Siegfried – the third part of The Ring – is the most simple yet also the most complex of Wagner’s opera cycle. It is simple to work with since it is so stringently classical in its structure with each of the three acts featuring as a dialogue, as an encounter between two people (with the second act as the more lively of them with no less than five encounters in addition to a couple of major solo appearances). There is an almost consecutive timeline, and despite changing localities the setup seems manageable and easy to grasp.

This simple stringency is also reflected in Siegfried’s world; it is easily comprehended. Mime has only permitted him to learn the very basics and there is always a hidden agenda, which is why Siegfried stands little chance of gaining insight into his true condition. Throughout the opera Siegfried encounters people who either seek to exploit him or are busy telling him things about his past and heritage that he finds quite unfathomable.

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Indeed, this abused and manipulated young man is quite socially inadequate. At the beginning of the opera he only knows one person – Mime – who he detests. He has no idea what kind of beings women are and by the middle of the third act he has only met three people, of which he has killed two and has fought with the third. What kind of hero is this Siegfried? This is precisely the question that makes the opera so complex. We are compelled to form an opinion about this strange and fascinating person.

It’s impossible not to feel sympathy towards Siegfried. His lyrical nature yearns for the truth about himself. He thirsts for love and understanding and longs for a soul mate with whom he can share his life. But finding such a special person evades him. Equally, it is impossible not to find Siegfried somewhat callous. As a warrior, he is trained to kill and is surrounded by all kinds of people who hold stakes in his life. He is thus a tool in the hands of others and from his very birth Siegfried has been predestined to be the man who kills Fafner.

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Siegfried’s problem is that he is never on a level playing field with any of the people he encounters. Mime knows everything about his past but will only share with Siegfried what little knowledge is absolutely necessary or else Siegfried will be of little use. Wotan is also painfully aware of everything concerning his grandson Siegfried’s purpose in life yet he is barred from intervening and when he finally does his intervention proves to be a disaster. Even the dragon, which Siegfried kills, turns out to know far more about him than he does himself.

When Siegfried finally meets Brünnhilde he is obviously lovestruck. He has never seen a woman before and thus the intrepid hero finally falls victim to fear for the very first time. There is, nonetheless, a grave disparity in their relationship from the very outset. Brünnhilde chooses Siegfried as her husband without knowing him, in fact before he was even born, and she is fully aware of why he was predestined to become the man he is. However, she is still young in appearance – after having been frozen for twenty years – and is just as inexperienced as Siegfried in matters of life and sexuality. But under the surface she is much older and has experienced and learnt far more than Siegfried.

Siegfried has, in reality, never been given the chance to choose Brünnhilde. Their match had been decided on long before he knew of her existence. Talk of arranged marriages! With his own aunt! The outcome of it all we learn in Gotterdammerung, which is the last opera of The Ring. Have a guess at whether the ending is a happy one!

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Our sympathy must, therefore, lie with Siegfried, even when he, encouraged by others, callously bulldozes the landscape. This is why Siegfried can easily be seen as both hero and victim wrapped into one.

With Siegfried we have reached 1968 in our portrait of the 20th century, represented by the four operas of The Ring. 1968 was the Year of Love when a young generation sought to free itself from the constraints of their parents and find their own way through the quagmire and chaos of the modern world. They looked ahead to a new and wondrous age where youthful and beautiful dreams would finally erupt and seize power, a time when love would flourish yet again.

Likewise, Siegfried fearlessly faces the monsters of the past and insists on his own outlook on life. We feel with Siegfried and we share his hopes because we sense the beauty of his soul and we recognise how wonderful the vision of a better world was back in the 60s. But we also realise that these lyrical dreams are haunted by an obscure vision of perverted brutality. The dreams Siegfried represents are just as terribly naïve and unfounded and, despite their beauty, quite powerless when confronted by sinister forces.

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Indeed, Siegfried was fostered within the framework of the old system of power. Siegfried is Wotan’s grandchild and he is a product of Wotan and Mime’s interests. He is inhibited from fully developing his character and soul; he is manipulated into a system where his only option is to honour the demands made on him without comprehending his purpose – precisely what the dying Fafner warned him of.

Siegfried is a product of the same paternalistic powers from which he seeks to free himself. He is, in fact, no independent hero but a concoction of old-world interests. His actions are guided by the masculine, ideological logics instilled in him, which he fails to reflect on.

This is why Siegfried offers no solution to the woes of Wotan and the world, and this is why his wonderful dream of free love, accompanied by sweeping music in C major towards the end of the opera, is far from the end of the story. There is much suffering to be endured before we finally reach a conclusion at the end of The Ring where the principles of paternalism are ultimately shipwrecked.

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