Nov. 5. Later this season, the Lepage Ring will conclude with Götterdämmerung, which premieres on Jan. 27, 2012.

Only the Hunter...Survives

Jay Hunter Morris as Siegfried.
He will sing Götterdämmerung in 2012.
Photo by Ken Howard © 2011 The Metropolitan Opera.

Substitute tenor to take leading role in Götterdämmerung.

Jay Hunter Morris, the Texan heldentenor whose debut in the title role of Siegfried is one of the more successful elements of the Met's new Ring Cycle, has been inked to reprise the role in the Jan. 27 premiere of Götterdämmerung. 

Götterdämmerung is the final chapter of the Ring, and the most technically challenging to bring off onstage. Although the vocal demands of the tenor part are not as demanding as in Siegfried, there are some treacherous passages that are the terror of any would-be heldentenor. The Jan. 27 premiere will be Mr. Morris' debut in this opera.

The first of these comes at the end of Act I, after our hero has dominated the action of the opera for about 90 minutes. In the last scene of the act, a drugged, amnesiac Siegfried uses the Tarnhelm (a magic helmet, acquired in the previous opera) to disguise himself as Gunther, the king of the Gibichungs in order to abduct Brünnhilde.

The problem is, that the singer has to then take the helmet off and sing in his natural register, revealing his identity as Siegfried. In other words, Wagner requires his tenor to turn himself into a baritone for  singing in a dark, hollow register that sounds vaguely Gunther-like.

The second pitfall comes in Act II, when Siegfried's drug-induced treachery is revealed. After singing the arduous oath on Hagen's spear (which is then matched by the soprano in a higher register) Siegfried addresses the stunned assembly of wedding guests, inviting them into the hall. In a cruelly written phrase, he must navigate a full octave drop, over a 16th-note. The effect makes most singers' voices crack, although a smart conductor will slow the orchestra at this point and allow the tenor to safely navigate this tricky passage.

According to a New York Times report by Daniel J. Wakin, Mr. Morris will replace Gary Lehman. Mr. Lehman is still suffering from the effects of a virus, contracted one year ago after consuming shellfish. Mr. Morris will platoon the role with tenor Stephen Gould, and will be featured in the Metropolitan Opera Live in HD broadcast, to be shown in movie theaters on Feb. 11. The two singers will act as each other's covers for the winter performances of Götterdämmerung.

The change in cast has caused a shake-up at the San Diego Opera, where Mr. Morris was slotted to sing the demanding role of Captain Ahab in Jake Heggie's opera Moby-Dick. His replacement will be tenor Ben Heppner, who created the role of Ahab in the opera's 2010 premiere. Ironically, Mr. Heppner was the first singer under contract at the Met to sing Siegfried this season, but cancelled in February of 2011.

Opera Review: A Man, a Machine, and a Big Snake

The Met unveils its new Siegfried.

Snake-handler: Tenor Jay Hunter Morris confronts the serpentine Fafner in Act II of Siegfried.
Photo from the dress rehearsal, by Ken Howard © 2011 The Metropolitan Opera.

Even the most ardent Wagner addict finds Siegfried a tough pill to swallow. The necessary "middle chapter" of the Ring has a male-dominated cast, and its story of a genetically perfect super-man killing off dwarves and dragons presents problems for both the singers and the director.

Descent Into Nibelheim

An examination of intervals in the score of The Ring.

Page from the score of Götterdämmerung belonging to a sound effects engineer.
From Bamboquiri's Flickr.com page, © the photographer.

The other night, I was listening to the 1967 recording of Das Rheingold, specifically to the opening scene, when I heard something new in the score. This recording, made at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus and conducted by Karl Böhm is an old friend--I've owned one copy of it or another for the last 15 years. 

The Prelude to Rheingold is a single E♭ Major chord, played by a pedal contrabass tuba and eight horns. The horns play the chord in an ascending eight-part canon for the first 90 seconds of the opera, breaking the chord into three notes: E♭, G, and B♭. This pattern repeats and overlaps as the horn calls sound together. 

Then Wagner pulls the most extraordinary sonic trick. As each horn climbs the ladder of the chord, you hear an artificial interval created: descending from B♭ back down to E♭. This new interval foreshadows all the descending figures that will appear in the score of the Ring, from the atonal interval that indicates the enslavement of the Nibelungs by Alberich, to the minor-key drop intervals that characterize Mime (a third) and Hagen (a fourth) in the later operas.

It's no coincidence that the "rising" figures indicate Wagner's heroic characters. The Walsung motif ends on a higher note than its start, and the Sword theme (heard in the first act of Die Walküre) rises up a steep three-note climb. Siegfried's horn-call is another rising figure, as is the brash "heroism" theme that appears when he is first mentioned in Die Walküre. It only acquires any sort of descent when it it heard in Götterdämmerung, having been influenced by Brunnhilde's basket of motives and indicating the mature hero ready to do battle.

Those descending themes come back in force in the score of Götterdämmerung, chiefly surrounding the evil machinations of Hagen--Alberich's son. This grim figure's music dominates the latter half of the first act and all of the second, from the swirling "Hagen chords" that dominate the begining of that act to the great battle cry of "Hoi-ho!" Even Siegfried, confronted by the plot against him, has to pull off an octave-drop in this scene (kind of the sword theme in reverse) to try to get out of the trap he has fallen into. It doesn't work.

With all of these ups and downs (and yes, I'm aware that the 12-note scale indicating Wotan's spear is a descending figure) what of items like the Ring, Valhalla, and the Tarnhelm? These are all represented by figures that undulate up and down, indicating their neutral status in the battle of good vs. evil. It's also interesting that the "Redemption of Brunnhilde" theme heard at the very end of the cycle ascends and descends before landing on the D♭ Major chord that brings the Ring Cycle to an end.

UPDATED: Lehman Bailout Rattles Met's Siegfried

Heldentenor cancels due to illness, replacement announced.

Enter the Dragon: Jay Hunter Morris as Siegfried at the San Francisco Opera.
Photo by Cory Weaver © 2011 San Francisco Opera.

New York, meet Jay Hunter Morris. 

The Metropolitan Opera announced on Wednesday night that Mr. Morris, an up-and-coming heldentenor, will be singing the title role in the Oct. 27th premiere of the company's new production of Siegfried. In an update, Mr. Morris will also sing the remainder of the fall performances, including the Nov. 5 Met Live in HD telecast.

Mr. Morris replaces Gary Lehman, who cancelled all his fall performances of the role. Mr. Lehman's manager, Brian Jauhiainen, told Daniel J. Wakin in the New York Times that the culprit was a year-long virus contracted from eating shellfish in Oct. 2010. Mr. Jauhiainen said that the tenor was prepared to sing the role but was "physically exhausted." However, he is expected to sing in the Jan. 27 premiere of Götterdämmerung. Next spring, Mr. Lehman will platoon the role in both operas with Stephen Gould.

The late change poses problems with marketing Siegfried, a tough sell even to the most hardened Wagnerian. Mr. Lehman's blonde-wigged profile has dominated much of the company's promotional material for the production. As of this writing, the tenor is expected to sing the part in three spring performances, as part of the complete Ring. Those shows are being sold on a subscription-only basis.

Mr. Lehman was originally added to the Ring cast last year as a replacement for Ben Heppner. Mr. Heppner, who had sung every major Wagner role except Siegfried, was originally under contract to sing in this new production. In February of this year, the Canadian tenor announced that he had cancelled his plans to appear, and withdrawn the role from his repertory.

What's interesting about this cancellation and casting change is that Jonas Kaufmann is in town for a recital at the Met on Oct. 30. Mr. Kaufmann made a stir as Siegmund, the hero of Die Walküre, the previous opera in the Ring. The tenor has sung other Wagner roles such as Lohengrin, but has yet to tackle Siegfried. Then again, it might be weird for Siegmund to play his own son.

The title role in this opera is the summit of the German tenor repertory. The character wrestles a bear, beats up a dwarf, forges a sword, kills a dragon, kills the dwarf, beats up Wotan and then sings a 37-minute long duet with the soprano after having been onstage for about four hours. The role is so demanding that on occasion, each of the three acts have been taken by a different heldentenor.

Mr. Morris, whose other Wagner roles include Erik in Der fliegende Holländer,  sang the role in this year's San Francisco Opera production of the Ring. However, he only played the character in Siegfried. Another tenor, Ian Storey, sang the role in Götterdämmerung. 

This is the second Met production this month to lose its leading man in the week before the premiere. Earlier this month, Peter Mattei replaced Mariusz Kwiecien in Don Giovanni after the Polish baritone suffered a back injury in rehearsal. Mr. Kwiecien is due to return Oct. 25. Both productions are conducted by new Met principal conductor Fabio Luisi, himself a replacement for injured music director James Levine.

Watch for the Superconductor review of the Oct 27 performance of Siegfried.

Blues for a Monster

(or, when Wagner meets Star Trek.)
by Paul J. Pelkonen

A view of the space entity "V'Ger" from Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
Image © 1978 Paramount Pictures.

The second act of Wagner's Siegfried, (the third opera of the Ring Cycle, opening at the Met on Oct. 27) starts with a long, dark prelude, depicting the dark forest cave ("Neidhole") that is the resting place of the dragon Fafner. The prelude was dubbed  "Fafner's Repose" by musicologist Ernest Newman in his invaluable book The Wagner Operas.

A slow tremolo in the 'cellos and basses, and the timpani player taps out a dark, five-note theme representing the dragon. This is followed by a taxing contrabass tuba solo that pushes player and instrument to the utmost. This solo takes tremendous skill and breath control.

The curse theme (first heard in Das Rheingold) rings out in the bass trumpet and then gets a thorough working-out in the bass trombones. The timpani rhythm returns, setting the stage for the coming battle between the Wurm and the title character.

Here's what's going on in the scene: Fafner possesses the Ring of the Nibelung, and has done so for at least 40 years (counting from the birth of Siegmund and Sieglinde before the last opera Die Walküre.) Transformed by the Tarnhelm into a fearsome dragon, the ex-giant spends most of his time sleeping in a cave, contemplating the fact that he achieved ownership of the Ring, Tarnhelm, and Nibelung hoard by killing his brother.

Here's the music:

This  prelude was echoed, 100 years later, by Hollywood composer Jerry Goldsmith in his score for Star Trek: The Motion Picture. In the scene (depicted below) the Enterprise has its first close encounter with V'Ger, the 59-mile-long alien spacecraft that is threatening Earth.

Watch the scene below:

The Trek score makes use of similar orchestration, dark, growling strings and a lung-busting tuba solo that lets the viewer know what a majestic and totally badass Alien Entity this is. It also makes use of the Blaster Beam, a 20-foot long electric instrument (like a giant pedal steel guitar) that is either struck or played using an artillery shell as a slide.

Like the Wagner score, Jerry Goldsmith's music for V'Ger has a quality of dark loneliness brought on by absolute power. There is a grim, uncertain yearning in this music that makes it among the younger composer's best work.

V'Ger has travelled across the galaxy in search of its "creator." The giant craft, which obliterates everything it encounters (digitizing ships, space stations and whole planets as "data storage") lives in a giant "power cloud" twice the size of the distance from Earth to the Sun. 

Yet for all its impressiveness, V'Ger proves to be cold and empty inside. Both pieces, with their majestic but mournful tuba solos, do not inspire dread but a very human pity for the creature, hiding in the dark.